Chronicles of the True Wizard

Heading back through a portal, Felix flew into his personal, once vault now compound, and found everything had been trashed.

Running down the halls, Felix saw room after room completely emptied out, walls destroyed and much of the structure he had carefully carved out completely collapsed.

Most of it he could easily get back as the most important items were in his Soul Space, Inventory or in his head. Mostly the frustration of being robbed was what got to him. The one thing he couldn’t easily replicate though, was Zero.

Running over to the room where Zero had been training, Felix found an empty room.

Shit. I already killed everyone on the map so where the hell did all of it go? They couldn’t have gotten out… could they?

Opening his map back up, Felix’s face contorted in confusion as he still saw a marker in his vault indicating a large collection of treasure was there to be found. Zooming in, he narrowed down its location to a large pile of rubble that he began sifting through.

Removing a dozen meters worth of gravel and rock by sticking it all in his inventory temporarily-now that he had more points than he knew what to do with-Felix finally spotted a bunch of crushed plants and various metals. Curious as to how they ended up here when they should have been across the compound, he continued to clear out the rubble even though most of what he found was useless to him now that they had been crushed.

He found a number of corpses and plants, construct parts and bodies in various states of disassembly that had once been spread throughout his compound. Finally, he spotted a recognizable arm and immediately grabbed hold of it. Trying to stow it in his inventory though, Felix found it impossible.

What in The System?

Clearing out the rest of the rubble, Felix dug Zero’s body free and pulled him out manually.

“What the hell happened in here?”

Zero looked up at him then pointed at the rubble.

Felix walked back over and continued stowing the rubble until he found Mecada’s Sword and a whole lot more ruined treasure. Looking down at the blade, Felix tried to figure out what could have happened but didn’t have any good explanation so he turned back to Zero.

Without being connected to Mark and with no way of communicating other than through charades, it wasn’t exactly easy to get an explanation from Zero. Now that Felix had his Soul Marks though-the combined anima and mana spell-he could trivially connect Zero to Mark without modifying Zero’s construct body to implant a full portal spell form.

Reaching down and placing his hand on Zero’s chest, Felix used the Soul Tendrils-that he was finding vastly more useful than he had originally foreseen-and carefully inscribed his modified spell form within Zero’s soul.

Unfortunately, his Soul Marks weren’t perfect by any means. Even though they were based on portals targeting anchors instead of coordinates, they didn’t behave like portals that targeted anchors did. The mana cost scaled proportionally with the distance between the two marks and the anima cost, scaled exponentially. On a single planet, within the world event of Bastorus One, the cost wasn’t huge and was easily manageable even for the hundreds of Seeing Eye constructs he had deployed.

Based on some fairly simple calculations though, unless the scaling curve changed for some reason, neither Felix nor Mark would be able to sustain even a single connection across planets. Connecting Mark to Zero now was a temporary solution to facilitate communication but Felix’s dream of having Mark coordinate Zero’s memories at all times while they completed missions from the adventurer’s guild was still a ways off.

Zero could go out and complete missions on his own or complete tasks off world, he just wouldn’t be connected to Felix or Mark at all so they would have no idea what was happening until he came back in range and synced, assuming he wasn’t stolen or died.

Alright Mark, can you communicate with Zero and tell me what happened?

Yes. Developing custom communication protocol… Syncing memories… Would you prefer I convert this specific memory into an understandable format and show it to you directly?

Actually, yes. Assuming it won’t take days…

Affirmative. Converting now… Estimated time remaining is approximately 11 hours.

Alright, that works. I need at least 7 hours or so to regenerate my mana pool anyways.

Dropping to the ground and falling into a meditative pose-for no reason other than being accustomed to the specific sitting position-Felix entered his Soul Garden and began manually drawing in mana as fast as possible from the Aether. Using the same vortex visualization he had used way back in the tutorial his mana regeneration, even while meditating, was orders of magnitude faster.

That rate only lasted for a few minutes though as he drained the Aether immediately surrounding him and it sluggishly moved to replace what he was draining.

He already knew this would be an issue and he had a plan. Opening up portals with a very specific, calculated size, Felix connected his surroundings to 6 different locations across the world event. The locations the portals connected to were all calculated to both maximize the distance between them, minimize interference while also targeting low mana viscosity environments. Notably one of the portals connected him to where the Rakyt city had once stood because the mana around it was incredibly fluid.

Drawing mana from within the portals as well as his surroundings, Felix drastically increased his regeneration and managed to fill his own mana pool in just under 3 hours instead of his predicted 7. It would have been faster had he not drained the locations so quickly and unfortunately changing the portal locations wasn’t worth it based on his calculations. Changing the locations netted him a small burst of mana that barely made up for the initial mana cost of the portal itself.

Still, under 3 hours was a huge improvement.

After initially opening the portals, Felix only needed to dedicate around 3 quarters of his focus to his regeneration meaning he had plenty of spare focus for other tasks. In his Soul Garden, 3 hours of real world time was a ridiculous amount of mental time for him so 3 hours, even with just a quarter of his focus, was plenty of time.

During those 3 hours, Felix spent a large chunk of time working on various spell forms but more specifically, improving his own measurements and simulations of spell forms. He ultimately didn’t create many new spells or improve many old ones but his ability to simulate the effects of spells forms improved drastically. He was very happy with that time spent even if he didn’t have anything concrete to show for it because he knew just how beneficial the simulation accuracy would be for him in the future.

He didn’t have to wait very long to reap the benefits either as after spending time on improving its accuracy, he began working on a new variant of spell forms that he had been theorizing for a while now, nodeless spell forms. Theoretically, by replacing the nodes within spells with pre-attuned mana, Felix could drastically lessen the complexity of spells and improve their scaling at the same time. As he researched spells and spell forms, he found that the higher the tier of spell, the more complex they became even for the exact same effect to just do more damage.

Simply trying to replicate Nova’s breath, which evidently was not just a simple spell, required a complex containing ring around the outside that was either a fractal or a more complicated three dimensional shell. It had to both distribute and contain mana as well as handle transient spikes and flaws gracefully. From there, the mana had to be normalized and effectively cleaned with complex channel patterns at which point it would be pre-shaped. From there, it had to be filtered into multiple attunement nodes that were load balanced or a single complex, higher dimensional node then shaped again, funneled outwards and finally activated. Additionally, consideration towards safety measures, adjustment for the environment among a thousand other minor factors had to be carefully planned into the spell form.

A minor flaw in one part propagated into every other part and grew exponentially because each successive step required orders of magnitude more precision and were orders of magnitude more fragile and finicky.

The problem only got worse as the desired effect increased. Felix’s spells as they were were about as efficient as he could make them in terms of effect to complexity, even after using simulations and precise measurements calculated from his mental computer to optimize them. Increasing their potency now and in the future was going to require exponentially more focus as the nodes, channels and everything else that went into a spell form multiplied in complexity.

He could already strip out much of a spell form with his own unique abilities. Factoring in the external environment most often resulted in minor modifications or entire calculation frameworks within spell forms that his mental computer was more than capable of performing. Mana cleaning and normalization wasn’t necessary in the slightest as his mana control was already more effective than any spell, enchantment, ritual, node or pattern he knew of. Adjustments and considerations based on mana flow rates, energy levels and so on were also unnecessary as he could trivially manage them himself.

Simply making slight adjustments outside of the spell form and using at most a single spell level worth of focus, made his spells seem incredibly dangerous. Were anyone other than him to try and cast them-raw or using a spell list-they would inevitably fail, likely causing a massive explosion of hostile mana with a decent chance of killing themselves. Anyone else though, would simply use a Spell List and therefore, not worry about spell complexity at all other than because of its overall tendency to decrease efficiency.

They also, didn’t have nearly as many issues simply creating and learning higher tier spells, other than the mana cost and cast times, both of which Felix dealt with.

