Anti-Mage

Anton took stock of his situation. The she-bitch was dead, he was fully healed, and Specter was active again. The explosion he’d caused with Spectral Reach had knocked him unconscious, even though it hadn’t killed him and Specter had remained active until it ran out. He’d had just under 240 points of Psychic Energy left after the attack. He’d lost track, which meant that he’d been unconscious for almost 4 hours when Specter had failed. He’d rematerialized and been ejected into this void. He’d suffocated to death when he did which is when he’d woken up and found himself floating in the void with almost no psychic Energy.

So here he was, freezing and holding his breath. At least he wasn’t suffocating yet, but he was still dying. The void was continuously freezing him at a rate of 5 points of damage every 10 seconds while he held his breath. Anton only had 345 hit points to start, but he’d heal fully every 20 seconds which meant the cold, while it was probably painful to normal people was just annoying to him. No, his problem was oxygen. The only time he could breathe was when he was in his Specter Form and when he’d awoken he was out of Psychic Energy. Definitely NOT good.

So, Anton held his breath and watched his Psychic Energy rise slowly. Currently, he was regenerating 2 Psychic Energy every 10 seconds, or 12 every minute. After 5 minutes he had regained 60 Psychic Energy. He felt like he could hold his breath for a bit, so he waited. His high Willpower and Endurance were coming in quite handy at the moment. At 20 minutes he’d regained 240 points of Psychic Energy. At 25 minutes his Psychic Energy was full again at 252 points. Stable once more, or as stable as he could be, Anton activated Specter for 10 Psychic Energy. Once he appeared in the adjacent dimension he took a very long and much-appreciated breath and then breathed normally. Also, he stopped taking damage from freezing.

It looked like he could remain in this state for just over 4 hours, hold his breath for 25 minutes, and then return to it. Unlike the void, the dimension his Specter Form existed in was not a void darkness. Instead, there was a false negative to the environment so he could at least see himself. The void had been utterly dark and quiet with only the sound of his heartbeat to keep him company. In his Specter Form, he couldn’t hear his heartbeat but he could now see himself and off into the distance.

While he had a moment, he opened his notifications.

Congratulations! You Have killed a level 72 Epic Assassin.

You have earned 81,600 Experience points.

You have earned 544 Gold.

Note: Only SYSTEM Generated Treasure was looted. All other loot was destroyed.

Anton was beginning to hate that attack method. Of course, he hadn’t had a choice. She shrugged off every attack he’d made. Also, he was pretty sure that while he had a lot of weapons he’d purchased, none of them would have been good enough to leave any kind of damage to her. That’s why when his Mind Bolt failed utterly he’d gone with the nuclear option. It wasn’t fair, but neither was being hounded forever by a psychopathic nut job.

Anton’s attention was brought back to his Notifications when he read it.

Congratulations you have gained Level 21!

Anton opened his Status Screen and put his 12 points into his attributes as he had for every level not divisible by 5 when he received his 3 extra attributes. He put one point into every attribute except perception. Perception received 2 points. Accepting his new level and distributing his attributes also bumped his Psychic Energy from 252 to 264.

Since he had a few more minutes before he’d drop his Specter Form and reenter the void to hold his breath again while his Psychic Energy regenerated….Anton’s thoughts trailed off as he remembered his new Skill Battle Meditation

Battle Meditation - Increase All Resource Regeneration Rates by 1 per Skill Level per 1 turn or 10 seconds. This state can be maintained for a number of Combat Turns equal to the Skill Level. While in Battle Mediation the user is vaguely aware of their surroundings and will not react unless attacked.

Battle Mediation may only be utilized once every 100 turns or 16.66 minutes regardless of Skill Level.

Could he use that skill in this dimension, while he had Specter active? If he could? Anton relaxed, there was no point in trying to sit since he was floating. He relaxed his mind and activated Battle Meditation.

WARNING! Battle Meditation has been activated while one or more skills are active. All benefits from this skill are halved until all skills are deactivated.

Would you like to continue using Battle Medication, Yes or No?

Would he like to continue using this skill? Anton chose “Yes”.

