The first thing he focused on was finalizing the replacement for his cloak enchantment, in one of the various libraries where he could scan books simultaneously of course.

The basic premise for the-once spell now ability-was to essentially create what he was dubbing, Mana Skin. A thin film of mana along the outside of his skin that acted like a barrier. Like his cloak enchantment, he wanted it to react to incoming attacks and defend against them appropriately which meant, he needed to use various Mana Attunements.

Luckily, his new core gave him exactly that.

The tricky part was figuring out how to make it do what he wanted. He had all the materials in place, it was just the mechanics that were missing.

As he had done with his rendition of Mage Hand, Felix was hoping his Mana Control could take on the brunt of the work either through a build up of his instincts or through a building in his mind. Building up his instinct would have a faster reaction time and was ultimately the better solution, but it would take a long time to train. In the meantime, having his mental constructs do things for him was relatively easy.

All it required was for him to create a building to control some aspects of the outermost layer of his Soul, the thin film like shell over his skin he had created in Amatara’s recruitment.

Then, all he had to do was build up a basic level of intuition on how to control the skill manually. Once he figured that out, he could have his brain automate it entirely by executing the same process. That part was going to take some time but he was pretty sure he could do it during his last recruitment.

He worked on that right up until the next day when he and Melody slew thousands of beasts, with Nova this time. Nova didn’t seem to actually steal much of their experience at all though because she didn’t really participate. She much preferred eating the planet than killing endless hordes and even then, was bored very quickly.

Luckily for her, Tam brought her familiar to their sparring session just an hour later for Nova to play with. It was, exactly what Felix would have guessed, a Phoenix.

[S - Mythic] Phoenix (Lvl 6214)

Hah! So I’m not the only one with a familiar that has a higher level than I do.

Though it definitely would have been trivial for Dawn-Tam’s Phoenix familiar-to obliterate Nova, they didn’t. They didn’t even seem like they were annoyed having to play with something of a much lower level than them and rather seemed, both physically and in the torrent of emotion released upon the Ambient Anima from the two of them, to be having fun.

He was also rather glad they didn’t get offended when Nova transformed into a Phoenix herself.

She had a much easier time both controlling her abilities as a Phoenix and not running out of juice and exhausting herself instantly now. She still crashed every few minutes then recovered for a bit before jumping back in but, she was spending more Mana than she had been the first times she had used the form.

The early days didn’t change much, grinding levels, sparring with Tam, checking in on Art and Eni then working on personal projects while scanning a library.

After a few dekads though, Tam inevitably had other things to do and so they began sparring with other elites. None of them were quite as useful or as friendly as Tam but all of them held back just enough that Felix and Melody were pushed to their limits without risking actually dying.

Ameryl the Sword Sage was the best at figuring out how best to push them and what they each struggled with most in combat. For Felix, it was keeping his distance and avoiding being attacked along with finding the best openings, in essence, battle experience. For Melody, it was capitalizing on openings.

She excelled at dodging strikes and predicting her enemy and to Felix, it seriously seemed like she had some kind of foresight. He was pretty sure that was impossible though and so he figured she was likely just using her innate talents to read her opponents intentions. She could not however, read mistakes because they were inherently, not intentional.

That meant she had to recognize mistakes for herself and capitalize on them.

Felix’s ability to avoid attacks from opponents that were just shy of Gods was lacking, even after multiple dekads of training but his defensive skill, which he ended up relying on a lot more than he had hoped to, was working wonderfully.

It wasn’t perfect in just a few dekads by any means but specifically against Force and Fire, he was very close.

His proficiency with Mage Hand was also progressing rapidly as he began using it more and more each and every day and in just a couple dekads, he finally got to the point where he could control two proficiently. Neither were as capable as his real hands but they were at least as dexterous as his hands had been before the integration, which was still huge progress.

His Mind City was also progressing rapidly, the rate of growth having doubled now that Mark could handle all the minds running simultaneously and their reproduction had grown exponentially. They had even started setting aside raw Mana Computer to expand Mark by a whole Core in the future, effectively doubling his capacity and processing capabilities.

As Felix’s proficiency with everything he was working on grew, he found himself with more capacity and focus to dedicate to other things. He immediately began filling that time with some of the very first training he had ever done in the Multiverse, repeatedly creating Spell Forms.

Just like when he had been running through the very first puzzle dungeon where he had discovered Mana, Felix created and destroyed the very same spell forms over and over and over again.

It had been a while since he had done so, simply because he had far surpassed the point of diminishing returns with that form of training. It was simply more efficient for him to train near mature Curses or using Spell Forms at the limit of his focus when he was training his Casting Speed.

Now though, with his Attuned Cores, he could finally dedicate himself to properly learning to Instinct Cast more spells.

The Spell Forms themselves no longer changed every couple of dekads as he found new nodes, grew better at Spell Craft and as his Mana pool grew.

He would still get better with Spell Craft and change them over time but now, he didn’t need to worry about Mana Scaling or swapping out nodes. His spells were much more constant and so it was finally worth it to dedicate his time to instinctually learning them.

He started simple with Force Bursts which he could use for pushing himself and enemies but with how much focus he had now, he could work on many more simultaneously.

As with his Attuned Cores, he focused on the most generic, widely applicable spells.

Even that though, couldn’t eat all his focus, at least not for longer than a dekad. Simply creating the same thing over and over didn’t require he focus and think much at all. He didn’t have infinite focus though and so he supplemented his training by practicing a little bit with his Matter Senses and Control.

He didn’t bother summoning any other Spirits until he had spent more time with Eni and didn’t waste any time using his Profession skills when he had other, more important things to focus on in the recruitment.

Felix would have been perfectly happy repeating everything on the exact same schedule every day, slowly gaining Profession levels with Art and Class levels with Melody but she wasn’t.

Melody made them fight new and different beasts every day, not that it mattered much to Felix as they killed them all pretty easily. They weren’t allowed on any higher grade planets unfortunately and if they were caught on them, they would be kicked out of Osgard as a whole so, they didn’t bother.

She also had them visit a different restaurant at least once a day, when she couldn’t also drag him to lunch or breakfast.

Lastly, a few dekads in, Melody had started dragging Felix around the facility looking for locked doors for them to break into. The entire policy of the recruitment that they were allowed anywhere they could get into, except the leveling planets, was initially enticing for most but not Felix.

Realistically, with a rule like that in place, the rewards for breaking in anywhere wouldn’t be worth the time, at least not in Felix’s mind.

They had already found a few rooms which had turned out to be bedrooms along with a few meeting rooms, class rooms, markets, fences and storage rooms. None of them had been particularly exciting though and Felix didn’t bother stealing any more than a few scraps here and there. Mostly small bits of material for Nova to consume later on, never more than a few percent of what was stored though.

The entire thing felt like a bit of a waste of time to Felix but only slightly.

The only thing he couldn’t do when out exploring with Melody, was scan books. Otherwise, he continued on with the exact same training he would have done otherwise.

Still, losing out on scanning time was a bit of a bummer for him, especially given what they were finding.

It was only once they were about halfway through the recruitment that they finally found anything that piqued Felix’s interest.

Heading down one of the millions of halls off the main room of the facility that was, curiously empty of doors along either side, Melody insisted she felt something at the end.

Felix sighed and followed along, apparently slow enough that Melody felt the need to drag him by the wrist, as the hall slowly grew while bending and winding in every which direction.

Finally they arrived at the end of the hall after traveling what had felt like a few kilometers. Although, it wasn’t exactly the end of the hallway.

Directly in their path, filling the entire hallway from side to side and floor to ceiling was some of the biggest doors Felix had ever seen. It was a set of double doors that met in the middle and looked to be made of some dull metal like steel but obviously higher grade, at least visually.

Felix’s Matter Senses were abuzz as the door was made of the single densest material he had ever encountered and his Mana Senses made him a little dizzy with the amount of Mana flowing through the door. The enchantment on the door wasn’t as complicated as Felix had expected but it was channeling at least billions of Mana.

His Anima Senses though, provided the most shocking view of the door.

Much like the completely black door beneath the Teleportation Hub in Telviras, the one Felix had passed through to get to The Reaper’s demesne, the door felt like solid Anima.

It was easily the densest Anima Felix had ever felt shy of his Core Soul and even surpassed his own soul in sheer will power. It held three strong convictions of Guarding, Warding and Unyielding, the latter much like Felix’s own but subtly different.

Still, the fact that it was a door and not a creature-at least as far as he could tell-and had the strongest will he had ever felt, was jaw dropping, literally.

Melody, seeing his jaw agape, crossed her arms and smirked, “Told you there was something interesting at the end of this hall.”

Felix ignored her teasing and approached the door, tentatively reaching up and pressing a hand against it.

It felt, perfectly normal. It didn’t react in any particular way to him. It was exactly as he had sensed it. Solid, unwavering. The weirdest part, being right up against it though, was that he almost couldn’t feel anything on the other side. Almost.

He had originally thought the door was just absurdly thick but in reality, he could feel the other side with exactly one of his senses. His Matter Senses. His Anima and Mana Senses though were completely obscured. It wasn’t blurry or hard to make out, there was nothing there. Like his Senses just ended abruptly for some reason.

He had no idea why and focusing in on his Matter Senses, he could tell there wasn’t anything on the other side of the door, at least not within range of his Matter Senses.

Walking from one side of the door to the other, it seemed like the hall just continued on the other side.

“You done yet? Pretty sure we can’t break through this one. Unless…” Melody got up uncomfortably close and whispered into his ear, “You’ve been hiding something impressi-”

He side stepped away from her, “No. We can’t break through it.”

Just because I can’t break it… Well, sorry Melody but I’m definitely getting through it later.

Melody sighed, “Thought so. Come on, let’s head back. I know you’ve got a lot of training you want to catch up on.”

Felix nodded and slowly backed away from the door a few steps, trying to catch anything he might of missed, then hurried along and followed Melody back to their shared room.

After encountering the door, Felix forced something else into his training rotation. It pushed his Matter Senses and Control along with over half of his Instinct Cast training aside but, he knew it would be worth it. It was something he had planned on working on later only because he expected it to take longer than his recruitment. Now though, he had to make it work before the end, at least in any capacity.

So, he began disintegrating rocks.

It took him a couple of dekads to finally not disintegrate rocks when he Spatially Translocated them but, rocks were relatively easy. In theory his own body would be the easiest but he was not confident enough to just try that because worst case, he disintegrated his body and lost his Soul in the Aether.

Fruits, slightly more organic than rocks, were harder. Not because they were organic, but because they consisted of many different atoms with hugely varying internal forces holding it together. More simply, it was easier to rip an apple in two than a rock.

With just 3 dekads left by the time Felix started destroying various fruit, he definitely felt like there wasn’t nearly enough time for him to get what he needed done. He managed to move fruit and keep it whole. He just never managed to do so across the door they had found.

Using his Matter Senses, he didn’t even need to Translocate any of the fruit he sent over back because he could tell, they were no longer whole. Not a single one of them.

Despite not managing to get any fruit to move across the door without turning to dust however, he began working on new test subjects and, finally got to test out his Necromancy skill.

He didn’t bother imbuing the souls at all and just took a couple hundred corpses from his and Melody’s excursions every day. All he really needed anyways, was an organic body with a bound soul because they most accurately represented his own body.