The next steps for Felix’s spells was therefore, to remove as many nodes as possible. The two main nodes that he still relied on were shaping nodes and attunement nodes. He used plenty of other nodes in complex spells that performed a complex task but he rarely cast those anyways and never in battle so, he focused entirely on shaping and attunement nodes. Both were equally problematic but attunement nodes tended to be more complex, even when shaping nodes had to handle absurd amounts of mana so, Felix focused on attunement nodes for now.

He had thought replacing either of them would be trivial as he could easily shape mana and was capable of attuning mana but some simple tests revealed a lot of problems. In preparation for his exams, he was hoping to simply remove attunement nodes then during the epoch he had off for recruitment, wherever he spent it, he would work on shaping nodes.

Using his recently improved simulation accuracy, Felix nailed down some initial starting points for his attunement-node-less spell forms. The required accuracy of mana attunement was much higher than he had hoped, no doubt the reason why attunement nodes at his level were so complex. It meant that currently, it would take Felix somewhere in the range of dozens of minutes to cast even the simplest of spells by manually attuning the mana himself.

That amount of time was completely unacceptable and even using Grim as a spell book, he couldn’t store pre-attuned mana, at least not without the attunement becoming noisy and losing accuracy.

Felix fully planned on training himself and becoming better and faster at attuning mana but once again, some initial tests showed that his rate of improvement was too slow to rely on in the short term. Luckily, a potential solution had presented itself and so, once his mana pool was full, Felix opened a portal and retrieved his familiar.

He briefly debated connecting Nova to Mark but decided against it for the time being. She was connected to him and that was enough for now. All Mark really was at the moment was a backup for his memories and a way to offload his and his mind’s citizen’s mental processes. He also facilitated some communication and performed some very minimal coordination for his Seeing Eye constructs. None of that was useful or necessary for Nova at the moment as Felix could already communicate and trade basic thoughts and memories with her.

Until Mark performed more functions that were more useful for Nova, he would leave them separate.

Opening his Pocket Home against the wall, Felix and Nova headed in and did some cleanup work. Firstly, Felix emptied out his event inventory and began sorting through the materials. He had way more inventory points than he needed and so, even after buying out everything that remotely interested him in the Event Trove, Felix had enough to bring just about everything with him.

Using the console in his bedroom tower, Felix spent some mana to increase the size of the island and install a warehouse on one end. Inside the warehouse he organized and stored all the materials had acquired and wanted to keep. The vast majority of them were metals or pieces of constructs that he planned on using in constructs later on. Some of them were curious rocks or plants but most of those he just let Nova consume.

All of that only took him a quarter hour as the most time consuming aspect would have been planning the organization but his mental computer did it for him trivially. All he had to do was walk around and follow simple commands, placing specific items from his inventory in specific locations. His mind was more than fast enough that he could fly around as fast as he wanted while placing a constant stream of treasures, like a machine in a factory.

With that done, Felix finally turned his attention to what he really wanted to spend his time on.

Calling Nova over, Felix had her examine the tree along with him. The tree itself was quite a bit bigger, growing much faster now that it had a more consistent source of mana. It was still a noticeably young tree but its trunk was almost as big as his fist and the branches were mostly above his head now. That wasn’t what he focused on at all though. As much as Felix’s matter control and senses had improved, he was still significantly lacking in comparison to Nova who was born with her abilities.

Especially after her evolution, despite still sometimes displaying childlike qualities, Nova was noticeably smarter. Her maturity was still lacking and her understanding of feelings, the consequences of her actions and so on were still childlike though, noticeably improving. Her understanding of some complex topics though, was impressive to say the least.

To Felix, it was almost like communicating with a child that had the memories and knowledge of a quantum physicist and chemist implanted within their minds. Logically, she was constantly breaking down and examining matter so her knowledge made sense. It was just weird to Felix communicating with someone who still got so excited by shiny things explain the fundamental structure of matter and materials at a level so far beyond him.

It was her knowledge that ultimately made what he wanted possible though and so, they went back and forth combining Felix’s knowledge of mana with her knowledge of matter. Neither of them having the full picture made things difficult but their ability to communicate complex thoughts and intent directly through their connection made it a lot easier.

Describing what he wanted to do and why, she was immediately excited and wanted some variation of the same thing for herself. Together they ironed out the basics of what they wanted which took longer than he had hoped, making him wish they could have been in his Soul Garden for the conversation. Unfortunately, they both referred back to and kept reexamining the tree and its crystals with their senses which would have been impossible or just inconvenient to do in his Soul Garden.

Realistically they only wasted an hour or so so it wasn’t a huge deal. Experimentation on the other hand, took far longer.

They started by collecting the cleanest crystal shards they could find and using Nova’s abilities to recreate similar but larger crystals from by breaking down shards and reconstituting them. That epically failed as the crystal she produced lost all of its ability to convert mana. Whatever it may have been, there was something beyond either of their understanding at play with the crystals so having Nova simply create them using the tree crystals as a template, wasn’t possible.

Once they accepted that fact, their progress was markedly faster, in that they actually made any. Nova still fused together the crystal shards to make bigger crystals but she didn’t break them down and reconstruct them at all. That proved to actually work but required they find the right crystals to combine.

The only way to really do that was to have Felix examine and measure each and every little crystal shard one by one, organize and record the measurements, then calculate the ideal combinations. The ridiculous number of permutations made the calculations impossible without some kind of algorithm to narrow them down so, they were forced to perform a bit of random experimentation.

With every experiment they performed, combining two then later three different shards together and measuring the resultant resonant attunement, Felix’s algorithm was tuned. Each time it was able to slightly more accurately guess what would happen and able to more precisely narrow down the combinations.

Even parallelizing the work as efficiently as possible, with Nova constantly fusing crystals, Felix measuring and his mind simultaneously recording the measurements, organizing the shards and calculating the next experiment, it took forever. There was no way they were going to finish any time soon so they stopped after around 12 hours once Nova got so bored she was distracted more than she was focused.

At that point Zero’s memory had been converted so Felix dropped Nova randomly within the world event to eat more mountains then he sat down to watch.

Swinging the simple sword Felix had given vertically, from over his head to in front of him for the 2,863,402nd time, Zero carefully tuned the precision of the strike then re-positioned himself slightly differently and began again. Each time the strike’s alignment, force, speed, path, and every measurable parameter was tuned. His mind was a computer and while that computer could operate somewhat organically with its analog transistors, that was not Felix’s intention when building it and so instead, it acted like a computer.

Zero had no qualms with this. In fact, he had very few emotions in general to the point where he wasn’t confident he felt them at all. Currently, his only desire was to grow stronger and as it was, he wasn’t strong enough to fight anything else in the entirety of the event he was trapped in and so he had to get stronger until he was. There was no other option.

As he prepared for the next swing, Zero heard an odd sound he had never heard before at the same time as he saw a slight flash of light on the wall next to him. He immediately assumed Felix had returned to retrieve batteries or deposit some items once again. Though, it did seem odd to Zero that he had just done so a few minutes ago as well.

The incongruity of the actions led Zero to feel an emotion he was familiar with but at a level he had never personally felt before. One of Felix’s strongest driving emotions that had carried over and implanted itself within Zero, curiosity.

Turning his body towards the door, Zero walked straight towards it with no thought in his mind telling him to do so slowly, stealthily or carefully.

Standing in the doorway, Zero turned his head to either side and caught sight of the same flash of light down the hallway to his right. He also heard the sound but he had no way to locate any sounds yet as he hadn’t heard enough things in his life to have fully calibrated his ears.

Stepping out into the hall, Zero turned towards the flashes of light and took a single step towards them at which point the flashes of light suddenly stopped. Not sensing any danger whatsoever, he continued to walk forwards at a constant pace.

Suddenly he heard a voice he didn’t recognize and also could not see the source of, “A construct? You’re a fascinating find, aren’t ya?”

