His drive to reach the third star only increased. And to do that, he needed to fight a lot of enemies.
That's why he took Amanda, Caroline, Veronica, and Freddy to the Zomberican Revolution Dungeon. Noah stayed behind because he would diminish their rewards just by being there. They set up their defensive line and ground the undead horde.
Robert was impressed by how effective Veronica was against the undead. Her Holy magic was poison to them. When Washington's ghost appeared, she put the former President to rest with a single two-star spell.
They appeared outside the Dungeon in the Bosstown catacombs. The place now had access to the sky and lay at the bottom of a cone of rubble, for some reason.
Robert didn't feel guilty for the fight that happened in this city. It would've happened anyway, somewhere else.
Some observers rushed to tell their bosses about their use of the Dungeon. But these criminal organizations, when compared to the Endless Hive's army, seemed like a bunch of children playing in a cardboard fortress. With crayons in their ears and glued to a TV set that may or may not be a mimic.
He took everyone to Amanda's arcology mansion. They saw no reason to sleep in the Taulusian Resistance's camp now that the novelty had passed.
There, he talked to Amanda for a while and kept her company until she fell asleep.
Then, it was time for even more advancement grinding. In the Gurglock Oceans.
Deep underwater, he spread his curses and killed the really-fish people instead of the maybe-fish people in another world.
He went from colony to colony, taking care not to ober-hint any particular spot. But the month he spent recovering from the head crush episode at the end of his vacation gave the Gurglocks plenty of time to rebuild their numbers.
Eventually, he bumped into the cursed waters left behind by Carcinodon. The strange phenomenon proved to be a permanent thing. He had no idea whether it had grown or remained the same size but he leaned on the former.
That didn’t matter. The issue was, that the field wasn’t dissipating. Something or someone was maintaining it. Any freestanding Ether phenomenon required a source. Robert dove into the near void, as close to the liminal as he could. It was almost like finding a needle in a haystack but he relied on his stage two serendipity to guide him. He approached a region in the center of the affected area where he sensed danger.
He needed a better picture of what he was dealing with. Robert slowly returned to the liminal void. There, he saw it. A cartoonish, pulsating mass of flesh, a tumor that was sending waves of Life and Unholy energy into the water, the Netherecho, and even the liminal void. His mage armor blocked the effect from reaching him, thanks to the concept he imbued into it. Purple veins ran over pink flesh, bloating and pushing some vile fluid inside them. Bright yellow fat gathered at the corners and intersections of these veins.
Robert likened the mass of flesh to Carcinodon’s heart. It was an Ether construct manifested into the real world, echoing into the adjacent dimensions. It was… an opportunity.
He went back to the real world and was immediately assaulted by several monsters made out of deformed flesh and pulsating veins, just like the Heart. Robert had to dodge and fight these monsters as they mindlessly threw themselves at him. Several well-placed void lances cleared the immediate area. But he had to act fast. More and more mutated Gurglocks and even some fish were closing in on his location.
Robert placed a resilient sphere isolating the Heart and he from the outside, and dove into the Netherecho.
In the Netherecho, Robert felt fully exposed to the mutagenic properties of the heart. There, he held his ether construct, the Armillary Time Controller. Robert could see it in its full glory, not just a projection into a coexisting dimension. The heart opened two oval beady eyes and glared at him. It was the spirit of Uncontrolled Mutation. Studying its concept, Robert noticed it most likely was a unique spirit.
“Murderer!” It clamored. Jets of glowing green ooze flew toward Robert. He willed the dials on his construct to move and freeze time around the spirit. The force of the creature quickly sucked on his Essence reserves. His physical body was affected by the energies and his imprint took control over his Life essence, fighting against the changes. Black spots grew on his skin. Malignant melanomas.
Holding Carcinodon’s Heart still in time, Robert quickly formed an Ether shell and threw it at the spirit. His stars were depleted and the essence in his void heart was lower than a third already. The shell closed. Robert rushed to finish the runes that would keep the spirit contained, feeling dread and excitement at the same time. But before he could finish drawing the runes, his essence ran out. The sand in his construct’s hourglasses finished dropping and the heart was free once more.