Unfortunately, not a single one of them survived over the course of his entire recruitment.

Felix had gotten close, with some of his test subjects arriving whole just, without their souls. In theory, he was confident he would survive due to the control he had over his own soul. All of the mind constructs he consulted agreed with him. Grim agreed with him. The theoretical knowledge he had backed up his hypothesis.

Still, standing before the large double doors on the second last day of his recruitment, Felix hesitated. He stood there and looked up at the doors trying to decide if it was really worth it, risking his own life for some unknown behind the door.

The door was cool and possibly held something fantastic behind it but it was also possible it was a fancy-and well protected-bathroom.

He wanted to try though because using the spell on himself, was something he had a burning desire to master. The ability to Blink around, especially in a fight was something of a dream of his and so, it wasn’t just about getting through a door to access some unknown treasure.

That burning desire was the only reason Felix started slowly formulating a mass of spatial Mana within his Soul. It was the only reason he collected and grew it until he held within him a mass of just over 5 billion spatially attuned mana. It was the only reason he took that Mana, spread it all throughout his body, then took a breath and pushed himself out of space itself.

There was no emptiness, no loss of senses. It was completely seamless. Felix appeared the same instant he left in the exact empty spot he had targeted with his Matter Senses.

Though there was no memory and little to no passage of time, Felix could still feel it hadn’t been instantaneous.

His Soul suddenly held an experience his mind didn’t. There was no memory there but the experience, as he reviewed it before it began to fade, contained his body and Soul moving through the Aether. It was an incredibly odd experience for him and had his thoughts not been interrupted, he likely would have stood there for much longer.

“Finally. You know, you could have gotten through that door the day you found it.”

There was no doubt in Felix’s mind the voice was addressing him. There was also no doubt in his Soul that down the hall in front of him, was one of the strongest, most mature source of the Hunger Curse he had ever felt, rivaled only by the curse that he had released in Telviras.

Seeing as his presence was already known, Felix walked forwards, down the hall.

It held a single other turn which had initially obscured from him, a seemingly empty room. At least from the open doorway.

As he cautiously approached the door, Felix slowly began to see more and more of the room. First, he saw a large bed on the opposite side of the room, off slightly to the side. Following that was a large bar and almost kitchen on the right along with a couch to the left.

As soon as he saw that, he stopped because the couch wasn’t empty.

Sitting on it, at least from behind, was someone Felix was pretty sure he recognized, despite only having ever seen them a single time, in a memory crystal. They looked different, with streaks of gray and white hair filling in half of his mane, instead of the unruly, solid dark brown Felix had last seen. He also wore a top this time, a silky looking white dress or robe of some kind.

Rhonan (Lvl 18975)

18,975? What the… fuck? How… does anyone catch up? Also… where is his grade and rarity?

Felix took another tentative step forwards, sheer curiosity piercing his state of utter shock.

There was another couch set up perpendicular to the one Rhonan sat on, in front of it. On it, sat another god. An Elf that, despite her face being contorted in deep concentration and her eyes squeezed shut, still looked as elegant as anyone Felix had ever seen. Like she was a fragile porcelain doll, or a very fine marble sculpture.

[SS - Mythic] Kotia (Lvl 5823)

Taking another step, he saw another god sitting on the couch next to Rhonan, to his left. They looked to be female with white hair tied into a tight pony tail with rather pale skin. They were also the only one to be looking at Felix as he entered, their torso turned and head craned over the back of the couch as their unnaturally blue eyes scanned him.

[SSS - Unique] Elrena (Lvl 8601)

He hesitated once more but as soon as he did, Elrena nodded to him then turned back to whatever they were looking at.

Lastly, on a couch across from Kotia, was another god that, judging from their posture, had similarly clamped their eyelids shut in concentration.

Felix could only see the back of their head but they had wild looking hair that was blue, green and every shade between. He wore robes and had multiple swords sheathed on his back.

[SS - Exotic] Nyrrasil (Lvl 6047)

Across from Rhonan, on the wall, was what appeared to be either a television, a projected video, a rectangular portal or some kind of illusion. As far as Felix’s Matter Senses, Mana Senses and Anima Senses could tell though, it wasn’t an illusion. There was little to no Anima involved along with nothing notable in terms of Mana. It was like it was a television, without the television. There was simply a rectangle of light in the air with nothing Felix could sense to produce that light.

It just existed.

On it, a battle was playing out between Nyrrasil and Kotia.

Lifting his hand and pointing at the screen, Rhonan addressed Felix without looking up from the massive slab of meat he was eating, “Wanna bet on who will win?”

In front of him-on the table in the middle of the three couches and the impossible screen-sat an absolute mountain of meat, or half of one. It was obvious that half of it had been eaten already because of the very obviously shaped hole in the pile.

Before he could answer-though he wasn’t sure he would have been able to find the words-Elrena, the white haired god next to him, the one that had been watching him shook her head, “Don’t.”

Felix wasn’t entirely sure she was talking to him and if she was, whether she didn’t want him to guess, bet or step any further.

Noticing his hesitation, Elrena turned her head to face Felix, locked eyes with him and offered a slight grin, “Bet, I mean. He’s never been wrong before about a fight. At least not in my lifetime.”

Felix looked from her to Rhonan, who had already replaced the slab with a leg, and back to Elrena before he realized his jaw was slightly open and he closed it.

Without looking away from the screen, and without a doubt in Felix’s mind as to who he was addressing, Rhonan swallowed so he could speak clearly, “Sit.”

Felix hesitated again but Elrena stood and gestured for him to take her seat, next to Rhonan. He didn’t hesitate this time, his body moving almost on its own as Elrena walked over to the bar and kitchen side of the room.

Sitting on the couch next to Rhonan, his body stiffer than ever, Felix was uncharacteristically scared of doing anything. The couch naturally faced him towards the television and his posture planted his eyes directly on it which luckily, served as an excellent distraction.

On the screen, both Nyrrasil and Kotia were beaten, bloodied and exhausted and yet, their fight was still mind blowing.

Nyrrasil wielded swords. Not one, not two but 21 swords simultaneously. All drawn. All with his two hands.

From the moment Felix first stepped into the room, the fight on the screen hadn’t paused at all and the entire time, it looked like Nyrrasil was dancing in a circus. He struck with blades then tossed them right afterwards without ever losing track of a single one of them because then, he would step to the side and blindly catch another.

None of the swords dropped, none of them flew out of range-although range was a ridiculous distance in a fight between gods-and he seemed to be using all of them as he flashed around the battlefield.

Kotia on the other hand fought in a way Felix couldn’t really wrap his head around at all.

She blocked blades with her bare hands, like she was brushing aside a bug. Had her opponent not also been a God, he would have totally accepted her skin being impenetrable. In this fight though, Nyrrasil was a God and so Felix was pretty sure his swords should have done something.

He also wasn’t sure they were doing nothing because she made very specific moves to block each and every one of them, so it wasn’t her skin. She blocked them with everything from her hands, to her hips, to her face but each time with a specific, graceful movement. It was never a fast slap or block, in fact she looked almost like she was moving slowly.

That was impossible though because Nyrrasil was throwing his swords around and striking with many of them simultaneously.

Despite seemingly not being injured at all, Kotia also didn’t seem to be attacking back at all. At least, Felix couldn’t tell how she was, if she was. Nyrrasil was obviously beaten down with dried blood all over him though so she had attacked him at some point.

Even had Elrena not warned him against betting, Felix wasn’t sure he could have confidently made a guess on which side would win at all. He also couldn’t gather anything to supplement what he was seeing because, it was through a screen so his other senses were useless. Even the state of their bodies in the real world were completely incongruous with what he was seeing through the screen.

The fight between the two Gods completely consumed Felix’s attention, in large part because he was looking for something to distract him. In doing so, he was completely ignoring his other senses so as Elrena walked up beside the couch next to him and placed a plate of food and a mug down on the table in front of him, he jumped.

She, nor Rhonan, judged him and she simply nodded to reassure him.

“Oh, thanks.”

Elrena nodded again, “Why can I not read your thoughts? There does not seem to be a barrier in place. I simply cannot find them.”

Felix opened his mouth but Rhonan swallowed his bite whole and answered without looking away from the screen, “He replaced his brain with a computer.”

Elrena nodded in understanding-like it was not only perfectly normal but entirely rational-then walked over to stand behind the couch and over Rhonan, to watch the screen.

The shock of Rhonan knowing that finally broke the spell of Felix’s unwillingness to do anything and his head spun to look at Rhonan directly. Rhonan didn’t react and Felix didn’t speak up so he just stared at the God as he ate another few bites before turning back to the food in front of him and reaching for it.

Rhonan’s food was a mountain of meat, some raw some cooked.

Felix’s looked like a full meal, a fancy one at that. Despite the portions sizes which begged otherwise, it looked like a meal from one of the top restaurants on earth the way it was precisely prepared and laid out. Even the smell was phenomenal.

Taking a bite, it was good, great even. It definitely wasn’t the best he’d ever had though. It was simple, somewhat rustic in taste and very filling. At least, it was filling right up until Felix’s body obliterated the food in his stomach and tossed most of the produced energy.

The mug contained some kind of spiced wine which seemed to fit with the rest of his meal and astonishingly, was filled with Mana. Enough that the contents of a single cup would more than fill his pool. Feeling outwards though, it seemed as though that was a special case for him as Rhonan’s wasn’t filled with Mana at all but rather, Anima.

“I hear you stole from Edras.” Elrena turned to look at Felix.

Felix physically jumped back upon hearing that, “I… What? From who?”

She used her eyes to indicate Rhonan had told her and Felix was seriously starting to get worried as to why and how Rhonan knew so much about him.

Felix felt like he had explain himself, “I guess I just wasn’t willing to share some things…”

“It’s good you didn’t.” Rhonan took a swig of his own mug which, Felix could tell was bottomless, “I would have stopped you if you had tried to share any of that.”

Felix’s eyes grew a little wider, “What… what specifically?”

“The thing you made.”

“I… what?”

Elrena smirked a little, “Rhonan knows a lot. He’s usually paying attention and knows the broad strokes of what’s happening from various reports. Now… with his injury, he’s been bored so, he watches the lives of the students at Eramith, among others.” She offered a slightly sympathetic look, “He’s watched everything you’ve done since you were Integrated.”

“Wait… What? How?”

“System.” Rhonan answered before taking another bite.

Felix’s face contorted in disbelief, “You can just… spy on anyone through it?”

Elrena cocked her head a little, “He can. Being who he is, comes with some privileges.”

“It’s not like I can see everything, which you know. I’m still very curious what happened at the end of that integration event. It’s rare the system is blocked out.”

I guess he doesn’t know the sub-chunk was destroyed then.

“It’s also uncommon to blur the system’s sight but, you’ve been blurred more than anyone. Not to mention, you blurred things yourself from time to time.”

“Uh…” The violation of privacy gave Felix just enough confidence to retort, “Well, now I’m glad I did.”

Rhonan smirked a little as he chewed and Elrena snorted.

“You said I was blurred. Like it wasn’t intentional in many instances. Is The System obscuring my actions?”

“No. You’ve just spent a lot of time around Curses.” Rhonan tossed a bone to the other end of the table to join the pile of others he had cleaned off.

“Not as much as you, it seems.”