Zero’s head spun around on his neck trying to locate the source of the sound. He found it directly behind him, a small figure dressed in all black with no more skin than necessary exposed through the slit over their eyes. Zero wasn’t stupid, he was just significantly lacking in calibration and instincts that came from personal experience. He still had Felix’s memories and so he was able to figure out, through an entirely logical process of the mind, that this was likely a thief.

With no access to The System-and with it any identification skills-or a voice for that matter, Zero had no way to confirm this thought. He didn’t need to though, Zero was at least 97% confident in his deduction.

Pulling his sword free from its sheath, Zero’s body turned to realign itself with his head and face the thief.

“Woah, you can fight? Oh man, I can’t wait to see how much I can sell you for. I’ll have to go to-” Zero stepped forwards and executed a nearly perfect vertical swing but the thief took a quick step to the side completely avoiding the strike without interrupting their speech at all, “-Terrell instead of Watson. Can’t trust Crazy-Eyed-Watson with something as unique as this. He just doesn’t have the same connections, and he’s a little shifty to be honest. I haven’t had to go to Terrell in a while. Hey, that wasn’t a bad swing, you’re about equal to any low D grade Common sentient or so, I’d think. Super cool for a construct. Definitely.”

The figure nodded to themselves a few times as they deftly hopped over Zero’s blade then kicked off the wall next to them and slapped him on the shoulder. Zero immediately felt a pull on his soul that he resisted without even thinking. The reaction was completely instinctual and born from the convictions Felix had imbued within his soul. Unrelenting, the desire to win and the unwillingness to surrender.

Zero did not know what the pull on his soul was but as a construct who had dedicated his short life to analyzing and imagining combat scenarios, he recognized the opening it offered. With a quick mana fueled pull, Zero retracted his elbow and slit the blade of his sword along the thief’s stomach as they flew past him.

“Ow! Hey, not cool. Why can’t I stow you in my inventory? I should have enough points…”

The thief vanished and Zero saw some flashes of light that he was confident originated from behind him again. Turning around, he ran towards the room and found the thief completely emptying their inventory.

Zero rushed in to stop them, taking a lunging step and stretching forwards in a precise stab to maximize his reach with the sword.

The thief, without even really looking up, drew a dagger and parried the strike. As momentum carried Zero’s sword forwards, the thief drew another dagger then cartwheeled around the blade, holding it close and ultimately snapping it as they landed.

“Just give me a sec. I’ll be right with you, promise. I’m definitely not leaving without you. I’d just rather not have to waste any of the portal treasures I stole to move you though… Oh man, what if I can’t free up enough points to get you out of here…”

Holding the hilt of a broken sword, Zero knew what he had to do. The sword was temporary anyways and just intended for him to train with. He knew this and so he didn’t mourn it. Spinning around, Zero ran out of the room and down the hall. Just halfway to his destination, he heard an echo of the thief talking to themselves, “Who am I kidding, I’ll just sneak up on all the idiots who’re weakened from the stupid battle and take their points.”

Reaching the room at the end of the hall, Zero ran into the nearly empty room and immediately felt a wave of desire physically smack into him.

The room was empty save for a single blade stuck into the ground a few inches simply to store it. The blade was brown and yellow, curved in a way that no respectable swordsmith and no trained swordsman would ever choose intentionally. There was no cross-guard and the hilt was simple, mostly straight and wrapped in rough looking leather. Every memory Zero had from Felix made him want to call it a katana as that was what it was closest to.

It was too thick by 2 or 3 times though and curved out towards the sharp side before curving backwards, like it was so eager to cut it’s foe, it bent itself into the strike. In that way, it was somewhere between a reverse sickle and a katana.

Despite there being nothing else within the smooth stone room, Zero’s vision was overwhelmed. He saw a cloud of red and black filling the room and washing over him. He saw mouths and eyes snapping open and shut, blinking and staring at him from every direction. He heard sounds.

Lacking the ability to locate sounds, he just heard a cacophony of whispers, shouts and growls.

“Wield me.”

“Use me.”

“Fight.”

“Kill.”

“Consume your enemies.”

“Eat them.”

“Tassste their fleeeessshh.”

“DRINK THEIR BLOOOD.”

“Become stronger.”

“Destroy them.”

“Feast.”

“We must fight.”

The voices he heard in his soul echoed through Zero’s body, some of them resonating with him. He wanted to become stronger too. He needed to be stronger both because there was no other way to protect Felix and his possessions and because he needed to.

He told himself that this was the only way but that wasn’t entirely the truth, he also wanted it. He wanted to wield the sword and conquer this enemies. He wanted to fight, he wanted to win and he wanted to dominate while doing it.

Zero didn’t even remember walking across the room to the sword but he was already there when he arrived at his decision. Reaching down, he wrapped his fingers around the grip of the blade and pulled. It wasn’t difficult at all to pull the blade from the stone in fact, it didn’t even feel like there was any friction at all.

Lifting the blade in his hands, Zero moved his hand robotically to calibrate to the new blade’s balance, weight and size.

“Use us.”

“Kill them.”

“Drain their flesh sack.”

Turning back towards the doorway, Zero leapt forwards and recklessly swung his new sword. Standing in the doorway, the thief looked on with confusion as the sword swung right into the stone wall next to them. They even crossed their arms arrogantly but their eyes showed their regret a moment later, and their fear.

“YEESSS.”

Shearing through the wall like it wasn’t even there, a massive hole was created as the blade’s maw opened and inhaled at least half of the stone. The strike continued and the thief grabbed the other wall to push themselves back and away.

The blade’s maw opened wider, it reached outwards and snapped at the air between them.

“What in Sha’alin Zadik’s name is that?”

A slobbery voice snapped back, “We are Slaughter’s Maw. FEED US. DIE.”

“Woah ok. That thing is definitely cursed. You should prooooobably just put it back where you found it.”

Jabbing forwards, Slaughter’s Maw snapped open and three long fleshy tongues reached out to try and grab the thief. They were fast and jumped out of the way but the tongues managed to stick to some of the black garb that trailed behind them.

The thief immediately released the garb, stripping their upper body and letting Slaughter’s Maw devour the fabric.

“Oh man. That was my favorite sneaking around cloak! Ugh.” The thief sighed, “Where’d you even get that thing? Don’t tell me this vault belongs to a demon… does it?”

Zero didn’t even consciously take a step forwards, Slaughter’s Maw just pulled him along as it slashed, snapped and licked at the thief desperately trying to catch any part of them.

“Nah, there would be more demony things. Guess your old owner must have just killed a few demons.”

Slashing from side to side, the blade completely out of Zero’s control, it tore through the stone around them. The various walls separating out the rooms disappeared one by one as Slaughter’s Maw ate anything it approached.

“Must have been a pretty neat fight, huh? Whoever owned this thing and whoever killed them. Man I’d watch that for sure. Oohh! I’d bet Ryad’d pay a fortune for you. Now how to fit you in my inventory without losing a hand, that is the question.”

All the control he had been mastering, all the calibration he had done was useless as Slaughter’s Maw pulled and slashed, thrashing around in every direction completely out of control. It wanted to fight and taste blood but slashing around like this was getting neither of them anywhere. Zero knew this, it was why he had spent so long perfecting his strikes and developing a set of strikes he could practice and train.

Zero had no voice. He had no mouth. He knew no languages. He had memories and flickers of understanding from the remnants of Felix’s memories. The System translating speech specifically for him was the only reason he understood anything. He did have thoughts though, a mind, a soul and feelings, albeit suppressed and underdeveloped.

Reaching outwards into the blade he pushed on it with as much intent as he could and in a crude animalistic way, Zero spoke, Cease this.

We must fight.

WE MUST WIN.

Stop holding us back.

RELEASE US.

Zero’s grip tightened to demonstrate his conviction, No. We will never defeat, let alone catch, this opponent this way. Work with me.