For the next 3 minutes and 20 seconds, Anton meditated and regained 200 points of Psychic Energy. He’d fully recovered all of the Psychic Energy he’d spent after only two turns of Battle Medication but he wanted to test it out to see if he could continue using the skill after he didn’t need to. He could. Anton did some quick math. He could only use this skill once every 16.6 minutes. This meant that he’d spend 17 minutes as a Specter before he could use Battle Meditation for one turn to recover 20 points of Psychic Energy. As long as he didn’t remain in his Specter Form for more than 200 minutes he could remain in this dimension as long as he wanted, or until his mind was so exhausted it couldn’t continue. But his Willpower was 265 so he should be okay for a while. At least he hoped so.

There were a few other things Anton could try so it was time to get to it now that he knew he had a route to survival. He’d picked up some sensory skills, now it was time to use them. Anton held his breath and deactivated Specter. Next, he activated his Psychic Skill Detect Magic to see if he could see anything in the darkness. Nothing changed. He then activated Aura Sight which changed the absolute darkness he was seeing into wispy strings of multi-colored light that haphazardly moved through the void as if moved along by invisible currents.

Without a frame of reference, it was hard to tell how large or long those strands were because his Aura Sight only allowed him to see a very short range but if he continued to use it that should increase. Right now, he’d have to move slowly because the strands disappeared almost immediately when they were more than 10 feet from him. He was in the void and he could not fly. How was he going to follow the strands?

Anton activated Specter and then Battle Meditation to regain his Psychic Energy as he considered the problem. As he exited Battle Meditation 30 seconds later with his resource pools replenished an idea came to him. Anton activated Manifest and became visible in the void. He could see things in the Material plane and in this form, they could see him. Could he utilize a skill that enhanced his vision while he was manifesting?

The answer was yes, which gave him the ability to activate Aura Sight and then while in his Specter Form, follow one of the strands. Anton looked around until he found a strand made of gold and began following it. At first, it was slow going but as time went on the range of his Aura Sight extended which allowed him to increase his speed following the strand he’d found.

Anton followed the gold strand for 30 minutes and then took a break to drop into Battle Meditation to recover all of his Psychic Energy. Then he’d begin again. In this way, he remained in his Specter Form without dropping into the Material Plane and followed the strand of aura he’d found until it vanished. Anton searched for the gold strand for another 30 minutes before he picked up a blue strand of energy and began following it.

4 hours later his Aura Sight had increased in skill level to Scarce Level 4 and allowed him to pick up Aura signatures up to 500 feet away. Anton noticed a gold Strand that had come into range and moved over to follow it. This time he followed the strand for another 8 hours until it also disappeared. When he checks again Aura Sight’s skill level is now Scarce level 8 with a base range of 900 feet. It was taking longer and longer to level, but the skill was still leveling. Anton found another Gold Strand and started following it.

This pattern repeated over and over. Anton checked his Personal Map to ensure he wasn’t going in circles. While the skill couldn’t map very far away from him in this void it appeared that it was keeping track of his starting point which was very far away now. Anton hunkered down and kept following the gold strand of energy.

Eventually, Battle Meditation wasn’t enough and Anton felt tired. When he looked at the clock, which he’d been purposely ignoring he realized that two weeks had passed. Aura Sight had increased to skill level Advanced Level 3 and now had a range of 41,100 feet., or just over 8 miles. Still, he was tired and needed to take a break. Anton spent all of his Psychic Energy to extend his time by 264 minutes, Activated Battle Meditation for three and a half minutes and spent another 243 Psychic Energy to extend the duration of Specter out to just over 8 hours. Once that was done, he closed his eyes and fell asleep.

When he woke up 8 hours later he was truly surprised that his idea had worked. He knew he should feel hungry or thirsty but he hadn’t eaten anything in a while. If he needed to, he could pull out a ration or drink but he didn’t feel hungry or thirsty in this dimension so he hadn’t worried about it. Anton activated Battle Meditation to refill his Psychic Energy, it hadn’t refilled while he was sleeping. When his Psychic Energy was full again he activated Aura Sight and began following threads of aura again.