Rhonan reached over and pulled back his robe a little on his left revealing a hole in his side dripping internally with black liquid, like a salivating maw, “You mean this?”

Elrena winced and her expression hardened as she leaned over and took a knife out of a spatial storage to cut all the way around the wound. Then, she tossed the surrounding flesh into a portal. The entire time she made very sure to not actually touch the cursed parts, often cutting far outside of the wound itself. She reached in again and continued until she had hollowed out a cavern all the way into the center of his chest then pulled her arm free. As soon as she did, Rhonan’s body closed back up and healed itself perfectly in a fraction of a second.

Felix looked at them with medley of confusion, “Are you cure-” He could feel it. The curse was still somewhere inside of Rhonan, albeit much weaker now, “It’s… inside of you.”

Rhonan didn’t react but Elrena hung her head a little, her hardened expression softening just a little to make way for sadness.

“Couldn’t you…” Felix stopped himself, “You can’t cut it all out. It’s in your Core Soul.”

“Not in.” Elrena’s expression softened a little more, and in turn, grew a little sadder.

“Not yet.” Rhonan smirked as he corrected her before finishing off a huge steak.

“Too close to remove though.” Felix hung his own head a little in solidarity.

He nodded, “It’s not that bad.”

Elrena sighed quickly, in a frustrated way as her face grew slightly red, “Oh yeah, not too bad at all. The whole inevitable death thing. Having to constantly dedicate the entirety of his willpower to keeping himself alive. His Soul being weakened to the point where I can cut him with a B grade knife.”

He shrugged.

Felix frowned a little, “So you’re saying right now… basically anyone could cut you?”

He shrugged, “Probably. It’s somewhat intentional though so-” He gestured towards Elrena with his head, “-can easily carve it out of me.”

Elrena seemed to have calmed down a little and just hmphed then looked towards the screen.

He doesn’t know I could fix that, does he?

Grim responded, their conversation contained within his Soul Garden to prevent being overheard, I guess The Hunger plaguing Nova was enough to obscure the last time you did that. It’s rather convenient every time you touched a Curse, it was making it impossible for anyone to watch you do it, huh?

Felix mentally scoffed, That’s not convenient, that’s just how it works. Is it convenient Gravity keeps us bound to the ground?

For most people.

I mean… I guess? Not sure I’d attribute that to convenience…

Felix took another bite of his meal then a swig of the mug and looked up at the screen just in time to see Nyrrasil use what looked like an ultimate move.

All 21 swords moved in unison and spun around Kotia as she desperately blocked and dodged until finally she stopped and stood still.

As soon as she did, the swords were stopped just a few meters from her body by some kind of invisible barrier while the sun seemed to shine just a little brighter in the area.

Nyrrasil leapt in and grabbed one of the swords on the way then pushed his way into the invisible sphere surrounding her, like he was trying to push his body through solid stone. Once he made it far enough, he spun his whole body a half turn and unleashed a ridiculous sword strike that split Kotia in two.

A moment later, the two of them simultaneously opened their eyes and gasped for air.

Kotia coughed a little as she adjusted and Nyrrasil, as soon as he had his bearings, leapt into the air, “I win! Suck it, loser.”

The goddess across from him sighed as he did a stupid and rather vulgar victory dance, humping the air.

As he gyrated in every direction, he eventually turned himself towards Rhonan’s couch and Felix sitting next to him, “Who’s the kid?”

“This is Felix. He’s here on a recruitment.” Rhonan explained before taking one of the last few slabs of meat from the table.

Nyrrasil nodded, “Cool.” The explanation completely satisfactory for him.

Kotia however, seemed to actually have a brain and so she scoffed at Nyrrasil then cocked her head at Elrena and Rhonan, “Why is he here?”

“He broke in.” Elrena didn’t seem like she minded.

That seemed to confuse Kotia even more but Nyrrasil was just as satisfied as before by that, somehow.

Rhonan lifted a finger, “Teleported himself, actually.”

“Isn’t the door… warded against that?” Kotia looked at Rhonan then Elrena.

“Yup.” Rhonan took another bite making it obvious to everyone, he was done explaining.

Kotia nodded and stood and thanked Rhonan and Elrena then bowed just slightly to Felix, “Pleasure to meet you.”

“You too.” Felix held back the urge to make it sound like a question, shrug or make any facial expression whatsoever.

Kotia walked around the couches and joined Nyrrasil-who had promptly piled up all but two pieces of the remaining meat in his arms-in walking out of the room.

Nyrrasil held up a hand as he left, “Later Rhon, Rena, Lix.”

Did he just call me Lix?

I didn’t think it was possible anyone could be worse than you at naming.

As soon as they left, Elrena took a seat on the couch that had held Kotia then spun around and lay across the couch, her feet on the armrest.

Once she was settled in, she turned her head to Felix, “So you’re the integration exile, correct?”

He nodded.

“How is it you made it through the wards on the door exactly?”

“Rathelius.” Rhonan answered.

She nodded, “Oh, you’re the kid The Dragon Mother took a liking to.” Her face contorted in disbelief, “Rathelius taught you?”

Rhonan nodded.

“When?” She squinted at Felix.

Felix manged to speak before Rhonan, likely only because he let him, “Two recruitments before this one.”

She pushed herself up a little, “You learned that fast?”

“It helps he’s a Spirit Sage and is likely the reason Khidell was demoted.” Rhonan answered before flopping the last piece of meat in his hand into his mouth.

“Wait…” She sat up a little more, “That was all the same kid?”

Rhonan answered simply by smirking and shoveling the last piece of meat into his mouth.

“Did you discover some kind of artifact in your Integration?”

“Dark Magic Grimoire.” Rhonan answered through the food in his mouth.

She nodded in understanding, “You also took on all the world bosses by yourself, right? Then fought some kind of ancient B grade in the event? By yourself?”

Felix nodded.

Her face hardened a little, like she was getting angry, “Pardon my ignorance, did you not have any friends? It seems rather… unintelligent to take on these enemies alone.”

Rhonan smirked a little, swallowed, “More fun that way. More of a challenge.”

Elrena’s jaw clenched, “It’s also how you end up in a situation you can’t handle.” She stood from the couch, “How you end up injured.” She began yelling as she leaned in, her voice nearly qualifying as a sonic attack, staring right at Felix, “It’s how you get wounded and die.”

He could tell she wasn’t talking about him, even if she was talking to him. Still, a god yelling in his face was incredibly disconcerting.

She noticed his fear as he leaned back a little so she quickly stood back up straight, scoffed and stormed out towards the door. Just before leaving though, she yelled out without looking back, “You need rest.” Then she walked the rest of the way out.

Rhonan sighed and leaned back on the couch.

Felix collected himself then turned to Rhonan, “You didn’t really just take on something you couldn’t handle, did you?”

He cocked a brow, “Why?”

“Well, you are one of the oldest beings in the multiverse, as far as I know. Elrena mentioned you’ve never been wrong about who would win a fight as long as she had known you. Doesn’t add up.”

“She seems to think I did.” He sighed again, “Even after all these millennia, she still just sees me as some kind of blood thirsty, battle loving barbarian.”

Felix furrowed his brow with certainty, “She’s wrong.”

He nodded, “She’s angry.”

“That means you took a fight you knew you would lose.”

“Not quite.”

“You knew you would get injured.”

“I did.”

“Did you just underestimate how bad the injury would be? You must have known it was a possibly. So, why did you do it?”

Rhonan looked over at Felix for the first time, his lip curled up into a smirk on one side, “You know she wouldn’t even listen to the story, wouldn’t even hear me out. Now I’m dying and she can’t even stay with me. This is the hundred and second time she’s stormed off. I love her but…”

“Did you talk to her? I’m sure she’d be willing to…”

“No, she isn’t. Some people can’t put their emotions aside.” Rhonan sighed and leaned forwards, “Some can but, I’ve found it to be one of the rarest qualities.” He met Felix’s gaze and his expression shifted slightly to one of acceptance, “It’s part of why I was never interested in her. Why we never got together despite her feelings for me.”

Felix nodded and didn’t press the issue, “So, what did happen?”

His face brightened a little, “Well…” Then, with a wave of his hand, a memory began to play out on the screen before them.

----------------------------------------

“You have Anima dense meat, elixirs, Exotic escape items-”

“My axe and my ass. I’ll be fine.” Rhonan sighed.

Elrena’s eyes were wide, pleading, “You really should take some kind of armor you know. You have plenty in your vault that would wor-”

“I’ve fought my entire life without armor. Starting now would hurt more than it would help.”

Rhonan shook his head, Why can’t she just be confident in my abilities. Tell me good luck. Every time, she worries as if she were my mother… I miss Tharren, at le-

He forcefully derailed his own train of thought before it went any further and stepped past Elrena, into the portal. Into the darkness.

She couldn’t have stopped him even if she wanted to. Helping him was completely out of the question. Even Rhonan couldn’t protect her.

Though he couldn’t see anything, had no ground beneath his feet, nothing solid to push off of, Rhonan twisted his body back as a black claw destroyed the portal behind him. Before it could recoil, he pushed Mana, Energy and Anima into his Runed Tattoos and swung his axe up, through the claw.

It didn’t have time to react before it shattered, as if made of glass.

Rhonan was already gone by the time the swing completed, completely avoiding the shards as he flew deeper into the void.

He couldn’t see necessarily, not with his eyes. There was no light in the void between universes. No real space for it to travel across. Just distance.

Normally there wouldn’t be anything there, from what he’d heard. Around his universe though, around his home, there were the Cursed Shadows. All of them embodying Hunger as far as he’d seen, though he didn’t really know why.

They were strong. They were fast. Many of them faster than he was, making them faster than everyone in the system-verse. They weren’t very smart though. None of them had a brain of any kind, at least not the Shadows he’d encountered. They acted purely on instincts billions of epochs old which, made them unfortunately annoying to fight.

Rhonan had a brain though and along with it, instincts that weren’t nearly as mature but together with his brain, it was enough.

Shooting through the void, Rhonan swung and shattered Cursed Shadows by the thousands, where he could find them. None of them having very well defined forms made it difficult for him to remember them all. He used to keep count but it wasn’t worth it anymore. He’d done this long enough that he’d know when to stop.

He’d never feel satisfied. Not so long as they existed outside his universe. Not so long as they threatened it. He didn’t have bottomless resource pools, especially not outside of The System’s domain.

The Anima and Energy rich food as well as Mana rich drink he brought along helped, each one worth an absurd amount and each one, well worth the price.

He swallowed the infused meat of hundreds of God tier beasts to fully fill his pools then shot off into the void once more. It would have been nice if he were capable of consuming from crystals directly, more efficient storage wise at least. He had grown up consuming meat and digesting it though so, for him, it was vastly more efficient. He could have learned but, he enjoyed the taste too much to spend the time.

Most of the Cursed Shadows were fodder, small and relatively immature curses that filled in the gaps to form The Endless Hunger. Without them, it would be The Sparse Smattering of Hunger instead of The Endless. They posed little issue and Rhonan didn’t ever really risk injuring himself with them. They weren’t even really a challenge at all, just a waste of Energy.

Still, they were a threat-albeit a minor one-and so, they had to be eliminated.

His real goal though, the real threats, were the Cursed Beasts.

They were creatures formed out of Cursed Anima, just like the Shadows but, they had more defined forms and a clearer consciousness. Some of them even communicated. They were stronger, faster and worst of all smarter.

