Infinitium

SYSTEM Message:

Xeli Corporation STAGE 3 Unique Event Opportunity has ended.

All Guests that chose to participate are now being returned to their point of origin. Please note that all Yellow and Red Pillars have also been removed.

1 Trillion Bounty has been returned as no one succeeded in killing the Apex Hunter

Costs for travel have been compiled and subtracted from the Xeli Corporation main Credit account.

Valeria Celeste Xeli read the message and couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She knew for a fact that over 500 Tier 5 individuals had accepted the quest and had been ferried over. While the transportation costs altogether only came out to about 500 billion credits the return was going to cost just about the same which meant her company was out 1 trillion credits and had nothing to show for it. While Xeli Corporation was valued at just over 250 quintillion credits, looting a Trillion would still have to be explained to Father.

Valeria opened her terminal and sent a query to The SYSTEM.

Querry: What happened to and Where is the Apex Hunter that was the target of the previous Stage 3 Quest Xeli Corporation sponsored?

Entity Designated as Apex Hunter was removed from Sponsors sphere of influence by ERROR. Current whereabouts are unknown.

Querry: Define unknown.

Unknown…Outside of The SYSTEM

Valeria closed the terminal and sat back, pondering what she’d just learned. Then she stood and teleported directly into her father's Office. The teleportation hadn’t taken her outside of the universe she’d been in but she’d moved a significant distance onto her Father's Station that overlooked…Nothing

“Isn’t it beautiful,” her father asked as he continued to look into the darkness that had nothing in it.

“Father, you say that every time and every time I say to you, What is so beautiful about the emptiness outside of your window,” Valeria said tiredly.

“And I always explain to you that the fact that there is nothing at the center of this Universe, the 1st Universe as far as anyone can tell is precisely why it is so beautiful. This time will be different though.

Valeria looked at her father closely as she considered his words, “How?”

“This time I think I’m ready to embark on the great journey,” he said with a smile

“You’re going to ascend,” she said with a little shock in her voice.

“Don’t be like that Val, we’ve both lived for a very long time, it is time for me to move on and see what’s next.”

“But,” Valeria said with a quiver in her voice.

“We both know we’ll see each other again. In fact, your mother broke quite a few rules coming back to tell both of us what’s on the other end of that decision,”

“True, but I won’t be able to come to you for advice,” Val said.

“Did you need my advice about the fiasco that just happened on the shadow Earth? So, a whole bunch of rich kids went and got themselves killed and the company spent over 1 trillion credits in your effort to try to fix the problem. It’s Prestige with others and Credits. Ultimately, unless something is going to directly influence your personal growth, it’s transitory and doesn’t matter. Unless it concerns family of course,” he said as he walked from the window to stand in front of her.

Valeria could tell from his demeanor and focus that he meant what he’d said and that he would be taking the next step. She sighed and stepped forward, which turned into her father wrapping her arms around her like he’d done so many times before. Unlike before it was a firm, but quick hug as he opened his arms and she stepped back. Both stood silent as she reached up and cleaned the corner of her eye where a tear had started to form with her finger, “Who takes over Xeli Corp?”

“You, of course, The SYSTEM has made it clear that I needed to relinquish all of my physical assets that I could not carry on my person or in my personal space. I’m leaving everything to you.”

“Any thoughts on what I should do about this Apex Hunter?” Valeria asked.

“None at all, my thoughts have been elsewhere. That said, I think you’ll do just fine,” Her Father said before he asked, “Will you stay to see me off?”

“Of Course,” Valeria said as she watched her father whisper “I Love You” as she whispered back, “I Love You Too.” Then, her father’s eyes focused, he smiled and vanished.

All Quantum, Electronic, Ability, Skill, Perk, and Spell-based Links to Adrian Silas Xeli have been severed permanently.