Anton repeated his cycle of rest and following threads of aura. He tried to stick with one color but more often than not, the ribbon of energy would just come to an end. To stay consistent, he always tried to find Gold ribbons of energy first. Then he’d look for blue, silver, purple, brown, and yellow in that order. If he couldn’t find one of those colors he’d try for green, orange, and finally red. There were a lot more colors and shades of color than the nine he tried to keep to. He was just trying to remain consistent.

The next time he looked at his calendar 12 weeks had passed. He was losing himself in the streams of color. It probably had something to do with the fact that he had attained the skill level of Master Level 1 and could see auras up to 40 miles away. In the void, with no backdrop of color, it was really easy to see any other color that appeared, which brought up the thought, where were the black lines of Aura energy? He hadn’t even thought to look for black until that moment.

Anton began looking for black lines of energy while he continued to follow the other colors. Nothing appeared to him. So, Anton kept following the pattern of colors he established and resting as he normally did. Eventually, he found the black strands. They were technically everywhere, but he hadn’t noticed them until he decided to look closely at the end of a large gold strand of Aura he’d been following that had ended abruptly. Because he hadn’t been looking for them he’d failed to notice that where any line of color ended a new black line came into existence and exploded out like a root system. The reason he hadn’t seen the black lines of energy was because they were small, really small and they appeared to get smaller and smaller as they branched out at the end of the strand of aura they exploded from.

It was almost like the streams of aura energy were feeding the void the way they suddenly ended and then branched off into ever smaller tendrils of black energy until they disappeared from view altogether. So, looking for black strands of energy was a dead end, literally. Anton went back to following the other streams of Aura. He was hoping that they would eventually lead him somewhere that he could use to escape this place.

Unlike his other skills, Battle Meditation was already at skill level Master Level 1. He assumed he’d have to use it for a very long time before it would level again. Especially since he was only using the skill for about a minute every two hours and he wasn’t using it at all while he slept during his 8-hour breaks.

His skill Specter was leveling rather quickly. Over the last 12 weeks, Specter had reached skill level Advanced Level 2. In this void, it wouldn’t matter much because he had to keep his speed down to follow the streams of aura but in the real world, he’d be able to move at 1,120 miles per hour or 1,643 feet per second. If he was killed he’d be able to shift his position in the two turns he was given by more than 37 miles.

12 weeks in this void with nothing to show for it but skill progression? Well, at least he wasn’t going crazy. Since he had plenty of time to think, he wondered how Annabelle and everyone else were doing back in Minneapolis. That explosion would have destroyed some parts of the east side but he should have been far enough away from them and the safe zone that it shouldn’t have affected them. There really was nothing for it. He’d left Annabelle in charge and it was a Safe Zone. Of course, if someone could teleport or shift dimensions like he could….

Anton took a deep breath, realized he was coming up on the time he would normally take a break to sleep, and decided to do so early. When he woke up, his mind was clear again and he went back to following the strands of aura away from his starting point. That’s when he decided that he’d had enough for a while. If whatever entity was going to throw him into a void without an obvious way out, he was going to take advantage of his skills and see if he could pass the time without going mad.

Anton increased his speed in his Specter Form and deactivated the skill. As he’d thought his momentum traveled with him and he was coasting along at 1,120 miles per hour. He could tell he was moving very fast by how quickly the threads of aura were zipping by. The cold started to bite and he started taking 5 points of environmental damage every 10 seconds again.

He could have tried to meditate normally while Specter was active but he had a two-purpose goal. While he was in the alternate dimension he was relatively safe. He didn’t think there would be much chance for the SYSTEM to grant him new titles there. If he was under constant stress from freezing and suffocating though, maybe he could build up some resistance or increase the time he could hold his breath.

The other reason was because if he closed his eyes and wasn’t paying attention he didn’t think he’d notice anything. If he was in the void and something changed, he should be able to notice it no matter how deeply he was meditating. At least that was the hope. Of course, this all relied on his ability to meditate normally so there wasn’t a time limit like there was with Battle Meditation.