Rhonan wasn’t entirely familiar as to how one was formed as opposed to the other, he had found Shadows made of more mature curses than some Beasts, so it wasn’t that. Either way, they were more of a challenge, something that was hard to find for him these days.

His main goal was to clear them out, protect the multiverse. He just so happened, to also love a good fight.

The first one he simply stumbled upon, shooting himself through the void and finding a particularly empty patch. After mapping it out for what felt like a few hours, he headed in towards the center and sure enough, found a mass of Curse Anima.

It was stronger and more mature, older than the rest of the Hunger Shadows he fought. Not all Cursed Beasts were, but this one was. It also, had a more well defined shape, though not one that was overly recognizable.

To Rhonan, it looked like some kind of mushroom or jellyfish with thousands of tentacles stretching out from its stalk. Being where he was and sensing his surroundings through his Anima Senses made it hard to tell how big things were but it felt to Rhonan, like it was massive. Like the top of the mushroom head could have housed a large country.

He’d fought bigger before though.

The Beast knew he was there, it saw him, Rhonan could tell. It didn’t move towards him though, it simply waited. It knew he was coming anyways and welcomed him, with open tendrils.

Once he was in range, Rhonan slammed Mana into the runes embedded within his flesh and closed the distance in an instant. He held his axe, his father’s axe. The very same one he’d used since before his integration, in both hands.

It was a simple wood cutter’s axe where he was from but most people now would have considered it a greataxe in shape. To him, it was still a simple tool to fell trees, and anything else that needed felling.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

The only reason it had survived so long was through the act of imbuing his will into the weapon making it nearly indestructible. Through their journey, his will had healed the axe from injury, given it a pseudo life and in doing so, given it pseudo-evolutions. It had grown and its material shifted. It was no longer the same axe he had started with, nothing from the original save for the shape still defined the axe he held now. It even weighed orders of magnitude more.

It was still his axe though, his father’s axe. The axe he had saved a village with. The axe he had slain his family with. There was no other axe for him.

All the history they had, the bond between him and his axe, the familiarity and the vast experience all led to his imbuement of will begin stronger. Even in a space between universes, where space itself was ragged, torn and ill defined. Where light was swallowed and vanished before it could reach far enough to illuminate surroundings. In a place defined by Anima, by memories, auras and what could be sensed, his axe felt like a beacon.

The head itself, aglow with a burning light.

His axe swing was finished the instant he arrived and the hundreds of tendrils that branched off the one he severed began to writhe and squirm as they burned from the top down.

A thousand tendrils from every direction shot towards him, like thousands of needles forming a inescapable net but Rhonan was already gone.

He couldn’t risk getting hit. Each tendril was made of the Hunger Curse. Each one would start eating his flesh and Soul from just a touch. If one were to pierce him, he would have to carve out a large section of his own body just to prevent the spread. Being as close as he was to the Cursed Beast, he didn’t have time to hack at his body.

Spinning around, Rhonan swung his axe and released a circular blade of Anima that spread out and severed a handful of tendrils around him. The Beast tried to strike at him again, this time instead of fast, sharp and angular, the tendrils were thick and wavy as they corkscrewed around him.

He didn’t have to waste his precious Mana moving himself, so he didn’t. Instead, he carved his way through the tendrils, dodging the ones he didn’t cut as he freed himself of the seemingly endless cage.

Every time he cut a tendril, especially the roots nearest the head, Rhonan felt the frustration of the Beast mounting or at least, that’s what he pictured. In reality, it emanated through the Anima as nothing more than growing hunger.

They were beasts literally made of a Curse. There was no way for anything other than the curse itself to exist, he knew frustration was impossible, as the curse would completely consume all other feelings and experiences. The fact that they managed to form a shape at all was astounding and something Rhonan thought to be impossible. Showing some base level of instincts on top of that, a level of bestial intelligence at all, made these by far the strongest and most challenging enemies Rhonan could find.

Still, he liked to imagine them getting frustrated as he slowly whittled down their massive forms.

The Beast he fought used the still connected tendrils to scoop up the severed ones and reattached them, forming even longer branches but it didn’t matter. Rhonan’s only goal was to make it through the tendrils to the larger body itself.

Being a fight where getting hit once was death for Rhonan, the fight was really a battle of attrition. He couldn’t make a mistake and he had to kill them before consuming his resources. The longer the battle went on, the more likely he would slip up.

In a way, it made the fight more exciting. He had to fight flawlessly to win.

In a way, it made the fight incredibly boring. There was simple no tension. He went into the fight knowing he could win. He wouldn’t take the fight otherwise. There was no back and forth. There was no guess as to who would win, not in Rhonan’s mind. The consequences were too high.

Had he been pushed harder, had he not had such a vast array of fighting experience behind him that he no longer really made mistakes, it would have been exciting.

As it was, it was challenge for sure but it was one he just had to push through, and one he already knew he could do. It was felt like a chore more than anything.

Leaping off of nothing and dragging the head of his axe up through endless stalk of the Hunger Cursed Mushroom Beast, Rhonan lamented the feeling of being challenged. The feeling of going into a battle against someone just as strong and wondering how it would play out.

He used his axe to carve an opening up through the head of the mushroom and concentrated all of his will into the axe head. Lifting it up above his head as the entire creature squirmed, he paused for just a moment then the axe flashed downwards in an overhead strike.

As it did, a vertical line of burning golden Anima appeared, splitting the mushroom beast in two.

He didn’t bother sticking around to observe the aftermath and was already fighting another formless Cursed Being in The Endless Hunger a few moments later.

He fought for a few more days before taking a break and replenishing his resources. Specifically, Anima.

Fighting the formless Cursed Shadows in The Endless Hunger consumed mostly Mana and Energy as he didn’t have to project attacks or focus the entirety of his will into his axe head. Instead of a Burning Luminescence, the axe was more like a coated blade. It was enough and on hunts where resources mattered, towing the line between just enough and wasteful was critical.

Fighting one of The Cursed Beasts though, those with forms and more concentrated wills, drained the majority of his Anima pool. In fact, he was certain that in his current state, he wouldn’t survive fighting two at once. Not unless he managed to hit both of them at the same time with the majority of his attacks.

So, those were fights he would never take, not that he had ever seen two Cursed Beasts together anyways. They seemed to be territorial, considering even Cursed Shadows were kept away from their domains, at least Rhonan had never seen otherwise over the course of his couple of hundred hunts in The Endless Hunger now.

He had gone from fighting a handful of Cursed Shadows on his first hunt, to fighting upwards of three Cursed Beasts. He was making progress but, it still all felt a little hopeless.

After defeating the mushroom Beast, Rhonan spent half an epoch-according to his internal clock-hunting down and dispersing Cursed Shadows. He wasn’t really killing them, he knew that. Even the mushroom Beast he had split vertically would either disperse into Cursed Shadows or reform. Both of which he had observed the first few times he had slain Beasts.

Now, he didn’t bother watching. It was a waste of time.

The Endless Hunger was endless in that its contents were unkillable, and that it felt endless, stretching out infinitely in every direction.

He knew that wasn’t the case. He knew of other universes out there. He’d been to a few of them.

When he was desperately trying to repel The Endless Hunger though, hold it back to help The System and save his universe, it felt endless. No matter how much time he spent there, it never felt like enough. There was no visible dent in the veritable ocean of Hunger Curse completely surrounding his universe.

He felt a bit like his universe was a boat in the middle of an ocean of conscious acid. It was trying to poke holes and make its way inside, like his boat was an egg with a delicious yolk.

Considering he was confident no one but him could actually fight it directly, he couldn’t help but feel hopeless. Still, he had been through worse and so he pushed on. He fought and culled as much as he could without seriously injuring himself. It was sheer force of will, discipline, that carried him through. Despite the hopelessness sucking all the fun out of fighting. Despite the hopelessness making the entire thing feel like a chore.

On the positive side, the hopelessness did instill him with a sense of anxiety, a feeling he welcomed after spending the majority of his life feeling nothing at all.

By the end of an epoch, Rhonan had completely run through his reserves and was left with one final pool of each of his resources. He had manged to find an kill just one other Cursed Beast, some kind of abomination with a dozen legs, multiple tails and a constantly shifting face. It was actually one he had fought before, at least he was pretty sure.

They would never remember him and though their forms were more defined than the Cursed Shadows, they weren’t set in stone and many of them looked quite alike.

He was still hoping to find just one more Cursed Beast so that he could feel like his hunt was successful. Like he had pushed back The Endless Hunger and slowed its inevitable advance, as much as possible.

Just one more Beast he told himself as he slaughtered Shadows by the thousands.

He was further from the edge of his universe than he ever had been as he had been traveling directly outwards over the course of the epoch.

As he did, The Endless Hunger hadn’t seemed to grow any denser or any stronger. It wasn’t harder to fight or more conscious. It was just endless. Stretching outwards infinitely. The crushing weight of that potentiality was so much worse to Rhonan than if it had gotten stronger and denser.

That would have meant there was hope, that there might be a way to fight through, find the stronger Beasts, maybe even something above them. That would have meant there was a possibility of a commander or some other enemy he could train and work towards slaying. It would have meant something.

It just wasn’t the case though and so Rhonan’s constant anxiety had begun to shift over the course of the epoch towards despair.

Just.

He slew a thousand Shadows as he raced through the tattered space.

One.

He didn’t want to leave.

More.

Not yet.

Beast.

He couldn’t leave.

Then he was struck with something. Not literally. His senses felt something other than Hunger in every direction endlessly. Even the slightest variation was like a literal light in the darkness. It was immediately noticeable to him who had felt nothing else for over an epoch.

Except it was nothing like a light. It was like a ray of, impossibly, an even deeper darkness.

It was a will. A consciousness. It was rife with Hunger. It was something he had thought impossible and even feeling it, he couldn’t be sure it was a being of Hunger or a consciousness so far from him, his feelings were tainted. He knew it wasn’t an illusion though. He wasn’t lucky enough for that.

In a twisted way, it gave him hope. That there was something out there he could slay. A way he could end this threat before it consumed his universe.

That twisted sense of hope was what drew him closer, made him seek it out, despite the overwhelming feeling of Curse Anima coming from that direction.

As he flew towards it, cautiously at first but much faster once he realized just how far he was, the density of Curse Shadows drastically lowered until there were simply none left, just like the Cursed Beasts domain.

Traveling further though, he realized the empty area was more than the domain of a Cursed Beast. It was much bigger for whatever reason. A massive section of just emptiness, as it was meant to be.

Another few days of flying later and Rhonan realized the empty section wasn’t centered around the consciousness he felt, rather it seemed to have two centers. Like there were overlapping domains pushing the Cursed Shadows away. There was something else out there as well but, he couldn’t feel anything from it which was more concerning than anything.

Normally, he felt something from Cursed Beasts at a distance. Usually it was faint but he roughly knew which direction to head. All he felt though, was an emptiness in one direction and a consciousness in the other, between them and him, emptiness.

Realizing there were two centers, two overlapping domains meant there were two potential destinations for Rhonan. He had no idea what to expect from either and ultimately, no reason to pick one over the other so, he headed for the closest one, the emptiness.

It took him nearly another half epoch to finally get close enough to feel something and another quarter epoch to feel anything more than a mass of Hunger.