Valeria looked at where her father had vanished from and wished him a silent prayer. She would keep this station if for no other reason than her father was right. The fact that nothingness had erupted into existence during this incarnation was important, but she didn’t know how yet. Maybe she could cast this Apex Hunter into the Nothing? That would certainly settle all of her current issues.

First, though, she had to find this Apex Hunter and end the threat to herself and her Corporation.

***

It, no he, consisted of many memories from many entities spanning many realities that kept fluttering in and out of existence. One moment he is now a she rushing her two children away from something that is chasing them before her terror is absorbed and snuffed out. The next, who was he thinking about? HE could remember everything, he knew that he could remember everything, it was a core to his identity, yet he could not remember himself. The zillions of identities that flashed through his consciousness all had names and then they didn’t. It was like…It was like time was constantly being changed and timelines were allowing the memory to exist and fade, except that couldn’t be it. He knew, he didn’t know how he knew but he knew if that were the case he would remember each time the memory appeared and disappeared and be able to see the changes because time didn’t affect him so this was something else

Could this be a version of his mind that was backed up by a severe or in-quantum energy matrix that was being infiltrated? No, he knew that he had put safeguards in place to prevent that. He could even remember doing so. One aspect of the flashes of identity that manifested and disappeared was that they were chaotic, Chaos? Yes, Chaos! Chaos was his element, or calling, or whatever it was to him. But it shouldn’t and had never done this to him before, he was sure of it. Then again if he was Chaos and Chaos was him could the memories of himself be something else?

He thought back to his first memory because his memory was perfect and his first memory was one of utter isolation without sensory input. Nothing around him, Nothing touching him. Nothing. Then something. A feeling of spreading out and through something that didn’t feel, smell, taste, sound, or look like anything and also did feel, smell, taste, sound, and look like everything. As soon as he’d realized that the memories of existences as zillions of entities, from the smallest bacteria to the largest dragons had flooded his mind and disappeared. Almost like shadows that came into focus and then vanished.

The only conclusion that he could come up with was because for some reason he knew what he should be able to do even if he couldn’t remember who he was. The only conclusion was that he was not himself but possibly an aspect of himself that had made it into the true Chaos of the reality his true body found itself in. How did he know that?

One thing became apparent, the more he fought to remember, the more solid the memories he was recovering became and the more he started to remember after they appeared and vanished. Especially memories that involved any sort of skill or memory concerning magic. As this started to happen he felt himself solidify somehow and now he could feel himself being buffeted on all sides as if he were a rubber ball deep underwater trying to make its way toward the surface as various currents hit it from all directions randomly.

Now that he could feel his shape he started reaching out into the, fluid? For want of a better description, he reached out into the “fluid “ around him and felt those memories that had been entering and leaving him. He tried to hold on to one and this time it became part of him and didn’t leave. Had his mind once again been flung apart and he had to find himself? Where had that thought come from? As those questions crossed his mind he answered himself as he realized that whatever this was, it was similar but different. He could work with similar.

He started holding on and attaching the memories and fragments of memories as the ball that was his center expanded. After a time he remembered his name, Adam. And he remembered everything he could do. He dropped into his Mindspace easily enough and found everything as it was supposed to be…No, he did not. There was a haziness to everything. The area was indistinct like it was both real and unreal. Yet, he remembered everything that he, Adam had been through and even the hijacking of the SYSTEM which was followed immediately by him waking up in this place, wherever this was, though he could guess that this was an area of Chaos, outside of The SYSTEM. How did he know that? Because he couldn’t pull up an interface.

It could be a place where his spirit had been relegated for eternity for the things he’d done but Adam didn’t believe for a second that he deserved to be in any version of hell. He had helped far more people than he’d hurt…but. But, he had hurt quite a few people also so maybe. Adam soon figured out that there could not be some form of afterlife when he tried to access his Soulcore and couldn’t find it. There was a framework, to which his consciousness and memories were attached but there was nothing in the center, nor was his Animae core there.