Anton looked around the void one more time as he coasted through the emptiness and then deactivated Aura Sight. He relaxed, closed his eyes, and began meditating. He wasn’t trying to use Battle Meditation. This time he was simply trying to meditate and slow down his breathing, though he was holding his breath already. Almost immediately he received a notification.

Congratulations you have unlocked the skill of Meditation!

Meditation – This skill allows the user to enter a state of rest that allows the user to recover all resources; Hit Points, Stamina, Mana, and Psychic Energy at an accelerated rate. This state also allows the mind to recover as if sleeping.

At Skill level Common Level 1, All natural regeneration rates are doubled and add 1 per minute. Regeneration rates will continue to improve by 1 per minute per skill level.

Note, that other skills, spells, or abilities that increase regeneration rates are not compatible with this skill.

It wasn’t much but Anton would take it. The strongest point of this type of mediation was that it didn’t have a time limit, which was what he wanted. Anton settled into the meditative state and relaxed. As he did so his senses drew away from his surroundings as his heartbeat slowed. With his eyes closed and no sound in the void his heartbeat became his rhythm and his rhythm slowed further. He forced stray thoughts from his mind and continued gliding through the void at over 1,000 miles per hour.

Later, Anton would check his Notification Log and learn that after 7 days his regeneration rate from meditation offset the freezing damage he was taking. Also, his natural healing removed his need to breathe. It wasn’t that his body recycled or transmuted the carbon dioxide he was generating back into oxygen. No. Instead, his ability Immortal kicked in and oxygenated this body as needed as part of its accelerated healing. Anton had a feeling if he ever had enough hit points to keep from getting killed in one or two quick hits he might not ever die again.

Anton slowed his metabolism down to almost nothing so he wasn’t generating very much carbon dioxide, to begin with, but the freezing damage he was taking kept Immortal active which is what allowed the ability to sustain him. The other thing of note was that while he was meditating so deeply he completely lost track of his surroundings and his mind went blank. Completely blank. It wasn’t until he died suddenly that he woke up in his Specter Form.

You have Died! Specter has Activated.

The one good thing about Meditation, when he woke from dying there was no slow transition to alertness. One moment he was meditating, the next, he was in his Specter Form and completely awake. Anton activated his Aura Sight so that he could see and Manifest into the material plane to look around and find out what had killed him while he also extended the duration of Specter.

As he Manifested into the void he was completely blinded for a moment as a rainbow of colors exploded from many points around him and a large point within a few feet of him. As his eyes adjusted he realized it wasn’t a point but a sphere. Not a portal, but a sphere. As he watched the sphere he noted strings aura of all colors coming out of the sphere in all directions. Something about a dark sphere tickled his memory but he put that aside and opened his Notification Log to see what had killed him.

WARNING You have entered an area of extreme gravity.

You have Died! Specter has Activated.

Extreme gravity, single sphere? Or was it the reference of a point expressed in three dimensions? If so, that meant that there was a singularity on the other side of that sphere. That didn’t make sense though. Then again, Singularities had to open into something, didn’t they? Prevailing theories had thought they’d eject into White holes but what if they opened into another dimension like this one? One way to find out though wasn’t there?

Anton willed his Specter Form into the sphere and emerged into a complete kaleidoscope of light and energy as it fell into the point behind him. He’d only seen Auras in the void so whatever else was happening, matter was being annihilated as it fell into the singularity. Also, while he wasn’t very smart, this was a very large Singularity which meant the event horizon could be a very long way away. Anton passed back through the singularity into the void and moved away from it.

Anton moved away from the singularity and looked at all the other points that streams of aura were flowing from and noticed that there were a lot more strands of aura in this area. He’d coasted into a cluster of some sort. As he looked around he noticed that the points of entry for the aural light appeared to exist along one axis. He willed himself up and out of the plane along the z, or vertical, axis until he was looking down at something that resembled a spiral. In fact, it looked a lot like a galaxy, except a lot more compressed as everything within the galaxy seemed to be visible within his visual range. Galaxies were hundreds of thousands of light years across and he was seeing where the singularities were laid out as represented here. So, this space was compressed or he could travel faster within it, or both.