It started to erupt out of the unfinished cage. Robert’s body, without essence, was unable to hold back the mutagenic energies.
That’s when four hands, with white gloves and noodly arms linking them to the two cartoon mice, held the shattering shell in place.
“Hot Dog! We arrived just in the nick of time, Minnie!” Mickey chirped. “Now, let’s shape this into something usable!”
*
*
Robert felt the cold air and rain sap the heat from his worn body as he surfaced. The shock stirred his consciousness and he opened his eyes. Coughing sea water, Robert shook his head and looked around. Incessant thunderbolts linked the dark clouds and the ocean surface, giving the air a scent of ozone.
He checked his essence reserves and found them empty. His imprint gave him a thumbs up as it sat on a bench in the backyard park of his intellect fortress, a place for relaxation and meditation. It was working hard at chugging that sweet essence out of the Void Gates of Nirvana. His biomass stores were almost all depleted as the imprint used it to keep his body from becoming one of the disgusting flesh blobs floating in the Carcinogenic Sea.
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He still felt the improbable mix of Life and Unholy Ether in the water around him but it was muted. Fading. Had he managed to capture the spirit? His Ethercosm showed no signs of change. No eighth color, no unique shell floating around. But his second star had ticked up by three percent from the last time he checked, before engaging with the heart.
With the research his imprint made in the Intellect fortress, Robert gained the ability to tell the difference between a stage four shell and a unique shell. The stage four shell had layers upon its runic bands, showing him the previous incarnations of the Mind Blackout spell. It started as a mind-reading spell, incorporating concepts of control and dominance.
The other shell, however, was different. The runic bands were thicker and stronger, carrying a stronger intent. While the stage four spell had overlapping concepts and evolutions guiding its purpose, the unique ability was closer to an ideal. It was like two painters had created masterpieces but one started from a humble picture and painted over it while the other just got it right on the first go. The former had nuance and worked within the expected boundaries, while still being a masterpiece borne of dedication, inspiration, and effort. While the latter seemed like the magnum opus of a mad genius, a once-in-a-lifetime work.
What the hell happened? Robert returned to the spot where he found the beating heart but found nothing. The essence was thinning, proving that the heart had vanished but he found no clues to its whereabouts.
With this mystery looming over his head, he went back home.
*
*
Robert appeared in his living room after spending his time in the true void time doing research. A spirit wouldn’t just depart and leave him to float to the surface unchallenged. His imprint didn’t have access to any extra sensorial perception and noticed nothing out of the ordinary.
As he took in his bearings, he found Amanda sitting on the sofa. She wasn’t happy to see him but her frown didn’t seem to be caused by him. He couldn’t be sure, though. That’s what he got for not checking the liminal void before resurfacing at once.
“Is something wrong?” He asked, worried.
“I just came from a board meeting. The directors want you to stop raiding in the Gurglock Ocean. They say you might be lowering the value of the realm. Things got heated, they were tossing numbers their analysts pulled out of their own assholes, the thing was a mess.”
Robert crossed his arms. “So? What did they decide?”
“That you are not to go to the Gurglock Ocean, nor the Minotaur Dungeon, or any of the associated passages. They outvoted me five to four. The worst thing? It is all a setup. Without you or someone with a long-range teleport talent or spell, the realm is worthless. They hedged their bets on the enterprise failing, and are now working to make their prophecy come true. When the passage proves to be not profitable, they will throw that in my face.”
“Then we just need to make it profitable.”
“There’s no we, Robert. You cannot set foot in those realms. They will know. There are people with tracking talents and they will look into it.”
“Okay. I won’t set foot in the realms they are looking at. Take my hand, let’s talk where nobody can hear us.”
He took Amanda to the true void. There, he held her with the right hand around the waist and the other grasping her hand to keep skin-to-skin contact.
“What do you intend to do? You really don’t want Samson coming after you.”
“And I’m pretty sure Samson doesn’t want to become the next MCP.”
Amanda looked offended by his suggestion. But she just bit her lower lip, frowned harder, and said nothing.
