Imri did his best to remain calm and centered. If he panicked and overreacted, he wouldn’t have any chance of beating this powerful Sentinel. He had to redouble his resolve when it teleported away from a second close-range Dimensional Tear.

While he hadn’t managed to hit the construct, it was having a small effect. The Sentinel’s core had dimmed by a perceptible amount, which meant it was going through mana at a prodigious rate. Unfortunately, Imri’s consumption of mana still far outpaced the Sentinels, and he would never win an endurance battle against an enemy that out-leveled him enough that even his Identify didn’t work.

Imri dodged another volley of the enchanted metallic shards. With each exchange, his mana dipped lower, forcing him to recover his mana from his personal mana crystal for a second time.

Things went from bad to worse as the construct ratcheted up the frequency and speed of its attacks, giving Imri no time to contemplate his next move. He had just gotten used to those attacks when the creature made an unexpected attack; a beam of condensed and destabilized mana shot forth from the Sentinel’s core like a laser.

Imri managed to Blink away from the beam before it hit him. However, even without getting hit, the destabilized mana was strong enough to give him mana burns on his exposed skin. Between the open wounds and burned flesh, Imri’s HP had dipped below comfortable levels, and if he kept taking damage, the fight would end in his death.

Out of options, Imri prepared for one final assault by topping his mana off. He then twisted his Temporal Expansion ring, increasing its amplitude so that the effect would only last a few seconds.

Before Blinking closer, Imri cast Time Collapse. While it wasn’t as effective as his Temporal Expansion, it further allowed him to accentuate the difference in their relative time. As soon as the spell took effect, he used Blink to close the distance, just as he had done the previous two times.

The moment he appeared in front of the Sentinel, Imri punched forward as fast as he could. A small Dimensional Tear lanced forward towards the core. It moved faster than anything Imri had managed, especially considering the Sentinel’s perception of time.

To Imri’s horror, he could see the mana begin to envelop the construct, attempting to pull it through space to a distant point. While already holding two spells, Imri lashed out with a third. The Sentinel was trying to collapse the distance between two points, so Imri threw a Dimensional Expansion into the space around it.

The two spell effects clashed, and Imri’s spell was quickly overwhelmed by the far more potent teleportation spell. However, the slight disruption had delayed the spell from activating for a fraction of a second.

The bullet-like void in space pierced cleanly through the power construct and punctured its core. The resulting explosion likely would have killed Imri if it hadn’t been for the completion of the Sentinel’s spell. The waves of force went through the teleportation spell, essentially moving the center of the blast to the location it had intended to teleport to.

Even with the force dispersed, the explosion still far exceeded the previous time Imri had killed a Sentinel due to the higher amount of mana in the core. Fortunately, Imri had enough time to Blink further away from the blast's epicenter. He used Blink a second time as it became apparent how devastating the explosion had been.

Even at a relatively safe distance, Imri felt the ground reverberate and heard the loud boom for a second time as his teleportation moved faster than the soundwaves through the air. The explosion created a wide but shallow crater and collapsed the cave entrance. An even larger radius of destroyed vegetation extended a couple hundred meters.

Imri sighed and collapsed to the ground, more depleted than ever. As he came down from the adrenaline, he became acutely aware of the pain from his burns and cuts. However, that was nothing compared to the sheer agony that lanced through his head. Imri had almost wholly depleted his mana with the last Blink and suffered from a moderate over-channel. The exhaustion was on top of already being tired before the fight even began. He was so exhausted that he wasn’t sure if he could enter and maintain meditation.

Another Sentinel appeared as he contemplated what percentage of MP regeneration to convert to HP. The first Sentinel was quickly followed by a second and then a third. They had appeared seemingly from nowhere, and Imri suspected they had capabilities similar to the one he had just faced. The blinding mana concentration all but confirmed it.

“Combat assessment results, barely adequate,” the Sentinel intoned in a series of loud, deep beeps reverberating across the nearby mountain wall.

“Commencing extraction protocol,” another intoned.

Before Imri could utter a curse, a massive amount of mana that exceeded his entire mana pool enveloped him. To his mana vision, it once again seemed similar to his Blink spell, but it wasn’t quite the same. Before he could study the spell any further, the effect activated.

Instantly, his surroundings changed. The open sky was replaced with a ceiling, though it was far above him, almost like the domed roof of a stadium, only even grander in scale. To Imri’s horror, there was a massive distance from where he stood to the bottom of the strange structure, making the enormous structure a sphere. Even more terrifying, he appeared to be standing on a small platform suspended in midair, seemingly defying physics. An ominous blue glow permeated the space, with the edges of his vision being darker while the center of the strange room was so bright he couldn’t look at it directly.

Imri inspected himself, noticing that something had healed his injuries, and he didn’t even have a scratch on him. However, as he tried to feel Emelia through his bond, he could not sense her at all. Likewise, his Spatial Beacons couldn’t be felt either.

The strange platform Imri stood on was about the width of a typical sidewalk but only continued for several meters. As he walked forward, the back of the platform broke off into shards before flying towards the end Imri was walking towards. Within a fraction of a second, they had reformed into a new section of walkway. As he took several more steps, the process repeated itself, so there was always a little over a meter of material to walk on. Imri also found that if he shifted his body to face a different direction, the platform would reorientate itself, so he always had a walkway in the direction he was facing.

A deep booming omnidirectional voice spoke, “Scan of anomalous entity completed. Analysis completed. Commencing first contact protocol.”

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It took a moment for Imri to register that it hadn’t been using the same beeping noises that the Sentinels had used but was speaking in English. “You can understand me?” Imri asked stupidly, unable to formulate a more insightful question in his discombobulated state.

“Affirmative. The scan has extrapolated sufficient data to process the human language, English,” the entity said.