FEAST ON THEIR FLESH.

Kill them.

Open their corpse to us.

FREE THE VISCERA.

Yanking backwards as the blade tried to chase the thief like an uncontrollable dog, Zero wrapped his other hand around the hilt and looked up towards the thief, Listen to me. I also wish to dominate this opponent. Let me show you how.

YES.

DOMINATE.

We will listen.

Show us.

FEED US.

Suddenly, Zero kicked off the wall as Slaughter’s Maw stopped pulling against him and throwing off his calibrated strikes and movements. They worked together, however briefly that would last. It was enough for Zero though, he would show the blade how to fight and together, they would dominate.

Zero leaned forwards and jabbed with the blade, Slaughter’s Maw only opening an inch to try and reach the thief but they were too fast. Flicking his wrist and pivoting into the strike, Zero slashed at the back of their calf as they tried to run and with the extra reach gained from the Maw opening, they drew blood for the first time.

With no flesh or nervous system, Zero felt nothing despite knowing the viscous crimson liquid covering his body should be warm. The explosion of blood from the Thief’s wound was also incongruous with his memories of how much a similar wound should bleed.

YES.

BLEED.

SHOW US WHAT YOU ARE MADE OF.

Where Felix’s Blood Devouring Ring devoured blood and didn’t let a single drop of it go, Zero learned that Slaughter’s Maw just wanted to free it. It wanted to spray it everywhere, in multiple coats like it was paint.

“Ow! Not coo- woah, that was a lot of blood. My leg is kinda-” they ducked low and pulled out a vial they chugged and a small magical device that launched them backwards, “-cold.”

Drawing on his mana reserves, Zero activated the Force enchantment in his back and used his limbs to keep himself steady as he chased the thief down the hall and around the corner. Slashing out where they should have been using the blade’s nature to curve around the corner though, the thief was gone. As soon as Zero caught up with the blade and peered around the corner, there was no thief to be seen.

They hide from us.

It won’t work.

THERE.

Following the blade’s lead, Zero took two steps, planted his feet in a steady stance and slashed diagonally downwards, into the empty air.

A burst of blood exploded out of no where in particular and completely drenched Zero, covering his eyes and making it impossible to see. Wiping the blood off himself was dangerous because he would be releasing a hand from Slaughter’s Maw and he couldn’t feel so he could easily accidentally remove his eye.

“Alright, fuck this. I’ll just grab all that other stuff and come back for you later.”

We’ll point you-

Direct you-

We will find them.

WE WILL CONSUME THEM.

Zero turned and used the blade like a compass, making precise and calculated strikes whenever the blade pointed out the thief. The thief kept getting further though and that angered the blade.

STOP RUNNING-

FIGHT US.

Free the gore.

Zero tried to follow the blade but it was too chaotic, he had to rein it in, Point me in their direction, where have they gone?

The hall.

The blade pulled his hand in their direction as though guiding him, eagerly but not forcefully.

Zero knew where they were going but his spatial awareness and memory were awful. He had memories of Felix mapping out a labyrinth around him as he walked, passively. Zero had none of this ability as he was new to the world and his brain was untrained in this way. He was also, just bad at it.

He had completely lost his way and now that he had lost his sight, had no idea which direction he was facing or even really where he was. He was mostly confident of the room he was in but little else.

The sword knew where the thief was though and they wanted the same thing at the moment, to eviscerate them.

Confidently moving in the direction the sword pulled, Zero ran forwards and simply waited for the sword’s signal to strike with the all the precision and calibration he had developed. Taking two steps forwards, the ground dipped a little and he almost tripped but Zero’s mind worked quickly to adjust. This was the first time he had encountered uneven ground as Felix had carved this cave precisely and there was no reason for the ground to be anything but flat, anywhere.

Zero’s mind was quickly distracted from that fact though as he heard a voice, “Ah shit.”

Already leaping forwards and slashing horizontally as wide as possible to maximize the danger zone of his strike, Zero’s thoughts lined up with the swords for just a moment.

SLICE THEM-

OPEN THEM-

CUT THEM-

WIN-

Adding to the cacophony of voices, Zero responded with a singular word, a singular intent, Dominate.

Zero had no flesh and no nervous system therefore, he felt almost nothing. His body was designed to provide some feedback to his mind, otherwise he wouldn’t be very useful as a construct. While he didn’t feel anything through a sense of touch, he did suddenly feel an immense amount of restriction on his body. He received feedback as he attempted to move his limbs that nothing was happening.

He heard sounds he didn’t recognize as his ears, and the sounds he knew, didn’t line up with Felix’s memories. Zero knew that the sword was no longer in his hand and wasn’t very close by or it lay dormant for some reason, either way he couldn’t hear it. He couldn’t feel it.

Ding Welcome to the Multiverse. I am The System. You are a construct given life, welcome to the multiverse. Please wait while I adjust some parameters to your unique existence.

No time whatsoever passed from Zero’s perspective before the voice began speaking to him in his mind once more. It spoke in a language he understood, despite his not knowing any languages. It sounded distant, robotic and comfortable in a way.

Welcome to the Multiverse. I am The System. You are a rather unique being in that you are a construct that has been granted the ability to learn and grow from experiences. As your birth was the first time a construct approached the requirements to become a leveler, some decisions were made as to the degree of milestone that would prove your ability to learn and grow. Now that you have displayed sufficient capacity to have significant, personality shaping experiences and grow from them, you have met the requirements to officially be integrated into the multiverse.

Zero didn’t respond. He wasn’t sure how to. Did he think loudly? Did he push the intent of his communication outwards? Where?

Your construct body was constructed mostly from C grade materials that were then enchanted with C grade enchantments. This has all been considered in the initial designation of your race. You will not be able to alter this unless you do so manually or until you reach an evolution at which point you will be offered evolutions based on your demonstrated capacity for growth.

Seeing as you have implanted memories from another System leveler, your unique situation will be compared to their’s for your ease of understanding.

Your capacity for growth and your fulfillment complexity has been taken into consideration and it has been determined that you will be offered a class alone. You will have no profession and no general skills like the originator of your memories has. Instead, your race has abilities built into it which will be classified as racial skills. Your body does not use energy and your mana capacity is not tethered to any of your stats but rather dependent on the size of the battery within your body.

Your health does not determine the capacity of your ability to regenerate but rather the amount of overall damage your construct body can take before the soul bound to it, will depart. You have no capacity for regeneration at the moment. Many of the attributes you have memories of will not change as you do and so, your display will be different with a separate array of stats. For example, your Agility is dependent on your race, which can be altered manually but does not grow organically. Please note that these specific statistics were chosen as the best representation of your progress. 5 of these statistics are locked and you will not be able to alter them through the traditional methods such as free points or leveling.

Please select a class now.

Zero liked the robotic voice, it was familiar and known. He also liked the simple instructions and the voice itself gave him a warm and fuzzy feeling inside, something he didn’t know he could feel at all. He very much liked that feeling and he trusted the voice. Therefore, he complied and willed his Class Selection Screen into existence before him.

[C - Rare] Demon Duelist

Engaged in a constant battle with demons, against demons or both, the Demon Duelist class is designed to resist the influence of the demonic and soul corruption. Skills include dealing with the demonic, protecting your soul, using the demonic against your enemies and launching soul attacks of your own as the best weapon against the demonic, is the demonic. Fight with honor and duel with demons, both external and internal, to become an example to be followed.

-5 Corruption

+35 Precision per level

+10 Knowledge per level

+10 FREE per level

[C - Special] Engineered Samurai

As a construct designed to fight with a sword, much of your construction was focused on precision. Latching on to this, you have spent time training yourself to calibrate each and every sword strike you could come up with with the goal of maximizing this precision. This class is designed to hone in on a specific sword style then to perfect it. Skills include sword styles, increases to precision, strikes and steps.