Initially, when the emptiness shifted from nothingness to just more Hunger, more Cursed Anima, Rhonan thought about turning back, about switching targets. Ultimately though, he decided to continue on based on the fact that there had to be something there causing the weird emptiness he traveled through for so long.

He was indelibly grateful he had when he finally reached his destination.

Lying before him was a massive sphere of Hunger, bigger than any individual Cursed Beast. It was so disconnected in shape, he was certain it was just a mass of Cursed Shadows. Seeing his surroundings through his Anima senses rather than his eyes meant the massive shell of Hunger didn’t obscure the center of the mass. The reason they were there at all.

Right in the middle, like the core of a planet, no bigger than normal human’s fist, was a light. A sphere of Anima so dense, Rhonan thought his senses were lying to him. So pure, he was convinced he was hallucinating. Completely unaffected by the mass of Hunger Curse desperately trying to bore into it from all sides.

It was not only touching Hunger Curse from all sides. It was unrelenting to their constant barrage from all sides.

Rhonan had no idea how long it had already been there but he stood there and watched for what felt like days, a dekad even. That entire time, it sat there, perfectly still. Completely unaffected.

He wasn’t just watching it for days on end though. He was standing there, debating with himself.

From off in the distance, he felt the consciousness approaching. As it did, it became very clear the consciousness was some kind of Hunger Cursed Creature. An entity far above the Beasts. Something he had no chance of fighting.

Even though the sphere of Anima had survived as long as it had under the barrage of mature Hunger surrounding it, Rhonan couldn’t be sure that whatever was coming, wouldn’t have more luck.

A part of him wanted to just stand there and watch because for the first time in hundreds of integrations, Rhonan had no idea who would win.

On one side there was a creature with a will strong enough to have a consciousness, despite being filled with Hunger Cursed Anima. On top of that, the Hunger he felt from it was ancient. The most mature Curse he had ever felt.

On the other side, there was Anima, not quite a consciousness not quite not a consciousness. He couldn’t even be sure if it was a life or just an orb of Anima. It not only made contact with the Curse and remained completely untainted but it also sat there and withstood a full blown assault of Hunger Curse.

Both were impossible, or so he had thought.

He had told himself he was looking for one more Cursed Beast to feel more productive. He knew that was a lie. It never felt productive. Even if he was making progress, he wasn’t sure what the point was.

What he had really been looking for was hope. Now, he had found it.

The only issue was, there was nothing he could do about it.

Seeing the cursed mass before him, even just breaking through it felt beyond his capabilities, especially with just a fraction of his resource pools left. If he didn’t do something though, there was a chance whatever was coming, would succeed where this mass hadn’t.

If that happened, the Ancient Cursed Consciousness would be that much closer to his universe and then there would truly be nothing. He certainly couldn’t fight it. The System was already being pushed to the limit just holding The Endless Hunger back, so it couldn’t do anything about it. He wasn’t sure this ball of Anima could either, but it was already much closer than he was.

Either it was alive and it had a chance, or it wasn’t and he would force Kryptos to help him fuse it into his axe. He definitely wasn’t going to try fusing it into himself considering it could withstand direct contact with a mature Curse, there was no way it wouldn’t be able to take over his Soul.

So he was left with just one choice, save it, or die along with his universe. Which, wasn’t really a choice at all.

Blowing through his Mana pool as carefully as he could, Rhonan launched himself at the mass. His best estimates, put his chances of success at less than a percent and even then, it was very likely he would die. He couldn’t die though. Not now. Not now that he had hope, for the first time since discovering the-once now slightly less-inevitable fate of his universe.

He managed to get uncomfortably close to the Curse mass without them seeming to notice him at all, which was necessary if he was to have the best chance of survival. From as close as he dared, Rhonan swung his axe around himself, the axe head burning brighter than it ever had before.

The swing didn’t just create a circular blade, it created a wave that blasted the Curse mass back.

He leapt into the crater he had created and began carving off the outside, flattening the surface so it didn’t close back up behind him.

Each piece he carved off, he sent flying off into the emptiness, dispersing the mass as much as he could.

Then, he didn’t swing his axe but rather punched forwards with the blade to drill down. He dove into the hole he had created and carved up the mass around him. Repeating the process over and over again as his Anima pool plummeted faster than with anything he had fought before.

In reality, he wasn’t even really fighting anything. The Curse didn’t fight back, not really. There were the odd attacks here and there but it seemed to be unilaterally focused on the Soul within, as was Rhonan. Now that he was closer, he could tell it was a Soul. It had life but only barely. It flickered as though on the brink of dying and becoming just a mass of Anima.

In a way he was disappointed. He wouldn’t put it in his axe if it were alive and he wasn’t going to let it die. It wouldn’t be him that saved his universe.

In a way he was relieved. The burden he had carried for so long was no longer his alone to bear. It wouldn’t be him that saved his universe. At least, not alone.

He wasn’t sure how long he had, seconds, hours or epochs even before The Spark of Life within the Soul he was trying to save flickered out. Planning for the worst case though, he began to burn away his own Soul. He consumed Anima from his Soul to cut off a mass of Curse, to drill down further, to keep fighting.

It wasn’t more than he could handle. It wasn’t going to kill him. It would take time to replenish but it was a sacrifice he had to make.

By the time he had bored a hole down through 90% of the Cursed Shadows that had latched onto the orb, his hope as well as his despair grew.

Feeling the Soul from closer up, the Unrelenting will and sheer density filled him with hope that felt like a warm ray of sunshine. That hope only grew as the picture of what he was trying to save clarified before him.

He also began to feel exactly what surrounded the Soul. What was at the center of the mass. Hundreds of Cursed Beasts. Not just Cursed Shadows.

Rhonan, in hundreds of hunts had never found any two of them even remotely near each-other. It was lucky, in a way, because he had little chance of fighting more than one at once. Before him though, were hundreds of them latched on, clawing, biting, burrowing, striking, squeezing and pushing on the Soul he was trying to save.

He wasn’t delusional and had no plans to fight them. Not with any intention of winning. His only goal was to get the Soul before him out and hopefully himself, alive.

With that in mind, his resolve set, Rhonan peeled off another large chunk of his own Soul to fuel his attacks and dove in swinging.

Nearest him was what looked to be a worm with hundreds of human legs that had latched onto the Soul. It didn’t seem to want to let go so it simply thrashed around to try and kick him with its many feet. Rhonan shoved some of the Anima he had freed into the runes on his body, the ones he almost never used because of how expensive they were. In doing so, he had surrounded himself in a dense aura of his own will power.

It wasn’t enough to be impenetrable, wasn’t even enough to fully protect him, but it was enough that he could fight just a little easier.

The rest went into his axe and with it, he obliterated Cursed Shadows. Cursed Beasts however, were much stronger.

He delimbed a number of legs and the extra Anima he had used burned away at the remaining stumps but he didn’t kill it in a single blow. It took him a dozen more swings to finally cut through it enough times that it dispersed.

At that point, he had put on enough of a show that the other Cursed Beasts, that had once been entirely focused on the Soul he was trying to save, realized he was there and turned their attention towards him. A dog like creature with no neck dove towards him, clawing at his leg as he split it down the middle with his axe. A bug looking creature with far too many legs and no defined torso stabbed at him with its limbs as he cut through it and into the head of another.

As he fought, he was constantly shedding the layer of Anima that, didn’t quite protect him but was a sacrifice in place of his own body. Every time he was struck, clawed at, stabbed or bitten, the layer surrounding him was infected and he had to slough off a portion of it.

It kept him from having to do so with his own body or Soul but he was losing almost an equal amount of Anima, it was just injuring and therefore exhausting him less. It also limited the damage to something he was certain he could lose.

Once the Beasts stopped distracting themselves, the battle he fought became exponentially harder. He could no longer freely swing into them and was forced to avoid as much as he could. He couldn’t even back up either because he was so close to his goal. He could see the Anima, he could touch it. He just needed those last few Beasts that were latched on to release it, for just a moment so he could activate an escape item.

Fighting though, as his Anima dwindled and the last few remaining pieces of his Soul he was willing to lose diminished, he realized they weren’t going to. Not on their own.

Where the Cursed Shadows emitted just a sense of Hunger with no nuance to it, the Cursed Beasts seemed to have some kind of intelligence. At least, they showed enough that Rhonan was able to understand what they were saying, almost hear them, even through the overwhelming sense of Hunger they emanated.

Feed us.

Hungry.

The Cursed Child is coming.

You will die.

We will consume you.

Ouroboros is coming.

You.

Will.

Feed.

Us.

Gathering everything he could, every extra layer, every bit of Anima from his Soul that he could spare., even what remained in the runes in his body, Rhonan collected it all up and funneled it into one last attack. One explosion of Anima to buy himself just enough time, he hoped.

He dodged and weaved through attacks, no longer maintaining a barrier to protect him, Rhonan took scratches and scrapes that festered with Hunger. He took them willingly, making sure to avoid anything that would dig too deeply until he was finally ready.

Diving in towards the Soul, Rhonan felt his side being sheared open by some kind of long and fine claw but he ignored it completely as he reached out and wrapped his massive hand around the orb. Then, he released all the Anima he had built up in one explosion before activating his most expensive Exotic Escape Item. The only one he was certain would work and one that had cost him an absurd fortune of Rubions in another universe.

The item brought him back to a set location, a point in completely empty space far within the space he controlled. He didn’t want to be anywhere near anyone when he used it in case he was followed or infected with Hunger, as he was.

Still, he regretted that decision immediately when he arrived and realized he was completely alone. His hands, empty. The light he had saved, gone.

----------------------------------------

Felix’s mind raced as his eyes were locked on the screen before him, even after the memory was finished playing.

Holy shit.

Grim couldn’t find the words.

Felix turned to Rhonan, letting the shock show on his face, even if it was for a completely different reason than Rhonan would suspect, “What happened to it?”

He shrugged, “Don’t know.”

“Are you sure you managed to pull it out?”

He nodded, “Yeah. That item I used, I know it worked.”

“So you are dying because you tried to save this thing and you don’t know? That’s… sorry…”

He chuckled a little, “My best guess, is that the Soul and all the Anima, the will inside of it, was split amongst the most recent generation. The Ascendant Cycle, Cycle of Prodigies.”

Felix blinked a few times, not because that idea meant anything to him, but more because it was so wrong and Felix knew it.

Rhonan gestured towards the screen which began cycling through various scenes as he spoke, “I mean, take a look at your classmates. You have Melody who could feel when gods were lying from birth. You have Peace who just fought Amatara and became a Spirit. Adaline of course, who figured out Kryptos enchantments, even if she wasn’t the first. Then you have Romar who mastered a Concept. Zeraxes who already has three solid convictions and is bonded with a Divine weapon.”

He turned and looked at Felix directly, “Not to mention you, who dethroned Khidell and Ayred who is one of the most prominent merchants shy of Radleus himself. Then there are all the kids not at Eramith who have destroyed previous, long standing records. Who have accomplished near impossible feats at such young ages.”

Felix nodded, “So… the universe is doomed and our only hope of saving it is if my whole generation works together?”

“Something like that.”

“Why not tell people. About what’s out there. Why show me this? Who else knows?”