Adam considered this for a moment and then a lesson he’d learned while in one of the quantum realities surfaced into his mind, Everything and Nothing could exist within Chaos. That meant that he was not the real Adam but an echo and if he was an echo then the real Adam had to be out there somewhere. Adam exited his Mindspace and started looking.

Once he realized that his Soulcore and Animae were missing, Adam felt a pull in a specific direction, though the word direction was not completely accurate. If he was floating in Chaos it was more appropriate to say that he felt a resonance and to follow that resonance he had to adjust his own. As he adjusted his resonance there came a point where he felt like the path to the resonance was blocked. He could feel that the part of himself that was missing was on the other side and just as he was about to settle in and wait a tear through the resonance appeared.

Adam could feel that part of himself that was missing on the other side of that tear and wished for it to be brought to him. Without knowing how tendrils shot out from the sphere that he’d become and into the spatial tear. A moment later Adam, The true Adam because he could feel his Animae within, was recombined with his physical form and pulled through the resonance like it wasn’t there. The humanoid version of himself was pulled into the spherical version of himself and merged as the spatial Tear closed.

Adam’s humanoid body was absorbed into the sphere. His Soulcore and the Animae within, however, were redirected into the space that he had created as everything went dark.

SYSTEM Restrictions Removed

Adam opened his eyes to find that he was once again within a soup of pearlescent Chaos. He also realized immediately that he was outside of the SYSTEM and could feel that the restrictions that had been imposed on him had been snapped. As he looked into himself further he could see how those restrictions had been attached and how they’d suppressed his nature which had then created this version of himself that had reached out when it was possible to reconnect.

He reviewed the memories that this other version of himself had “remembered” and found copies of those memories within himself which told him that they were echoes formed within the boundlessness of chaos. How Ironic. The SYSTEM had tried to limit him and in so doing had forced a portion of himself into the one place he’d never been, Chaos outside of The SYSTEM. He spread his Perk Sense of Chaos and sighed. He quickly checked his Personal Map which showed an empty three-dimensional graph so he focused in on the distances and saw that the range from himself to the nearest edge of the map he could sense was 15.5 tredicillion miles. That was 2.64 million years.

Adam considered that for a second and realized that out here in Chaos where limits and the Speed of Light were not a thing, that kind of range meant nothing. Inside the SYSTEM it would also mean nothing as he wouldn’t be able to receive that information at faster than the speed of light. Sure if he stood still for a moment he could concentrate and let his senses go and detect everything as far out as he was willing to wait for but the information would probably be lagged by a time delay set by the speed of light.

Adam concentrated on the perk and set it to just under the approximate speed of light at 186,000 miles. Then he set all information from further out to be archived and only flagged his attention in certain instances. For that, he pulled up the program he’d created for Thor and slotted only the criteria for dangerous problems into the watcher portion of his mind he left to that task. Everything with one light second was for him to worry about.

Here though, he felt his surroundings with his Sense of Chaos, you know what, he was outside the SYSTEM. Adam dropped down into his Soulcore, found the node that was his Sense of Chaos perk, and renamed it Sense Chaos. Sense of Chaos sounded like something he’d exude from his body. Sense Chaos sounded a lot better. Adam felt the area of Chaos he was in and felt the Resonance his physical body had been pulled from. He also felt other resonances. Some felt like they were higher, others lower. Many more felt like they were parrel to the resonance he felt and he felt tugged in two directions, one a bit stronger than the other. As he felt the resonances out, one felt like the other half of his soul, while the other felt like a small part of his soul. They had to lead to Adaline and Pandora. The one that felt like Pandora also had softer resonances which were probably his parents and the others he had a close connection to.

Adam brought his attention back to the resonance his body had come out of and he focused on it. what it felt like and how to match that resonance. As soon as he did it was as if a curtain had been lifted and he stepped into the vacuum of space where he’d been standing when he broke through to the other side. He didn’t reappear in the plane his Astral Form had been in when he used the Chaos Blade to make the tear that led to Chaos. He was in orbit above Earth as a flotilla of ships appeared in orbit and time froze.