+60 Precision per level

+20 FREE per level

[C - Epic] Apotropaic Wielder of the Accursed

By choosing to wield the accursed, you have chosen a dangerous path that may one day result in your destruction. This class is designed to allow you to hone in on the connection between you and the accursed with the goal of harnessing it to became a greater whole. By taking this class, you will become truly bonded to the accursed item you wield and your souls will be intertwined. There are many paths to properly harness the accursed without being consumed by it and this class is designed to embrace them all. Some possible paths include: discipline, faith, spirit, mind, body, instinct, metamorphosis, night.

+250 Corruption

-20% Racial Synchronicity

+20 Precision per level

+20 Knowledge per level

+85 FREE per level

[C - Epic] Agathokakological Pair

The Holy Paladin through their faith channels the power of their deity to subvert the insatiable bloodlust of the accursed weapon they carry. This class is designed to hone in on your faith of your deity and use the power granted through that faith, external or internal, to subdue the accursed. Skills include controlling the accursed, channeling your faith and using powers granted by your deity.

-26 Corruption

+80 Knowledge per level

+45 FREE per level

[C - Epic] The Gladiator & The Annihilator

Fight, dominate and conquer all. Wield an Annihilator, a weapon of mass destruction in battle and kill everything in your path. This class is designed for large scale fights and constant battle against many enemies. There is no utility to this class outside of battle and it will fall short in single combat. Skills include strikes, leaps, energy restoration, health restoration and kill resets.

+43 Corruption

+125 FREE per level

Zero read through all of the options but already knew exactly which one he wanted to take, he just wasn’t sure if he should. Using Slaughter’s Maw to protect Felix’s possessions seemed reasonable and he didn’t question that. Permanently bonding himself to the sword was another matter entirely. He didn’t know if Felix had other plans for the weapon, for him or some other reason he shouldn’t do it.

Despite his reservations, Apotropaic Wielder of the Accursed spoke to him in a way none of the other classes did, at least not to the same extent. Demon Duelist spoke to how much he enjoyed using Slaughter’s Maw, Engineered Samurai spoke to his desire for precision and The Gladiator & The Annihilator spoke to his desire to dominate. Apotropaic Wielder of the Accursed spoke to everything at once though.

Slaughter’s Maw was an accursed blade and took the bloodthirst too far but, it wanted to dominate just as much as Zero did. Especially now that he had already once controlled its urges and demonstrated a better path through discipline and the precision of trained strikes, Zero was convinced that they could work together, and that he could control it.

He didn’t pick anything immediately though and instead, opened his status screen so he could get a better idea of what was different from his memory of Felix’s.

Name: Zero FREE 0

Deity: Felix Kade Knowledge 7

Class: N/A Precision 1,215

Race: [C - Epic] Sentient Construct (Lvl 1975) *Wisdom 1

Health: 1,000 / 1,000 *Wit 3

Mana: 3,000,000 / 3,000,000 *Instinct 2

Racial Synchronicity: 63% *Willpower 1,801

Corruption: 26 / 1000 *Luck 10

The stats were odd and he didn’t entirely understand everything on his screen but the fact that he had a screen at all was exciting in a way. It meant he could make measurable progress and maybe even one day, compete with real levelers. Checking his race so he had all the information available to him, Zero didn’t really find anything new.

[C - Epic] Sentient Construct (Lvl 1975)

The Sentient Construct was created by fusing biological and arcanomechanical components into a single body using rare techniques to increase compatibility and efficiency. The construct body was then bound to a completely constructed soul and brought to life by The Lifebinder. Given the origins of the Sentient Construct, Strength, Dexterity, Agility, Perception, Intelligence, Vitality and Endurance are all dependent on the design and materials used in the construct and will not grow naturally.

These statistics can only be increased by directly modifying the body and mind. Alternative stats that are more representative of the Sentient Construct’s growth have been selected however, some of them are locked and cannot be increased with FREE stats or levels. Instead, they are simply more representative of the Sentient Construct’s growth over time through training, learning and gaining experience.

Racial Synchronicity: 63%

Racial Skills:

Empowered Step (Common - Initiate XI)

Empowered Strike (Common - Apprentice II)

Empowered Leap (Common - Novice XIX)

Empowered Movement (Common - Initiate XVI)

With all the information Zero could think of retrieving at his disposal, he decided he should probably select a class. The System had asked him to select one now and from the perspective of that deadline, he was already significantly late. The only issue was, he didn’t really know how to communicate with The System.

He decided to just try speaking to it in the same way he had spoken with Slaughter’s Maw and selected the class that spoke to him the most, Apotropaic Wielder of the Accursed.

Class selected. Now binding your soul with Slaughter’s Maw…

Zero felt a horrible feeling within him that he couldn’t describe. His soul shifted and suddenly, it wasn’t his own anymore, not entirely. The connection between him and his body felt weaker and there were these feelings, these desires, within him that felt alien to him. They weren’t his but they were there and he felt them as if they were.

He also felt a connection to something that definitely wasn’t there before. Like a phantom limb, it was something he could feel, or he thought he could feel, but wasn’t attached to him physically at all.

A tired voice reached out into Zero’s mind, one he recognized, Together…

Zero finished the sentence, already knowing instinctually where it was going, We will dominate…

The connection faded slightly as the blade seemed to almost fall asleep so Zero reopened his status screen.

Name: Zero FREE 0

Deity: Felix Kade Knowledge 7

Class: [C - Epic] Apotropaic Wielder of the Accursed (Lvl 1000) Precision 1,215

Race: [C - Epic] Sentient Construct (Lvl 1975) *Wisdom 1

Health: 1,000 / 1,000 *Wit 3

Mana: 3,000,000 / 3,000,000 *Instinct 2

Racial Synchronicity: 43% *Willpower 1,801

Corruption: 276 / 1000 *Luck 10

As he blankly stared at the screen, not sure what to make of any of it and not entirely processing anything either, just looking, a new screen supplanted it in his vision.

Displaying relevant event messages as you have been added as a participant…

You now have access to an event inventory and the contents of your first kill’s inventory has been added to it.

Zero filtered out the ones he had memories of from Felix either directly or ones he had overheard him speaking about to Melody and Peace.

World Event: Bastorus One

Announcement

As the world event is nearing its completion, some participants have begun stashing quest objectives within their personal caches ruining the experience for others. In response to this, large collections of treasures from the event will now be revealed to all remaining participants.

Good luck on your hunts and may all your strikes land!

World Event: Bastorus One

Announcement

As the world event only has a short time left and the majority of the original participants have already perished or surrendered, all future departures will now be permanent. Participants are no longer capable of leaving through traditional means and from now on, must surrender or perish to leave the event. All items brought into the event from the outside can still be thrown through event marbles for the next dekad to ease the transition and all surrenders will automatically be accepted from now on. The location of all participants will be revealed on the map and the area of the world event itself is now shrinking rapidly to prevent hiding.

Any participants not currently in the event will be permitted to enter one final time in the next hour or have their possessions jettisoned through without them.

Good luck and shed much blood!

Reading the first of the two messages new to Zero, he immediately knew what to do. Opening his inventory, he began dropping everything he could around him. He very quickly ran out of space but opening his map, he saw exactly what he was looking for, a marker indicating his exact position.

Now he just had to wait and hope that Felix found and rescued him before another thief came along.

After watching the memory through to completion, in his Soul Garden to save time, Felix sighed.

Seriously? Completely different array of stats? How is luck measured and how is it increased… at all? The others I… kind of get. It’s a construct and now with a blank core soul, these are the stats that will change the most but still. The System is named what it is for a reason. How are we supposed to compare Zero to others at his level now? Wait- System, show me Zero’s status screen with the stats I’m used to.