Rhonan sighed, “It wouldn’t go how you think. I showed you because you can handle it. Impossible challenges seem to motivate you. It was also kind of a test, to see how you react and what you’ll do now. As for who knows, most of the Primordials, Me.”

“That’s it?”

“Elrena knows about The Endless Hunger, many do. A vast swathe of Hunger just outside our universe. What they don’t know, is that it is not normal for a Curse to surround a universe. It is not normal for a curse to have creatures within it, consciousness, to take on forms and shapes.”

“So outside the universe you bought the escape item in… what’s there?”

He shrugged, “Nothing. Space is fractured and torn, that’s why it isn’t a universe itself, why there are no planets or stars. It’s just emptiness though.” He sighed longingly, “As it should be.”

“You have to have some kind of plan though. If that orb thing really did split itself up, why not kill all of us and recreate it? Put it into your axe?” Felix asked even though he was pretty sure he knew the answer. He wanted to hear it.

Rhonan immediately shook his head, “I’m not doing that. If I were willing, why stop at your generation? Why not kill all the gods? At that point though, there’s no universe left to save.”

“At this point, I guess you’re dying anyways so… what’s the point? Shouldn’t we all just try and escape to another universe?”

Rhonan sighed, “I wish. I consulted with Kryptos and Rathelius, unfortunately the Mana alone that would require is more than all the Mana in this Universe. Collecting it from other universes and carting it back would take way too long.”

“Okay but there should be enough for just you and The Primordials to escape, right?”

He nodded, “Yeah. Most of them have already left.”

Oh.

“The ones who are left are either planning on leaving or are doing everything they can to save as many as they can. As you said, I’m dying no matter what, I might as well try and save as many people as I can.”

“I guess… Isn’t it a little hopeless then? No matter how much stronger I can get in the next few epochs…”

He nodded, “It might be. The timeline is a little longer than that though. The System and the barrier that contains our universe has been holding back The Endless Hunger for a while. Honestly, I’m not sure when it first appeared or if it’s always been there. My best guess though, is that we have a few centuries.”

“I still don’t get why you don’t just tell people what’s coming. Edras has his resistance and there are others who are doing their own thing. If everyone knew, wouldn’t we have a better chance?”

He smirked, “What would actually happen, is that a number of Gods would believe me and a number of them wouldn’t. Some of them because they think I’m lying, others because they don’t want to believe it. It would start a war.”

Felix agreed whole-heartedly but was both putting on a bit of an act and testing Rhonan at the same time, “Really?”

Rhonan nodded, “As for having a better shot, I’ve got some things in mind and I’ve already started putting things in motion, as much as I can. All you need to worry about, is getting as strong as you can. I know in the face of what I just showed you, it’s hard to just blindly trust someone but, I’m going to ask you to do so now.”

Felix nodded, “Okay.”

So first, he didn’t seem to notice my act. Second, he does seem to have a plan.

Grim transmitted a wave of agreement, He does seem to be truly honorable.

Definitely possible his acting abilities are just better than mine.

Rhonan laid back and sighed, “You know, It’s funny. I haven’t had to sleep since I was as young as you are, I never realized how much I missed it. Getting hit with a wave of exhaustion from nowhere though, still isn’t fun.”

Felix immediately got the message, stood and half nodded half bowed his head, “Well, thank you. For sharing this with me. You were right, I definitely love impossible odds.”

He nodded, “Good.”

Felix nodded once more then took his leave, casting a very simple spell that he hadn’t cast outside of practice before and he hoped he had cast it correctly. Then, he walked out of the room, down the hall and excitedly Translocated himself across the door once more.

This time he paid attention to the warding on the door and this time he noticed it, barely.

Last time he had been too preoccupied with the possibility of disintegrating his material body and so everything else was lost to him. He was pretty sure that was the reason he hadn’t felt the warding but upon focusing on it the second time around, he realized that wasn’t the case at all.

If he hadn’t been looking for it, he wouldn’t have noticed it because of how subtle the effect was. It was definitely present though.

He wasn’t entirely certain though whether or not the lacking effect was a byproduct of his massively improved will or that the wards were less effective against his Translocation which, was significantly different from normal teleportation. He assumed it was some combination of both but mentally noted the significance of the fact that traditional spatial warding was basically useless against him now.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t actually quantify it because he no longer had access to other forms of teleportation.

On his way back up to his and Melody’s dorm room, Felix did his best to act completely normal as he debated with Grim, within his Soul Garden to hide the conversation, just in case.

Worst case, they misinterpret and kill you or they notice and try to eat you for your power or experiment on you or capture and enslave you. He could also become evil, he could already be evil and raze the universe to celebrate.

Felix mentally sighed, Best case?

They reward you with The Super Boon of the Super God and give you +1,000 times stats forever along with the keys to their vaults and hoards. Realistically though, you either get caught or you make it out and no one notices.

You really think so? You think I can do this without being noticed?

Maybe. He’s got enough Curse in him that outside observation isn’t possible. He doesn’t really need sleep but he’ll probably sleep for a while, considering what he’s going through. Elrena seems pissed so I don’t expect her to be back until tomorrow at least. Honestly, I give it 25% chance you pull this off unnoticed, assuming he doesn’t wake up.

So you don’t think it’s worth it to hea- sorry, cure him?

I didn’t say that.

Do you believe him? Do you think he saw right through me? Do you think he’s genuinely just looking out for the universe?

Grim nodded immediately, even before Felix finished talking, Yeah, but our souls are intertwined and I’m literally just reading from your senses, not using my own. We both do. Don’t come to me for the opposite opinion to balance things out.

So how should I do this?

Wait an hour.

Teleport back in to the coordinates I measured.

Hope they were measured correctly.

Hope he’s actually asleep.

Hope he stays asleep as you tear the curse out of his soul.

Teleport out and live to see another day?

Hopefully.

That’s a lot of hoping. Luckily, I’m pretty sure if I do get caught, I wouldn’t immediately get killed. I’d just rather keep things a secret for the time being. If possible.

Grim agreed with him, You can always decide to reveal your secrets later, you can’t unreveal them though.

Walking back into his dorm, he saw Melody passed out, each of her limbs pointing in a completely different direction, as he walked straight into the lab. In there, he found Art, Eni and about a hundred different construction constructs that were loosely based on the orbs that formed Eni crossed with his Seeing Eye Constructs.

They allowed his Mind City Residents to interact with the outside world through Mark.

They had also created and mostly iterated on hundreds of different combat constructs, their main focus at the moment. For everything but especially The Realms of Annihilation, having a personal army he could roll out at will seemed like a great idea.

“Master Felix. I hope to speak to you.”

“Eni. Your voice box and language lessons seem to be going well.”

He tilted forwards on his large lower spherical half, “Yes. Much thanks to this mind you gave me.”

“What did you want to talk about?”

“In Spirit Realm I had a Master. An Elder Spirit that taught me… things? Ah, thank you Mark. Taught me Spirit Engineering.”

“What is that?”

“Similar to this, follows laws of Spirits.”

So like The System? The way it’s a machine made of Anima? Now I really need to visit.

“I see. What about them?”

“I am request that you summon them.”

Felix cocked a brow, “I’m definitely not opposed to that. I take it you’ll speak with them upon arrival? Explain the situation?”

Eni nodded which amounted his his entire body tilting back and forth around the ball he used to move, “Yes.”

“What body are we putting them in?”

“I was hope you could provide something biological.”

“I can. Why though?”

“They are… peculiar. Given a construct body and knowledge of constructs, they would be dissatisfied with their body quickly.”

“I see. For constructs though, you probably want something humanoid, at least with opposable thumbs… Let me see what I have on hand…”

Sifting through his Soul Space was rather disappointing as all he had were bug like and burrowing creatures so he headed down to the nearest corpse store, or the nearest one Melody knew of.

He didn’t buy anything extravagant at all, just a simple old Frostmyre body that was mostly in tact, not that it mattered with his skill.

Back in his dorm room, after his minutes long shopping spree, Felix set everything up for the Spirit Summoning ritual then retrieved Eni from the lab room.

“So, how do I summon them specifically?”

“I come because of a beacon of construction and engineering. This time, let me provide the beacon.”

Felix nodded and pointed to Eni where to stand and described to him where to provide his Anima for the ritual to work then provided the Anima cost for the skill and pumped unattuned Mana into the ritual.

The last time he had used his skill, to summon Eni, the Spirit he was summoning had appeared almost instantly. This time though, Felix was stuck waiting, his Mana fueling the portal and Eni growing noticeably nervous given the Anima surrounding him.

Felix looked up at Eni and cocked a brow, “What’s going on?”

“They’re just stubborn. Wait longer.”

Felix nodded and waited.

After another couple of minutes, he looked up at Eni and groaned.

With his Anima senses, he reached up above the ritual and found Eni’s offering then added to it. Firstly, he amplified Eni’s offering in case it wasn’t quite loud enough, then h-

A Spirit appeared before Felix could add anything else. Another cloud of Anima but this one almost structured. Instead of an amorphous candle flame, this Spirit held the well defined shape of a cube. It was also denser, had a stronger will and was obviously older than Eni, by a lot.

Felix’s Anima senses didn’t fully pierce the Spirit but he could get a general sense of them, kind of what he imagined Spirit names to be, and found the experiences the Anima held were more varied, richer and deeper. On top of that, this Spirit had very tight control over what it was advertising on the Anima around it.

Unlike Eni, its exact thoughts weren’t broadcast to everyone in the vicinity but rather, just the thoughts it wanted to advertise.

Which at the moment, was pure annoyance.

Also unlike Eni, this Spirit apparently knew how to speak, “Why have I been summoned.”

Eni’s nervousness was even worse than before the Spirit had shown up, “Master, I heard the call of a summoning from the material world and the prospect of learning engineering and making constructs brought me. I have spend time here thought you will enjoy it too.”

“I ignored your summons. Then, you made them loud enough to wake Sealed Spirits.”

Felix stepped forward, “That was me. I wasn’t aware you were ignoring him. Apologies.”

The Spirit tensed slightly, and let it be known, then relaxed literally. Its form shifted from a cube, to a dodecahedron, “Who are you.”

“I summoned your student.”

“You offer body and engineering?”

Felix nodded, “I did. I am.”

“That is all?”

Felix shrugged, “That’s all I was offering. If you want something else, I’m open to negotiation I guess.”

The dodecahedron relaxed further into an icosahedron then the Spirit spun around a bit as it advertised that it was scanning its surroundings, “I recognize not this Daemon.”

Felix nodded to Nova, “This is Nova, my familiar. Was a Sprite just a few epochs ago.”

The Spirit spun around just a bit more then looked back at Felix, “Provided books, I will engineer for you.”

“You just want access to books? The knowledge contained inside them or you want physical and material books?”

“What use has a Spirit for material books. I wish for knowledge.”

Felix nodded, “I can do you one better. Let’s say this, I’ll provide you with knowledge from books. If that doesn’t satisfy you, I will provide you books directly. I’ll also provide a body, materials, a lab, tools and anything else you need to make constructs.”

“I will use this body to make constructs per your direction. I will leave if I am unsatisfied.”

Felix nodded, “Deal.”

“Master” Eni rolled forwards, “Maybe you don’t need a Spirit Contract?”

Eni tried desperately to warn their master through the Anima and Felix simply let them. He didn’t want to trick the Spirit and make it unhappy lest it sabotage him somehow.