But that didn’t make sense. When he was on a planet and activated Specter the distance was the same in both dimensions. Had he traveled into another level of the dimension Specter brought him into? He honestly didn’t know. Well, if this was a representation of a galaxy anything at the center would be super giant singularities and if he remembered right Earth was out near the middle of the galactic disc along a spiral so if he had any chance of finding Earth or a planet he could live on he would have to find something that would allow him to exit this place away from the center.

Anton willed himself way from the center cluster and began working his way along the middle of the disc. As he moved closer it was almost like a zoom function activated and the distances between the singularity points he could see expanded out and away from him. He immediately tried to withdraw and was relieved when he fell away and the view he’d had before reasserted itself. It seemed that there was a zoom function. Anton smiled.

Anton opened his Personal Map and began adjusting it. Zooming in and out. As he did so his Aura Sight registered the changes in what he perceived around him. Was he inside the map here in the void? After about an hour he had a good handle on his Personal Map and then he discovered that it even had a Map Legend. A few minutes later he was looking at a sphere in an area of the cluster he’d found that had primarily green, brown, blue, and red streams of aura coming through it intermittently. That’s not why he was looking at it though. The Map Legend had indicated that there were other types of entry points into the Void and that they could be found by looking for a combination of the elemental auras.

Singularities predominantly held the auras of light, dark, space, time, and sometimes earth and air-based. Those spheres that had green, blue, brown, and red usually indicated that there was life, water, earth, and fire in the area. Those weren’t the only colors he should be looking for but he needed to find a sphere with at least that combination of auras.

When he came upon the sphere a tool tip had appeared.

Sphere of Annihilation

The singularities hadn’t had any tooltips pop up but it seemed that his Identity skill had been able to identify the sphere and let him know what it was. He vaguely remembered something about such fictional spheres from something he’d read but honestly, he couldn’t remember anything except that it was supposed to kill you dead if you touched it. Also, they were normally found in dungeons or wizard towers but that was all that he remembered.

Well, anywhere would be better than here so Anton steeled himself and floated through the sphere in his Specter Form and appeared in a short corridor. Ten feet in front of him and to his left was a corridor and directly in front of him was another black sphere. Anton floated up to the corner and looked down the corridor to his left where a closed door sat.

For him, it wasn’t even a choice. If the sphere in front of him was magical he wouldn’t be able to pass through it. This begged the question, how had he passed through a Sphere of Annihilation if it was Magical? Was it because he was in his Specter Form or maybe it wasn’t considered magical for some reason, which would make it an artifact? Who knew?

Before he moved Anton had one thing left to do, he opened his Status Screen and pulled up his skill levels, specifically he pulled up his Meditation skill level. It was now Epic Level 6. Epic was above Master. How the hell had it leveled so high? With a sinking feeling in his chest, Anton opened his Calendar, paused, and then checked it again. He’d been meditating for over 18 months. A year and a half? He’d have to be careful using that skill going forward, especially in a place that had very little stimulation.

He quickly checked his Notifications again to make sure he hadn’t missed a title that had been awarded. There was nothing. It seemed that the SYSTEM was getting a bit stingy, or whoever had thrown him into the void had made it so he couldn’t earn titles. If that was so, that was just petty.

Regardless, he needed to get out of here. Anton glided over to the door and passed through it into a small courtyard. There were no walls, just a short unkept path that led out into a forest beyond. When he turned around he saw that the door he’d come out of was set in a run-down stone wall with walls that crumbled away 10 feet above it. Anton would pay good money and bet that there had been a tower here before whatever had been destroyed.

Anton equipped his Mithril armor, layered his Leather armor over it, and then added the swords and daggers. He also made sure he had the two 9mm Berreta pistols and pump action shotgun he’d picked up were fully loaded and ready in his inventory. Once he was equipped, he set his new loadout as his default and deactivated Specter.

Anton looked around and took a deep breath, his first in a long while. He smiled. He might not be home but at least he was outside in a world that had light, air, and trees. He’d been in the dark for far too long.