Not affected by the halt of the temporal flow, Notifications began scrolling through Adam’s vision.

SYSTEM Access Restored

SYSTEM Limiters Added

SYSTEM Limiters Added

SYSTEM Limiters Added

ERROR

SYSTEM Limiters Failed to Take Effect

Order Doctrine inside Order Domain Imposed

Order Doctrine Nonapplicable, See Paragraph 166.2.3.C {NOTE Attempts to quantify or limit Chaotic entities are highly discouraged. Make one attempt to do so. If that attempt fails refer to the entity definition of self and how it sees itself within the parameters set by The SYSTEM. Once known, work with those parameters.

Reviewing Status

NOTE: Adamantadine, the values that you have identified as your attributes are outside the structure of Tier 1 – Tier 5 Basic Users. The SYSTEM recommends that you Ascend as soon as you reach Teir V level 100.

NOTE: No Title or Leveling reward granted for Tier 1 – Tier V will bring you above your current attributes

NOTE: More information will be made available to you when you Ascend.

Adam closed his Notifications and looked down at the planet below him.

Sense Chaos allowed Adam to instantly know where everyone on Earth was as well as every SYSTEM City Node and every SYSTEM Shop Node. With Mold Chaos he created nanites across the globe repaired everything and then made sure everyone had at least a one-month supply of water whether it be pallets of water or a well. He also created phone boxes that contained battery-powered, communicators that were quantumly linked to Ray. That way they’d be able to call for help in an emergency.

As for the influx of mana, there was nothing he could do about that, nor would he. With Ray available to General Duvall they should be able to isolate and overcome any common threat that might appear. Once the basics were taken care of Adam activated Technomancy and linked directly to Ray.

With a thought he pushed all the information she might need to protect this Earth. There was nothing he could do about the SYSTEM Imposed nanite restriction but she could use the information to create a dome around herself and the base to keep everyone at the base safe. All she needed was resources which she could get access to with the portals she used. He also updated all local stellar charts with the information Sense Chaos was feeding back to him.

To make sure Ray had all the information she’d need to access the asteroid belt and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, Adam waited in orbit for two hours. He activated his skill You Can’t See Me and then took over anything that popped into orbit that was looking for him. It was fun watching the various Xeli Corporation scout pop into orbit, and blast their scanners at the planet and surrounding space, only for negative information to be fed back to them because as soon as the command went out Technomancy altered it.

One commander had the intelligence to know something was up and utilized their scanners from outside the range that light could travel in one second in an effort to keep him from affecting the scans. While Adam could still utilize Technomancy on the ship it would still be two seconds before he could alter the output the scanners were giving. Of course that would have been true if Adam hadn’t just activated a portal right up against the ship which brought him within range as soon as he detected the ship. If the ship was 2 seconds away. It would take 4 seconds for the information to return. For Adam, it only took 3 seconds. 2 seconds to receive the information the ship was in orbit, and 1 second to open a portal and use technomancy at almost point blank range to ensure the return scanner signal was ignored and false data was presented.

After two hours he was done making sure this Earth would be able to defend itself for a little while at least. Ray had detected him, but when he’d sent a message to continue with her current projects she’d gone back to work. Adam teleported next to the SYSTEM Shop Node in New York City and stepped inside.

As he appeared in the shop Alerna looked his way, her eyes went wide and she promptly fainted. Adam moved and caught her before she fell off the box she was standing on. As he lifted and carried her up to the counter, he used Mold Chaos to create a blanket and pillow on the counter for her and laid her down. Next, he created a glass of water for her and waited

He didn’t have to wait long because she bolted upright and looked around frantically until her eyes focused on him. As he offered her the glass of water she asked in a hesitant, half-accusing voice, “What did you do?”