The icosahedron though shifted back up to a cube for a moment then back down to an icosahedron before ignoring Eni’s warning and offering Felix a Spirit Contract.

“I know your student was trying to warn you and I don’t want you to feel tricked. With a Spirit Contract, I will have all the power.”

“I know.” Curiously, they didn’t advertise anything on the Anima.

Felix nodded then accepted the contract and floated the corpse over with his Matter Control.

Ding You have become more proficient with the Profession skill: [Ancient] Summon Spirit (Journeyman XI => Journeyman XIII)

First up, was his Necromancy skill, Restore Corpse.

He’d already used the skill a number of times and through his relatively advanced knowledge of biology from modifying his own body, he was able to easily bring the skill up to Apprentice IV without giving it much thought or attention. Now though, he actually had a reason to give it thought and attention, at least more reason than he had had with Translocation test subjects.

He didn’t care much about the body itself for the purposes of the Spirit and making it much stronger but he did care about his skill and pushing it as much as he could.

The body itself was a relatively undamaged, simple Uncommon C grade Frostmyre corpse with little to no drastic changes from their evolutions which, gave Felix essentially a blank slate. The skill itself largely just activated as soon as he provided the cost, but this time, he provided more Mana and forced his way into the skill as it was activating.

In large part, he slowed the skill down, directed his own attention and used his Matter Control to alter the body as the skill was activating. It was the simplest way to express his intent with the skill that he could come up with.

As he molded the body and slowly provided Mana into the skill, Felix began to feel the body responding to not just his Matter Control, but also his intentions. He knew The System could no longer read those unless he advertised them so that was exactly what he was doing, and it was listening.

He tightened the muscles, upgraded the brain and made the bones denser and with each one, the body morphed along with his changes, replicating them across the body so he didn’t have to manually do everything himself.

Finally, he made one larger modification and embedded a computer with his new trans-spatial bindings, based on Rathelius’ training, into the body’s gut.

Ding You have upgraded the Profession skill: [Special] Restore Corpse (Apprentice IV) => Profession: [Epic] Mold Corpse (Apprentice II)

Profession: [Mold Corpse (Epic) Repair and upgrade a corpse temporarily. Once slain, activating this skill on a corpse, allows you to modify and restore that corpse for reanimation for a time. Restoration and upgrades are based entirely around your biological knowledge and expertise. This time depends on how long the new soul is bound to it with a minimum of 1 minute if no soul is bound. Some levels and skills can be retained from the original creature up to a point, dependent on the strength of the bound soul. Some skills can be granted to the reanimated corpse, dependent on the modifications made. Once used on a corpse, this skill cannot be used again on the same corpse. This skill has a Mana cost that scales based on the grade, rarity and size of the corpse being restored and the modifications being performed. This skill can be upgraded.]

Huh… So I can restore a corpse from essentially nothing now if I know how it’s supposed to be? Neat.

Next up was his Imbue Creation skill and that, he hadn’t used nearly as much which meant he was unfortunately stuck with just Uncommon Professions. Given that, he settled on just imbuing the same Enchanter Profession as Eni because it was fairly generic and allowed them to choose from a wide variety of skills.

The last step, was simply offering the body to the Spirit and allowing it to bind itself.

With Eni, the process had taken some time but with this Spirit, it took a few seconds at most and then, they didn’t need to learn how to walk or move. Eni had looked like a toddler and this Spirit, looked like a person who had woken up from a long slumber as they stretched and swung their limbs in every direction. Lastly, they wiggled and stretched their mouth and tongue before turning to Felix and nodding.

“I am aware of System. You seem still young.”

Felix shrugged, “Relatively. You seem to have experience with material bodies.”

They didn’t seem to really acknowledge his question, but they also didn’t deny it.

“Can I take it you already have a name you like then?”

“Rewdan.”

Felix nodded then walked over to the door to the lab, opened it and gestured inside, “Welcome Rewdan. This is the lab Eni’s been using but we’ll be leaving in just a few days. The lab at school isn’t as nice as this one but it’s bigger.”

They nodded but didn’t immediately head into the lab, instead they walked around the room and inspected mundane objects along with Nova, Eni and then more mundane objects.

Felix watched for a bit, in case they had questions, then decided it was a waste of his time and left.

It hadn’t been quite an hour as Felix was hoping but he and Grim both decided it had been long enough and he had already restored his Mana pool with batteries and the absurdly responsive and dense Aether. Felix began walking through the halls of the building, collecting and attuning Mana until he had enough so he could use his leave his Mana Pool untouched and use it to escape. It took a while, which meant it still wasn’t entirely usable in combat, even when casting a Mana Portal which was cheaper than Translocating himself.

When the portal opened, Felix stepped through and couldn’t help but smile a little that his ability to teleport was back and, seemingly better than ever. The portal, much like his translocation, worked on the principal of shifting the spatial location of the matter in his body directly and temporarily moving his physical form through the Aether. Except it worked more like a tunnel through the Aether, instead of directly altering his body’s spatial bindings and was therefore, much cheaper at just under a hundred million Mana for the distance. Much like his Translocation, he barely noticed the spatial warding on the door at all.

The loss of real anchors was a bit of a pain but Felix was just grateful to have portals back. Although, his new version felt different from his old ones.

For one thing, they looked completely different.

Instead of a window into another location with a thick arcane border, it looked simply like a hole in Space. The portal he had created was just one directional and so on his side, he simply saw a black sheet floating in the air as light didn’t pass back through it.

He didn’t look at it long though for risk of getting caught and stepped through a moment later.

Another advantage of his new portals was that he could tell with certainty that he wasn’t followed by some fast moving or invisible object, something he had previously considered. Translocation was the best method of movement when he didn’t want to be followed but his very tuned Mana Control made it so he knew exactly how much Matter moved through an Aether Tunnel.

Certain he wasn’t followed and relatively certain no one knew where he was going even if they had seen him, Felix took stock of his surroundings and was immediately ready to act his way out with a lie if needed. The room though, was exactly as he had left it except now, Rhonan completely asleep.

His Mana, Anima and Matter Senses told him he was alone and there was no one nearby but he looked around anyways just to make sure before walking over to the couch and looking down at Rhonan.

There is no chance he doesn’t wake up, is there?

Not… no chance. Would that really be so bad? You could just tell him.

That I’m the thing he saved from just outside the universe and that I can heal his soul, all he has to do is let me touch his Core Soul?

He would have to confirm it’s possible but… I don’t see why he wouldn’t let you.

Let’s circumvent all that and just do it.

He could kill you if he wakes…

Maybe. I doubt it though. He seems rational and level headed enough… I think.

Speaking of, will you tell him after you heal him? He’d probably funnel resources and training into making you stronger.

If I do that, I become responsible for saving this universe. I don’t mind the burden or the responsibility. I’m just not sure I care about saving the multiverse. I can just leave.

Grim sighed, What you’re saying is perfectly logical but… If I hadn’t known you before you replaced your brain, I would have sworn this was a result of that.

I’m not wrong though.

No… Just most… sapients have an attachment to their universe and to their fellow sapients.

Good for them. I’m assuming the other universes are similar or better. If I found out they weren’t, then I’d try to save this one I guess.

Better for what?

Living. Learning. Training. Magic.

Grim was silent for a few moments but Felix could tell he was thinking, You’d really just let the universe die if it came to it? Get eaten and destroyed?

He shrugged, I don’t see why not. Saving it just seems like more trouble than it’s worth.

Grim didn’t seem to have an answer at the moment, or he was formulating how to continue the conversation. Either way, they were finished for the moment so Felix took a quick breath then stepped around the couch and looked at the God before him.

Other than being quite a bit larger, covered in runes and having the densest muscles Felix had ever seen, he looked entirely human. In a weird way, it was comforting that the strongest being in the multiverse-other than The System-wasn’t some kind of exotic being. In another way, it made him very wary of making assumptions and false attributions about his character.

Stepping forwards, Felix poked at Rhonan’s leg, which didn’t deform in the slightest. Like he had poked a statue made of glass.

Then, he poked harder. Then he hit him. Slapped. Punched.

Not only was Rhonan not waking but Felix was actively injuring himself. On the positive side though, he hadn’t reacted at all and he could definitely feel Felix. He wasn’t sure if he was sleeping through the annoyance of being poked and prodded or if he didn’t feel enough to be woken.

To test that, Felix used his greatest strength and poked him with a tendril.

This time, he felt some amount of give but still, not much.

Rhonan’s Soul seemed to have some kind of layer on the outside much like Felix’s and he would have to pierce that to do anything meaningful. Luckily though, it seemed as though Rhonan wasn’t going to wake from anything as simple as physical contact or breath.

Being as large as he was, Felix hopped up onto Rhonan’s knees and placed his hand on Rhonan’s bare chest through the spilling of his robes.

He took a moment to ready himself then, shaped his Soul Tendril into a scalpel and tried to pierce his Soul. At first, it didn’t look like Felix was going to make it through but after pushing his will and combining a few tendrils into one denser tendril, he managed to make a small incision in the outer layer of his Soul. At the same instant, his flesh opened as well.

In a perfect match of location and injury, Rhonan’s chest had a small incision despite Felix not having done anything physically.

He ignored that and paid attention to Rhonan’s breath and heartbeat to try and figure out if he was waking up but nothing changed.

Either he was faking it or he really wasn’t waking up.

Felix waited a few more moments just in case, holding the incision open so it didn’t seal back up with Rhonan’s ridiculous regeneration, then pushed his tendrils inside.

What Felix had expected, was that Rhonan had an outer layer to his Soul. As soon as he pushed into the incision though, he realized he was completely wrong. Rhonan didn’t have an outer layer to his Soul, he had skin as part of his Soul. Cutting in further and diving in towards where he knew his Core Soul was, he realized Rhonan’s Soul wasn’t crafted in structure, it perfectly matched his body in structure. They were essentially one whole.

Felix’s Body and Soul were intertwined but he had a Core Soul and layers he had crafted. Rhonan’s had skin and muscles and organs and a heart. His Core Soul was shaped and sized to perfectly match his heart, which was oddly at the center of his chest.

It meant that as Felix cut his way deeper, he was opening both Rhonan’s Soul and Body simultaneously.

He made sure to suck away and store some of the blood and keep pressure on the wound with his hand but otherwise, paid little mind to Rhonan’s body considering he had seen him recover from having a cavern carved out of it.

The entire time, Felix paid very careful attention to make sure he didn’t accidentally pierce Rhonan’s afterlife, which he understood to be somewhere in Rhonan’s Soul. As far as he could tell though, it wasn’t anywhere near where he was working.

Once he reached Rhonan’s heart, Felix did another check to see if Rhonan had woke up and stared at him in disbelief for a few seconds before continuing.

He has to be faking… right?

The System does this in evolutions, right? Maybe this isn’t a normal sleep? I don’t know… It’s definitely…

Grim didn’t need to finish his sentence to express his disbelief.

First, Felix located the Cursed Anima which was trivial with even the most basic of Anima Senses. Then, he began to cut around the area to expose the Curse. He cut away as little of Rhonan’s actual soul as he could manage and stored the tainted sections in his Soul Space, where it was suspended and held away from anything else.

Once he had dealt with everything around his Core Soul, Felix took a look at the source of the problem and invariably winced, along with everyone in his mind that were watching along.