Name: Zero FREE 0

Deity: Felix Kade *STR 1,737,520

Class: [C - Epic] Apotropaic Wielder of the Accursed (Lvl 1000) *DEX 461,600

Race: [C - Epic] Sentient Construct (Lvl 1975) *AGI 1,737,520

Health: 1,000 / 1,000 *PER 120,976

Mana: 3,000,000 / 3,000,000 *INT 274,941

Racial Synchronicity: 43% *VIT 100

Corruption: 276 / 1000 *END 1,378,920

Huh… That’s… workable. I bet I could increase the perception right now swapping in better eyes and I could probably transfer in some knowledge, wisdom, wit, instinct and willpower. No idea about Luck…

Grim spoke up despite Felix only really thinking to himself, You probably shouldn’t change those manually. Worry about the body because manually changing those stats tends to be weird… You’re are unique and you might be able to do it but the same way you can’t just steal battle experience from an old person…

Alright fine, that’s reasonable. You’re saying if I manually change those by modifying Zero’s soul they wouldn’t be real in the same way battle experience would be faulty. It wouldn’t be integrated properly with memories, experiences and his body… Fine, but I am going to take a look at what’s up with the whole sword situation.

Placing his hand on Zero’s chest and holding a cowering Slaughter’s Maw in his other hand, Felix reached into both of them with his Soul Tendrils and began just feeling around. He had never inspected Slaughter’s Maw’s soul this directly but he had created Zero’s soul and so he immediately recognized the pieces of it that had been fused within.

Focusing on Zero’s soul first, Felix couldn’t help but sigh again, It’s a mess in there. This wasn’t a clean item or familiar bonding this was like taking half of each soul and throwing them together in a blender then replacing the missing halves with the new… mess.

He confirmed the same thing within Slaughter’s Maw’s soul and just shook his head, I don’t even think I could undo or help with this if I wanted to.

Speaking aloud and looking at Zero, Felix gave his best reassuring smile, “Well, good luck with the whole demon sword thing. I’m happy you finally got a class and are a leveler now and as I get better at enchanting, I promise to keep upgrading you over time.”

Zero nodded once in acknowledgement and Mark spoke up in Felix’s mind, He’s wondering if you approve of his decisions.

Felix shrugged, “Sure. I’m not mad I guess, I planned on giving you the sword anyways I was just going to manually strengthen your soul first to lessen the effect. Now… I’m not sure that’s possible without also strengthening the sword itself.”

Zero nodded.

He says he will fight with honor in your name.

“Uh… maybe try not to mention me if you can avoid it actually. In fact,” System, can we change my name on his status sheet?

Possible Deity Aliases

Note: As you have not met the requirements to become an actual God, this alias will only be used on Zero’s status screen as they are a special case. You are only considered a deity from the perspective of their worship and the fact that you created and gave them life.

Felix Kade

Stormbringer

Ascendant Mana Prodigy

The Wanderer

The Lifebinder

Reaper’s Chosen

The True Wizard

Ugh… Not sure I love any of those. I guess The Wanderer is not too bad…

Grim stopped him before his train of thought progressed any further, It also isn’t quite anonymous enough.

You’re right. I don’t know that someone won’t identify me and see my race. Someone probably already has. Same issue with Lifebinder and Reaper’s. I’m not calling myself a Prodigy by choice so I guess… The True Wizard.

Confirmed.

Zero bowed slightly in Felix’s direction which Felix found both annoying and disgusting, neither of which he advertised outwardly though.

Felix nodded, unsure what else to say then helped Zero to his feet and handed him Slaughter’s Maw, holding the cowering blade himself so Zero could grab the handle.

“Well, I’m sure you want to go through your skills and figure out your whole bond thing so I won’t stop you. You might have to surrender to me to get out of here though. Now that you’re bound to the blade, it will go with you. No rush but I plan on heading out sometime soon so it’s either now or whenever I get back.”

Zero nodded and vanished a moment later, Felix’s inventory filled up by a considerable margin a moment later.

WAIT. I DIDN’T MEAN NOW NOW. I JUST MEANT SOONISH. I DIDN’T EVEN GET TO EMBED A PORTAL ANCHOR INTO HIS BODY. HE DIDN’T EVEN HAVE A MARBLE. WHERE WILL HE END UP ON THE OTHER SIDE?

Grim winced, Oh… I’m not sure there was anything you could have done about that though.

Not directly but I could have handed him a consumable item that opened a portal back to my dorm or something.

Too late now.

Dammit. Oh well… Anyways, that was… unexpected.

Grim nodded within Felix’s mind, In many ways.

Time to complete this quest and finally get the fuck out of this event I think.

Felix spent a few minutes cleaning up the rest of the mess Zero had made protecting what was once his compound and retrieving any last items he needed to before heading out one final time.

The location of the final quest was clearly marked on his map so there was no doubt in his mind as to where he was heading. He was also able to conveniently open a portal just a few dozen kilometers away that his Seeing Eye constructs had mapped for him.

Flying over to the designated location Felix was a little surprised to find nothing indicating the location as special in any way. In fact, it was so normal, it wasn’t even curiously empty as there was a dungeon he had completed just a kilometer away. Had the quest not led him here directly, there was no chance he could have found this location even if he had had his Seeing Eye constructs visually map everything and personally go through the footage.

Standing at the location, Felix looked around and found nothing. He even opened his map and rotated it to see if it was underground. Zooming all the way in, he took a half step to the left so he was as close as he could realistically be but still, nothing happened.

Opening the quest screen, Felix read through the new entry.

Quest: The Grand Design

Collect all 256 of the Imitation System Cores. [Complete] (256/256)

Assemble all 256 Imitation System Cores at the specified location. [Complete]

Present an Imitation System Core to reveal the entrance.

Note: All Imitation System Cores must remain within the event at all times going forwards.

Pulling one out of his inventory, an entirely black stone or granite block rose up from the ground with one missing side in the rough shape of a doorway. Where the door would have gone though was instead a perfectly flat, glowing blue barrier that both hummed and occasionally flickered which was definitely unnecessary and gave him a weird vibe.

He was fairly confident of the next step but just in case, he tossed a Seeing Eye construct through and opened the quest screen. Before the screen could appear though, he suddenly felt incredibly and almost irresistibly drowsy. Felix’s immediate reaction was to cast a Force and Mana Barrier to protect himself while he manually washed out all the hormones in his body.

Desperately fighting against his own body to focus just long enough for the Barriers to cast, Felix barely managed to construct the spell forms. As soon as he did, they were manually torn apart by a force so absolute and instant, there was no doubt in his mind as to its source.

Stunned

You have been stunned and slept. You have partially resisted the sleep but remain stunned. As such, you are unable to cast spells until you either resist the stun, or the effects wear off.

Note: These effects were removed from all skills and items in the multiverse during the 3rd integration on account of being problematic. Only a small few consumable items created with these effects during that time still exist and function. However, previous reliance on assigned numerical values for resistances failed to take into account willpower and personal ability and were removed in favor of the ability to forcefully resist these effects.

Duration: 5 minutes.

Are you fucking KIDDING ME!

The absurdity of being hit by something that The System effectively patched out millions of epochs ago was frustrating enough for Felix to completely push back and resist the remaining sleep effect. The overall strain on his body from fighting the effect remained and so he still felt exhausted in a way but, it was noticeably different from hormones trying to force his body to sleep.

Fully resisting the sleep effect also made it painfully obvious that he was also completely unable to move. The paralyzing effect was much stronger than the sleep effect and even pushing against it with every ounce of his willpower, Felix didn’t feel like he was making any progress.

What made his inability to move feel so much worse, was seeing and hearing everything happening around him.

As soon as his body lay still, he saw a massive brute of a man that looked like his head was an octopus kneeling over him and rifling through his inventory. Being stunned, he couldn’t manipulate or do anything with his physical form or System screens. Mana and spells were manually destroyed so all that was left was his Soul Space. There was nothing in there he could come up with a use for right now though so, he was forced to helplessly watch as his inventory was emptied right before his eyes.