“Anyway. I mapped the entirety of the maze corridors. It has 486 passages, to 486 different realms. I could only match less than two hundred of those with known realms.”
She froze and widened her eyes. “Did you tell anyone about that?”
“Only Noah but I didn’t give him permission to reveal the information to anyone so it’s protected under the geas.”
After giving it some thought, Amanda relaxed. “Still, it’s the maze corridors. It’s useless for people crossing them unless they can run between portals before something triggers a change. You could teleport people there but it’s still useless because you probably already visited all of these realms and can go straight there. At this point, the Maze Corridors is a useless realm to you.”
“Exactly. My point is, the Gurglock world only has what? A hundred and fifty passages?”
Amanda rolled her eyes. “Please tell me you didn’t find underwater passages.”
“Ok, I won’t tell. And I won’t say that they lead to oceanic realms. I won’t say I also fixed the danger zone of the cancerogenous sea.”
“I never heard anything about that. I’d ask you to erase it from my mind but Granny would be really pissed.”
“I’ll remove my things and vacate the apartment. There’s no reason for me to keep renting in the arcology if I have a whole city for myself.”
Robert paused, then became alarmed. “Aren’t they doing this just to push us away?”
Amanda looked down, dismayed. “Took you long enough to figure it out. You rocked a lot of boats, Robert. Don’t think it’s over just because no assassin in the world would bother accepting a hit on you right now.”
“I need to reach three stars faster.”
“That would help. Or me reaching three stars as well. But please, don’t leave me behind.”
“How far away are you?”
“Very far away. I don’t intend to ascend before I absolutely must. I need the best talent evolution I can get. Unlike someone who can just throw away their stars and stack them up.”
“We’ll work on that. How do you feel doing some adventuring to complete Yolania’s catalog missions?”
She shrugged. “Sure, I can always use more money. But aren’t the last five the most dangerous missions?”
“There are more missions that don’t pay as well. But we can do those too, since when did it matter if we are being paid a hundred grand or several millions? Also, I’m not abandoning the Minotaur Dungeon. I need another one of these Prime Inquiry potions. If these executives have a beef against me using the Dungeon, they can try to keep me from using it.”
That Dungeon was not profitable enough to warrant long-range teleportation or a resident delving party. Either solution would put the cost of each delve above the value of the rewards. In the end, that vote to ban Robert was political grandstanding.
*
*
The week went by with lots of grinding. The party cleared the Undead Revolution Dungeon every day, and the Minotaur Dungeon (without Caroline) every two days. But the third Dungeon under their exclusive control was still off-limits. No signs of Amir’s return yet. Robert was curious and wanted to go there through the Void but the odds of the Dungeon sucking him into an unfavorable time frame were too big.
In his free time, Robert visited one of the quest realms he knew he could hunt some good monsters, now that he couldn’t terrorize the Gurglock Oceans. He still checked the sea of mutagenic essence every day, through the void to avoid being present in the realm and triggering whatever trap the Board left for him. The dangerous essence dwindled and vanished at the end of the week but Robert didn’t find what happened to the heart. Did the unique spirit escape? Though he didn’t have much use for the Unholy affinity or unique Life affinity related to cancer or mutation, the outcome left a sour taste in his mouth. He was so distracted he didn’t check his essence levels as he killed the condors in the Peruvian Cloud-Islands Realm.
When he did, he found he had more than he should. Paying closer attention, Robert noticed closely as a monster he’d cursed with drain essence died. He got exactly 3 points of essence back when previously he’d get nothing because the drained monster had nothing to give, not even its soul. He experimented a bit with other monsters, and the results were consistent. He was recovering 3 points of essence on each monster kill, no matter what.
Robert pondered. He was close to reaching completion of his second star but that was irrelevant. Was that due to the spirit of Carcinodon’s Heart? Did he somehow fail to trap the spirit but instead absorb it? In any case, it was on par with a talent one could find in a cheap to average Prime Vestige. Before he let the bubbling excitement get the best of him, he decided to wait and test if it was a temporary or permanent effect.