The Curse was obviously embedded within the outside of his Core Soul but it was worse than Rhonan had said, it had pierced and was sinking into his Core Soul but it was slow. Rhonan was doing everything he could to slow it and the inevitable damage down but offering up sacrificial experiences in his Core Soul was just a bandaid solution. It had already reached into his Core Soul with tiny tendrils, like roots digging into their new home.

Using his Tendrils, Felix began peeling back and pulling on the Curse that was present while cutting it free, tiny piece by tiny piece until he was left with the real problem.

He took the same general approach with the Curse inside of his Core Soul but was much more careful. Felix made absolutely sure he didn’t cut away any more than he had to as he slowly peeled back The Endless Hunger.

He briefly noted, through his intense focus, that the Curse within Rhonan felt old and ancient as he had expected but not drastically more than his first encounter had felt. The Curse lining the path up Amatara’s peaks, Hunger specifically, was much younger, even at the penultimate peak.

Back in Telviras, when he had been used to steal The Endless Hunger from someone, that had been just as ancient as he felt now though which meant, they likely had the same origin.

Either Rhonan had brought it back with him, someone else was going out, or it had gotten in somehow. Whichever it was, he would worry about it later.

There was a very fine line between removing all of the Curse and removing too much.

As careful as he was, he erred on the side of removing too much because if he left some behind, it could be too small to detect. In that case, Rhonan might think he was cured then suddenly drop dead one day and explode in black ichor.

Still, even though Felix knew he was doing the right thing, it felt wrong to him to be hacking away at the experiences inside a Core Soul. Even if the Anima he was cutting at was offered by Rhonan sacrificially to the Curse, they were still core experiences that had gone into making him who he was. They were literally the essence of his person, the definition of his personality. Losing any of it was dread inducing in a deep, soul bound and instinctual way.

There was no way for him to preserve any of it though so he simply sucked up the last of the Cursed remnants and slowly backed his tendrils away from Rhonan’s now Curse free Core Soul. He was somewhat expecting to have to patch up the leak and had Anima completely void of his identity ready but he found it wasn’t necessary at all.

As he pulled away, despite having an open hole in it, the gaseous like contents of Rhonan’s Core Soul remained perfectly still within the broken shell. It was a testament to his ridiculous will power that it remained that way and even Felix doubted whether or not he could have done the same given the density and increased pressure of his own Core Soul.

Other than his Core Soul, everything else on Rhonan’s body and Soul almost immediately closed up and healed itself as Felix withdrew his tendrils.

Surely he stops faking and wakes up now… right?

Finally pulling his tendrils all the way back into his body, Felix pulled his hand back and winced at the blanched hand-print left behind on Rhonan’s chest. Luckily it wasn’t a perfect imprint and no one would be able to match it to Felix’s hand from size and shape alone, but it was recognizably a hand, and it stood out.

Congratulations!

You have earned a title and upgraded a title.

Lifegiver => Resurrectionist: This ti l i o _ . . . .

Ding You ha- _ , .. . . .

What in th-

qowinm hfoi aoi zm

.

Huh?

Thank you

Rhonan will awaken in 1 minute.

A minute? FUCK.

Felix leapt off of Rhonan’s lap and began collecting as much Mana from the Aether as he could along with emptying the few batteries he had for constructs along with everything left in every one of his cores.

The Aether was dense enough that he restored his Mana much faster than usual but he still didn’t have nearly enoug-

Suddenly a massive wave of Mana washed over him, more than enough for him to completely refill his cores and cast the spell he needed. Enough of it was even spatially attuned that all he had to do was pump it into his body and direct himself.

Then, he vanished from the room.

Felix had Translocated himself to the middle of the lobby so he didn’t have to worry about avoiding walls and floors and immediately caught himself with his Matter Control.

What just happened?

I… Grim’s disbelief completely matched Felix’s, think… the system just… bugged out?

Or it… Actually, I have no idea. Was it keeping Rhonan unconscious?

I think that makes the most sense. That’s why it warned you when he was going to wake up.

And provided me with enough Mana to get out.

Why does it care if you get discovered?

Maybe it wasn’t sure that I would save him at all if there was a chance I was?

I know it can’t read you but… Maybe? Also, why does it want you to save Rhonan?

That… is also a good question.

Felix could hear the citizens in his Mind City, the ones that were trustworthy enough to watch, all throwing out theories and discussing. Their conversation grew heated at times as they argued, theorized and debated but Felix just listened along as he flew back to his and Melody’s room.

As he opened the door, he saw Melody stretching out in bed and groaning, obviously having just woken up.

“I’m staaaaaaarving.” She sat up and sprung out of bed, “Wanna go get something to eat?”

Felix nodded slowly, “That… sounds nice.”

She smiled at him then led him out to another brand new restaurant.

The normalcy of their meal was nice and it gave Felix time to think things over. He even fully engaged himself in her banter every once in a while, to distract and reground himself a little.

With just one day left in their recruitment, Felix fell back into his old routine, with some small Melody sized modifications. They trained and gained levels but skipped the sparring. Felix then worked with his Spirits and constructs on constructs. He and Melody ate and they even spent some time figuring out Mana Attunements for her bakery, something he had been somewhat putting off with the rest of his rigorous schedule.

He could tell she noticed him being more engaged generally but she didn’t mention it.

He appreciated that, considering half the reason was so he could try and fly under the radar. He didn’t want to make it seem like he knew anything had happened and acting completely normal, was the best way he could think of to minimize suspicion.

Then, around the time she normally dragged him to dinner, Melody instead insisted on dragging Felix to a party with a number of the other students and recruits, something he really didn’t want to do.

Ultimately though he caved and found the party they went to, wasn’t quite the party he was expecting. It was, in a way, the cool kids party.

Inevitably he knew there would be a massive party involving the majority of the recruits and students. The party Melody brought him to though was more of a large gathering with less students than he expected. Instead, Tam and Ameryl were there along with other Elites he had sparred with. There were even a few Gods sprinkled amongst the attendants.

Ayred was there too, despite not having a recruitment with Rhonan.

It seemed it was the party of people Melody approved of though he was pretty sure she hadn’t organized and arranged it.

Felix was a little worried Rhonan or Elrena would show up and he only really relaxed a few hours into the general festivities.

He didn’t really like people. He didn’t really like interacting with them. He much preferred just training and being alone. Crowds especially, he despised.

Despite that, he didn’t hate the party entirely because he talked about how he had progressed and areas of improvement with Ameryl and Tam. Talking about Tam’s time in the Spirit Realm and their accounts of The Realms of Annihilation from when they had done them, was insightful.

The only other topic that came up, more than once, was Melody bringing up The Tournament of the Abyss, “It suuuucks that it isn’t a thing anymore. I’ve watched a bunch of memory crystals and you would have loved it, Felix.”

He shrugged, “Oh well.”

She grumbled and Tam giggled a little, “She’s right. It’s a bummer it was put on indefinite hold. Sure there are all the normal competitions, Caster’s Duels, Sword Fights, Strength Matches, Beast Taming and all that.”

“The Abyss is what really matters though.” Melody smiled devilishly.

Ameryl nodded, reluctantly, and seemed like she really didn’t want to be there in that conversation.

Melody grabbed Felix’s shoulder with a slap, “Imagine this, you and three of your best buds walk into an ancient door that no one really knows much about. At the same time, thousands of other groups from all over step into doors of their own. We arrive on some kind of vast floor filled to the brim with monsters.”

“Do I need a group? Can I just go in there alone?”

Melody looked hurt, “What? Of course you can’t”

Tam giggled.

Felix sighed, “Do I at least get to keep the levels I gain in there?”

She nodded, “Oh yeah. We run through, killing the monsters of the floor. Then, there’s another floor.”

Felix nodded along to her obviously drunken account of an old tournament that doesn’t even exist anymore.

“Get this though… once you clear enough floors, there’s a boss.”

“Okay. What happens when you kill it?”

“You get loot and you are allowed to leave and come back before continuing on… to the next series of floors.”

“When does it end?”

“When you don’t go back in.” She shrugged like it was the simplest thing in the world, “Or _die.”

“I see. So a number of floors then a boss. Then a number of floors and a boss. That’s it? It just repeats like that?”

She nodded, “That’s it? Infinite monsters, levels, loot and floors that progress further and further into the past. Creatures that don’t exist anymore. Loot from forgotten eras.”

“Why would I want old shit? Wouldn’t new stuff just be better?”

Ameryl shook her head lightly, “For some reason, the older the item the stronger it tends to be.”

Felix frowned, “Huh.”

“Anyways, so one time, there was a series of floors, right? And so the series was based on like, water creatures…”

Felix listened along to Melody’s drunken ramblings, mostly for the insights Tam and Ameryl provided as he mentally reviewed what he had accomplished on his recruitments, and what he still wanted to do.

In terms of levels alone, he had managed to gain 425 levels in his Profession and 531 in his Class. Everyone, including the Elites, claimed that was a ridiculous pace and lauded him and his generation but Felix couldn’t help but feel like it was just slow. He had spent 100 days, one hour each, leveling. That meant he had gained an average of just 5 levels in his class per day.

Somehow, it just felt like it wasn’t enough.

Name: Felix Kade (The True Wizard) FREE 0 Innate: Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard) STR 3,398 Class: [C - Ancient] Reaper (Lvl 1,837) DEX 9,829 Race: [C - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 1,785) AGI 6,458 Profession: [C - Ancient] Lifebinder (Lvl 1,734) PER 5,016 Health: 54,567,590 / 54,567,590 VIT 5,456 Mana: 2B / 2B + 6B / 6B INT 16,631 Resistance: 97.95% END 4,786

I take it you updated my Mana, Nucleus?

Yeah and stabilized the stats. I factored in your Reaper’s skills but not your Mana Skin or Soul Layer for Resistance.

Well, good job either way.

Thank you. Speaking of… you, while I have your attention…

What?

How attached are you to your class?

Not overly. It has skills that I want to learn and using it like training wheels has been pretty useful. Why?

I don’t want to promise something that ends up being impossible but… I think we might be able to work you towards a Custom Class.

No thanks. I was offered one in D grade actually. It sounded like it would just let me take any skill which to me, meant it wouldn’t bring interesting skills and abilities to my attention. All the other classes had some innate things to them, like Wizard being able to move spells in and out of their Spell List.

Yes, that version of Custom Class is not what I mean.

Oh? Felix raised a brow.

I mean an actually Custom Class. Like Reaper.

Felix’s was suddenly very interested, Just class?

Not necessarily. It might be hard to do both though.

What do I need to do?

I’m not entirely certain. There is no set and defined criteria. However, I think I can guide you on some things, then probe this System chunk for what to do next.

Gotcha. So what’s first?

First, you need to figure out what specifically you want out of the class. It will also be easier and become more clear the closer you get to the B grade.

Okay, we’ll talk more about this soon then.

I’ll see if I can pinpoint any specifics in the meantime.

The biggest and most drastic increase, were his ability to use Reaper’s Skills constantly, which buffed all his stats massively and his Mana Pool.

He knew looking through everything, seeing other students he recognized and Elites walking around. He knew the gap between them had either widened or closed depending on whether or not they were weaker or stronger than him respectively. He knew he was progressing faster than almost everyone, at least faster than everyone he had been able to compare too.

Still, he wanted more.