The octopus head reached down, pinched the air right above Felix and pulled an Imitation System Core from what looked like thin air. Felix knew he was somehow rifling through his inventory though and it was infuriating.

“Hurry up! I want to get back and visit that new bakery that just opened up.” Recognizing the voice, Felix felt rage nearly surpassing any he had ever felt before but it quickly died down. She probably didn’t know he and Arthur were the same person, at least as far as he knew she didn’t. That fact calmed him a bit but all the rage that left him was replaced by deep confusion.

The tentacle faced thief sighed causing their tentacles to ripple, “Yeah yeah. We’re going as fast as we can, Melody. This should be all of them then we just have to track down your most recent fuck toy’s stash. Any idea where that is?”

Melody was out of sight for him but given the silence that followed and knowing her and hearing the tone that followed, he assumed she was either shrugging with a stupid look on her face or distracted, “Not really. We didn’t spend that much time together in the event.”

Wait… She’s been in my vault before… she knows it’s underground and if she were paying any attention, exactly where it is on her map.

Felix struggled a little more, trying to activate any of the skills in any of his items but found all of them blocked by The System directly. Realizing that, he stowed the rings and anything else he couldn’t replace in his Soul Space just to be safe. There was nothing he could do but helplessly watch and wonder.

Another voice from someone Felix couldn’t see chimed in, a quieter male sounding voice, “Guess we didn’t need so many for this one.”

Yet another voice responded, an expressive and young sounding female voice, “Yeah but come on. You heard the same rumors we did, we all agreed to stay on the safe side.” Though he couldn’t see her, Felix could picture her face just from her tone of voice and the way she spoke, not that he could identify her race from her voice alone it was just the way she spoke was typical and familiar, reminiscent.

The quieter male voice responded, “Yes. I’m not happy about having to search through hundreds of caches on the planet, all no doubt well hidden though. The sooner we can start with that, the sooner we can be finished with it”

As he watched the number of cores get plucked down to about 80 or so, the tentacles above him curled into something that he assumed was a smile, though not with any real confidence, “Well actually, you might not have to…”

The quieter male voice stepped in close enough that Felix could make out a scaled elbow that looked more marine than Drakene, “Why are you making me ask. Just talk.”

The tentacles shook his head, “Our guess for how many Melody’s lover had was 80 right? I just surpassed 180 from Arthur’s inventory alone.”

Felix heard the expressive female voice almost cheer in excitement, “So Arthur killed or forced Felix to surrender I guess. So all that’s left is implanting the tracker and forcing him to surrender?”

Melody sighed, “That means our cut just got halved and we still have to hand off the quest thingies and collect his bounty so hurry up.”

Leaning over him as the last of the cores were plucked from his inventory, the expressive female voice turned out to be a small creature that looked like a tiny humanoid dinosaur. Her features were all soft and round and her skin was green without any scales but the shape of her head with the rounded snout reminded him of a tyrannosaurus or a brachiosaurus. Reaching forwards, she had only four fingers but two of them looked like thumbs, and she poked his cheek with a finger, “You guys really think we had to waste the stun on him?”

“Yes. It’s safer. We couldn’t have kept it anyways.” The quiet voice didn’t sound exasperated in the way they spoke but the words they used and their aura told Felix otherwise.

She sighed and stood back up then walked out of Felix’s vision, “Yeah yeah, but still… a 5 minute stun is…”

The quiet voice responded, apparently the only one willing to entertain the expressive girl’s constant jabber, “Worth a lot and was probably one of a handful left in the multiverse. Yes.”

She poked him again, “You know, based on the rumors and all that, why in the heck was Felix worth just as much as-”, she kicked Felix-or Arthur-in the side, “-him.”

The quiet one responded from what sounded like a fair distance away, “No clue.”

Groaning, the expressive female kicked Felix repeatedly in the side too lightly to really do any damage and more out of boredom, “Are you done yet?”

Reaching down and plucking out the last few cores, the tentacle faced individual stood and nodded, “Yup, he’s all yours. Melody, let’s go drop these off.”

Not much more was said but based on sounds alone, Felix was pretty sure Melody and the tentacle faced thief were gone leaving the expressive and tiny dinosaur chick and the quiet fish scaled guy. Stepping onto his stomach and finally fully in view, Felix saw that the dinosaur woman was just over a couple feet tall at most. Walking along his stomach, she inhaled and smiled widely, “So, what do you think I should do to him first?”

“I don’t care but we have to implant the tracker first.”

“Oh right.” Reaching into a pocket on her loose single piece of clothing, she pulled out what looked like a small cylinder. Dropping to one knee on his body, she pressed one end onto his chest and a moment later, Felix felt like someone had shot a literal bullet into his soul.

It pierced the outside layers of his Persona’s soul rather easily but couldn’t quite make it through the outer layer of his real soul beneath.

“You think it worked?” She looked over at her partner but either got a non verbal response or none at all because she turned back to Felix and shrugged, “Let’s get started then, shall we? Wait, he can surrender even while stunned, right?”

“Yes. He can surrender through a System screen.”

The System made the screen appear in his vision as if to taunt him and Felix immediately closed it. He still had 2 minutes left on the stun so in the meantime, he dulled his sensation of pain as much as possible and repaired his Persona’s soul. Destroying the tracker would have been trivial as it was just some anima spell or something that he could obliterated in an instant but he specifically didn’t.

The System couldn’t prevent him from using his soul for anything internal which meant he could destroy it whenever he wanted to but, he didn’t want them to realize he had done so. He wasn’t sure if they had some way of knowing it was destroyed so for the time being, he left it.

Dino-chick started out slow and built up the pain and she was pretty good at what she was doing but she clearly didn’t want to kill Arthur and so, she would never let his health drop too far.

After just a few seconds that she probably hoped felt like forever for him but in reality, was just annoying, Felix shifted his consciousness into his Mind City and met with Grim.

Felix specifically ignored the topic of his current predicament, “Thoughts?”

Grim already knew what he was thinking, “I’m in agreement with your assessment, so is Orion and almost all of the residents that watch.”

“Any bright ideas as to why someone would impersonate Melody?”

“It could be anything but our best guess is for you, as Felix.”

Felix sighed, “They thought I was still running around in here and wanted me to think she had betrayed me.”

Grim nodded, “Probably to stop you from calling on her for help.”

“Okay. Any ideas?”

“No, not enough information. Contextual and just… in general. You know exactly who has all the contextual information and knows the participants making them the perfect person to figure it out though.”

“Yeah, she’s not coming back into the event.”, Felix shook his head, “They aren’t gambling on anything so they definitely have her distracted out there. Who knows, maybe there actually is a bakery that just opened.”

“Any ideas how to break out of this?”

“Nope, you’re jus-”, Grim’s head cocked to the side, “-actually yes. You think The System didn’t account for time dilation back then or do you think it was always like this?”

Felix frowned until Grim presented him with a projection of his stunned System screen and saw what he saw, the time remaining was being reduced in Soul Garden time, not real time, “This must be a weird interaction, they would have planned around this otherwise. I bet you perceptual time dilation wasn’t a thing back then.” Checking to be sure, Felix saw his health sitting at around 80%.

The dinosaur woman seemed to believe she had much more time at her disposal than she actually did.

Felix looked back at Grim and nodded, “Alright, you know the plan. Make sure everyone is ready.”

Grim nodded in turn and Felix watched the rest of the time on the screen tick down in his Mind City.

As soon as the time left on the stun ticked down to 0, Felix had the forms for multiple spells emblazoned in the forefront of his mind and they were nearly instantly constructed and cast as a result. First he released two Persistent Force Spheres that simply resisted all movement around the quiet guy and the dinosaur girl. The rest of the spells he had prepared he simply held in place but didn’t cast, just in case.