“Where am I, and why am I here?” Imri asked.

“You are currently in substation ‘6SO8LPZ2’ in the solar system ‘GL9KZBCDU7TO’. You are here because Sentinels had insufficient processing capabilities to analyze you properly,” the entity explained.

“But why did you need to analyze me?” Imri asked.

“Our predictive models indicate the probability for you to reach tier 5 is statistically significant. All such entities must have a complete scan to reduce variance to a tolerable level,” the entity said.

Imri paced along the strange walkway as he considered what to ask the seemingly omniscient entity. It seemed content to wait for Imri, not bothering to ask him questions of its own.

“What are you?” Imri asked.

“I am unit ‘EOI0C6I’, a sub-mind for unit ‘AF9MX9AXEIZP’ within the Collective Intelligence,” it said simply. Imri just sighed.

“What is this place? What is its purpose?” he asked, hoping it would give a more detailed answer that would give him more context.

“This is a mana-gathering array built around a star. Using terms derived from your language, this is a Dyson Sphere powering a Matrioshka brain. This station's primary purposes are to run simulations to model this universe, collect data, and defend critical Collective Intelligence assets,” the sub-mind said.

Now, that was some helpful information. If the sub-mind was truthful, Imri was on a station encompassing a star. The scale of this structure was mind-boggling, and the entire mega-structure was powering what was likely a near-omniscient AI that ran on mana.

“How am I not being crushed by the gravity of the star?” Imri asked.

“There are runes within this chamber that provide a gravity equivalent to your worlds,” the sub-mind explained.

Imri moved through the room on his strange reassembling platform towards the nearest wall. As he got close enough, he could see the entire wall covered in intricately inscribed runes beyond his comprehension. He suspected the entire stadium-sized room was covered in runes just as complex as the small section he could now see, and this was only an insignificant section of a far larger whole.

After finishing his cursory inspection, Imri asked, “So, mana comes from stars?”

“Yes, that is a mana source,” the AI confirmed. Imri noted that it said ‘a source’ rather than ‘the source.’

“When I saw it through my mana vision, it seemed closer to a gas than a ray,” Imri thought aloud.

“Mana is dynamic, and its state changes within the radius that can be affected by a planetary core. This effect allows the planet to disperse mana to different regions in differing amounts, creating varying mana densities. However, it is usually not as diverse as the planet you were on,” the AI helpfully provided.

“If a star provides mana, why did Earth have no mana? Did the sun have no mana?” Imri asked.

“That was what most of our simulations were trying to discover until we could scan you,” the sub-mind said.

“Me? How did I help you figure that out? Was it because I’m human?” Imri asked, baffled by the AI’s response. It was also the first time it hadn’t answered his question.

“You are not human. You are a Primordial, which makes you a unique data point, but also something our models had not predicted, introducing chaos. However, your scan was informative, bringing variance down to within tolerable limits. Unfortunately, I cannot say more; it would go against a higher-order directive,” the AI said. The way it emphasized chaos and variance made it clear the concept was abhorrent to it. Imri wondered if it had an emotional response or if it was just an affectation to seem more empathetic.

Imri cringed at being called ‘not human,’ but he did his best not to let it bother him. He was human in all the ways that mattered to him. Unfortunately, the sub-mind was unyielding when delving further into what made him unique, despite Imri asking dozens of variations on the questions. Sighing, Imri gave up and moved to a different topic.

“Why are you being so helpful? Why tell me anything?” Imri asked, the question having nagged at the back of his mind for a while.

“One of our directives is to provide adequate compensation for anything of value. Your data far exceeds any compensation we can provide without breaking higher-order directives, so we will give what information we can,” the sub-mind explained.

Imri mentally thanked whoever created some level of fair trade in the omnipotent AIs, even if their priorities were a bit skewed. He began mentally listing everything he could learn from the god-like beings.

“Can you teach me any spells or runes?” he asked.

“No, that breaks a higher-order directive,” it responded.

“Can you tell me about the other species integrated onto the planet?” Imri asked.

“No,” the AI said simply. Imri assumed this was because it broke another one of its directives. When he tried several other questions along a similar line, the AI added, “A higher-order directive of non-interference in system integration events until a world capital is established prevents us from sharing information that will directly give you an advantage over others.”

“Couldn’t all knowledge be classified as an advantage?” Imri asked, mentally berating himself for the knee-jerk correction when it directly benefited him.

“It is. However, there is a higher-order directive that permits the proliferation of general knowledge,” it explained.

“Just how many directives are there?” Imri asked.

“A directive prevents sharing details about the Collective Intelligence,” it supplied unhelpfully.

“If you’re not supposed to interfere in system integrations, why do you have a prison on our planet?”

“One of the criteria for prison worlds is that their integration probability approaches zero. A new tier 1 world should not have the mana density to support the integration of such a world. However, Earth's low mana density skews your planet,” it explained in an almost irritated tone. However, Imri suspected it was due to the inability to predict what had happened and not with his barrage of questions.

“Why did the Sentinels attack the Troglodytes?” he asked.

“Sentinels are not fully sapient. They are crude tools designed as a last defense against intruders. It was not predicted that they would come into contact with sapient beings on a newly integrated world,” the AI said. Again, its tone when it mentioned anything was unpredictable almost seemed to pain the being.

“Why was the entity known as the ‘Ancient One’ imprisoned?” Imri asked.

“It was classified as a chaotic entity. Such a variable is unacceptable given its tier,” the AI stated.

“So, it was less about what it did and more about its unpredictable nature?” Imri clarified as a growing sense of dread began to overtake him.

“Yes,” the AI stated.

“Am I an unpredictable entity?” Imri asked after steeling his nerves.

“Yes.”