Finally free, Felix identified the dinosaur-chick as he sat up, reached forwards and carefully manipulated his spell holding her still so his arm could pass through it.

[C - Epic] Iadrel (Lvl 1452)

Slowly wrapping his fingers around her tiny neck to ensure his grip was absolute, Felix looked over, identified the quiet guy and made sure he wasn’t going to escape somehow. He was obviously surprised but rather calm, especially compared to Iadrel.

[C - Legendary] Hadaaz (Lvl 1401)

Keeping Hadaaz in sight, who looked like a fish man except without scales on most of his face, Felix shifted his gaze to lock eyes with Iadrel as he stood. He realized as much as he should have been mad or frustrated, he was just annoyed and was ultimately just resigned to what he had to do, likely a product of the relaxing effect meditation had on him.

“Who.”

Iadrel opened her mouth a few times to speak and Felix knew he wasn’t crushing her windpipe so after a second of silence, he sighed.

Reaching forwards with his other hand, Felix wrapped his fingers around her jaw and physically tore Iadrel’s head from her body then walked over to Hadaaz and took hold of his neck as The Devouring Rings collected Iradrel’s body and soul.

“Who.”

Hadaaz didn’t even open his mouth and just closed his eyes, resigning himself to his fate. Felix killed him in the same way then activated both rings and began tearing through their experiences. Luckily, the promise of a bounty that amounted to a ridiculous fortune and being relatively recent was enough for the experience to be significant, at least for Iadrel.

The exact numerical values were a little fuzzy but from context, Felix figured he and his Persona were worth about 100 S5 if they could implant a tracker and force them to surrender. As for the person who wanted to personally kill him, they used a broker when hiring the thieves and torturers so Felix couldn’t identify them. Given the bounty though, it was either a god, a child of a god, the Drakene or many of them pooling resources together.

Figuring out who wanted him dead was ultimately a waste of time and Felix only did it because his entire Mind City was already scanning everything else. He was just hoping if he did figure out who it was, there was a rare chance he found information that was useful in hunting them down.

As soon as he was done, Grim spoke into his mind, Nova is fine. Worst case scenario for the quest though.

Looking around, Felix sighed as the entrance to the quest that had previously existed, was gone. Opening his quest screen, he groaned in frustration.

Quest: The Grand Design

Collect all 256 of the Imitation System Cores. [Complete] (256/256)

Assemble all 256 Imitation System Cores at the specified location. [Complete]

Enter the facility.

Insert the cores into their respective receptacles. [0/256]

Note: All Imitation System Cores must remain within the event at all times going forwards.

They made the hand-off and the client is already in the facility. Any ideas where it is or how to get in now?

No. Your map is empty despite being entirely revealed.

Felix opened his map for himself and panned around out of frustration and desperate hope that he would notice something. As Grim had said, the entire surface of the planet was revealed and all the cache locations he saw, he already knew about before. There was nothing new or different from before and definitely no quest marker.

What about the construct?

Lost connection instantly. Portal was severed.

Great. Now-

Felix’s thought was interrupted a moment later as a sleek, matte-black flying vehicle zipped over the horizon and closed the distance towards him in a matter of a few seconds.

Turning to the side and stopping Erevos in the air a safe distance from him, Melody peered over the side of the slicer, only revealing her eyes like she was hiding, and met Felix’s eyes.

Calling down, “You gonna try and kill me?”

Felix shrugged, “Should I?”

“Definitely not. Any chance you’ve seen a quiet and serious looking caster with red hair and whitish robes?”

“You mean Felix?” Felix-as Arthur-called back, “He surrendered to me.”

Melody scoffed and stood up a little, revealing a little more of her face over the edge of the slicer, “What? That doesn’t sound like him. Also, I couldn’t find him out there… weird. Maybe he was in his- Whatever, why are you just standing around?”

“I was robbed. By you.”

Sitting up fully, Melody scowled at him and Felix could tell she was examining him to see if he was telling the truth. She seemed to think he was because a moment later, she halved the distance between them, “Explain.”

“I was going in. Got hit with a stun and sleep. Was robbed. Bounty on my and Felix’s head. Put a tracker in me and tried to force me to surrender. I killed them.”

Her frown deepened as he spoke, “Wait… you mean an item from before the 3rd integration, a real System stun?”

Felix nodded.

“And one of the… thieves, looked like me?”

Felix nodded again, “Spoke like you too.”

Melody groaned, “Okay well first things first, it wasn’t me. I was just at the opening of a new bakery, lots of people can vouch. Second, I know who you’re looking for and I want to help.”

Felix snorted, “You mentioned the bakery opening before.”

Melody pouted and pounded her fist into Erevo’s door, “That wasn’t me! How could you even confuse us I mean come on, you have to admit finally seeing me up close I have that… x factor. That je ne sais quoi There’s no way this impostor could imitate that.”

Felix sighed, “Who am I looking for and how do I find them?”

“My brother.”

Felix frowned and figured her heritage was common enough knowledge for Arthur to know, “Which one.”

“Talrain.”

Felix scowled, “Are you sure?”

“Yeah… Dad was robbed… one of the items that was stolen was a stun item he was holding onto along with a lot of credits.”

“Where is he?”

Melody pointed and glared at Felix, “Don’t kill me.” Then she lowered the slicer and hopped out next to it.

Pulling out the instrument Felix had seen her use in Group Combat class, Melody glared at Felix one last time before closing her eyes and tapping at the instrument a few times. Like the last two times Felix had felt Melody use the instrument, a wave of visible gold shot out of the instrument. This time though, it was noticeably denser and moved quite a bit faster.

There wasn’t only one though as Melody rapidly tapped at the strings releasing a torrent of gold in every direction in an ominous symphony that shouldn’t have been possible from a single instrument. Felix wasn’t even sure if he was hearing anything but his soul was filled with a sense of foreboding. Like he was being hunted.

He couldn’t fully dissect what the golden waves did but, he was 100% certain he was able to block them out. They were still by far the strongest thing to have ever tried to touch his soul directly, save for The Endless Hunger. He could tell it surpassed what he felt looking at The Flames of Oblivion but now, with his newest protective layer, he wasn’t affected even by this, unless he wanted to be.

Suddenly, she stopped playing and stowed the instrument, “He’s still here, below us.”

Felix took a step forwards, “How far, which direction?”

She fell back a step, still wary of his persona then nodded, “Directly below us, close to the center of the planet. Here.” A screen appeared in Felix’s vision and he accepted a marker being shared directly to his map. Checking it, he confirmed the marker’s location.

Melody fiddled with her fingers and kicked the ground a little, “When you find him…”

“I’m killing him.”

She sighed, “I… yeah… I thought you would say that. If it helps, my father will punish him if he leaves this place, alive or dead.”

“You know I consume souls.”

“Yeah I was just… hoping. There isn’t any way I could like… pay you or… is there something you want that I can help you with… or get you?”

Felix shook his head, “No. Now leave.”

She looked up and nodded solemnly then opened her exit marble and threw a hoard of items through. She was evidently stalling but Felix didn’t immediately force her out because the quest screen hadn’t changed at all so he wasn’t entirely rushed. At the same time, while she stalled, he prepared a mold for a portal in his Soul Space and a few other items he was going to need.

Felix was happy to see she pushed Erevos through though and that she didn’t leave it behind with what she knew to be a destructive, true-killing monster.

Finally done with stalling by throwing a hoard of items that definitely weren’t in her inventory, probably to try and entice him into changing his mind, Melody locked eyes with Felix’s Persona then made a pouty and squinting expression, “Soooo… is there any chance you could like… return my clothes to me on the outside?”

Felix’s face contorted into a grimace of disgust and she scoffed, “Well, I’m not stripping so… I surrender.”

Sighing, Felix confirmed her clothes were in his inventory and made a mental note to find a way to return them when he got back then, got right to work.