Heading back to his dorm, Felix finally sat down and started working on the soul he was going to attach to the computer he had been working on. Using the principles of what he had learned in Soul Manipulation but more so Animancy, Felix began compressing anima as much as he could to form something a little different from a traditional soul.

This was both an experiment to further his own understanding but also hopefully a useful creation, Felix wanted to try and create a complex structure in the hopes that it became more functional. He started with a soul seed and already knew the size didn’t matter then formed a filter.

For this soul, he focused on accuracy, a desire to babysit and monitor everything, derived from his need to control things, and a desire to help Felix. Around that, Felix wrapped the soul in a layer that contained just one desire, the desire to grow. He also made sure it had the experiences from his growth chamber by harvesting the souls out of half of the growth cells so it would know how.

From there, he created his first experimental addition, a layer that wasn’t actually just a layer. Instead of simply covering the soul with it, he created a layer that would stand on its own and be physically separate from the soul seed and filter within it. The layer would then attach to the soul beneath it through threads, almost like the soul on the inside was suspended.

The intention behind the layer was to have it act as an access control layer. In the worst case, the threads could be severed but otherwise, the layer would determine if someone accessing the computer had permission or not.

Around that, he added a communication layer which he structured physically as a spiky ball, each spike acting as an antenna or attachment point for communication.

The structured and shaped layers were somewhat of an experiment to see if structure made any difference. He had heard structure mention in Soul Manipulation & Cultivation class and wasn’t sure this was exactly what they had meant, but he figured he might as well give it a try.

The soul itself was denser than anything Felix had manually created himself and seemed to be solid. None of the physical shape he had created was deteriorating so he considered it a temporary success.

The last step was to combine everything together and bind it to a body, or in this case more of a housing. Instead of wasting time making it himself, Felix intended on summoning Nova with the intention of having her create the exact shape he was looking for. He didn’t know what material to use yet though and figured he would look around in Telviras for something.

By the time he was finished with everything and was ready to go shopping, it was early the next morning so he hoped the stores in Telviras would be open. He realized he didn’t actually know what time it was in Telviras though because the days on Eramith were longer and he had never bothered to figure it out.

Opening the door to his dorm to leave, he found Melody standing there.

“Oh Felix, it’s been so long. You must have missed me sooooooo much.”

Felix sighed and flew over her head to get out, closing the door behind him with a very light Force spell.

“So anyways, now that your heart ache has recovered from the lack of my presence… where you going?” Melody walked along under Felix, easily keeping up with his speed as she tilted her head back to look up at him.

“Heading to Telviras. I’ve got some shopping to do in preparation for the duel… amongst other things.”

Somehow perfectly avoiding every obstacle in her way without looking, Melody hopped onto and slid down the stair railing as Felix dropped down the middle, “Sounds like fun. Can I come?”

Felix shrugged as he reached the ground, “Sure I guess. I’m not going to be buying anything interesting.”

“Mundane or low rarity?” Melody skipped along beneath him.

“High rarity just not… interesting.”

She nodded, “We should go get Ayred then. He’ll be happy to come along.”

Felix shook his head, “What, why? I just need to pick some things up, this isn’t an adventure I need everyone involved in.”

She giggled, “Felix, trust me. Let’s get Ayred.”

Felix’s aversion to people in general fought with the fact that Melody knew far more than he did and seemed to only be helping him. Eventually the prospect of Ayred actually being useful won out and Felix sighed, “Fine. I assume he’s where I left him?”

She shrugged, “Probably. Race you there?”

Before he could respond, Melody was gone.

Felix bolted after her but he never quite saw her. As he walked into the ARM building though, he found her just off to the left of the door, lying on the couch with her feet in the air reading a book with her head hanging off the edge.

“Man you’re so slow. Maybe you’ll be able to keep up once you win the duel and get Erevos.”

Felix looked at the bookshelf then at Melody, then shrugged.

She sighed, “I don’t know what Ayred told you but if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, I put those there for everyone else’s sake.”

“Oh, so you haven’t read them? They aren’t just to satisfy your insatiable, dark urges?”

“Of course I have. They’re there for educational purposes because the people around here don’t get out enough.”

Felix rolled his eyes and started walking away, “Uh huh.”

“Oh, what am I reading and how am I enjoying it? What a thoughtful question Felix. I’m reading a science fiction novel actually. You heard of science fiction?”

Felix nodded.

“It’s interesting to think about, how fast technology progressed. Maybe we took the wrong path with mana and souls.” She sighed, “Sure our bodies are more durable and stronger. Magic is cool too but technology evolved way faster. I feel like we’ve stagnated for so long. So many low mana worlds got so far with just technology then… mana comes along and ruins everything. Maybe this universe just wasn’t built for mana. Kryptos gets close but… I can’t help but wonder where we would be if we had been evolving technology the whole time instead.”

Felix just stared at her for a few seconds, unsure what to say. He logically followed everything she said but magic and mana were just too cool for him to agree in any way, on any level.

“Anyways, just something to think about.” Melody rose to her feet on the backrest of the couch, dropped the book then hopped off, landing next to Felix.

With a soft and barely audible voice, Melody sang, “Ayred!”

A moment later, he almost fell down the stairs but caught himself just before joining them.

“Melody, Felix.” Ayred nodded to the two of them. Looking at Melody specifically, “You need something?”

“Felix here has some things to buy in Telviras.”

Ayred nodded knowingly, “Okay, let’s go.”

Melody smiled then skipped along ahead of them out of the building. She continued skipping outside of the building and into the air as Felix and Ayred followed.

They landed just outside the portal building and Melody approached the podium where the attendant usually stood.

Ayred turned to Felix “So what do you need to buy in Telviras?”

Felix hesitated for a fraction of a second, “Corpses and materials.”

“Rarities for both? What grade?”

Silently thankful his question wasn’t as weird as he thought it sounded, Felix internally sighed in relief, “For the corpses the higher the rarity the better. C grade or higher ideally. The materials, high rarities are ideal. I need to feed my familiar, a, once Matter Sprite now Matter Spirit so, really anything is good. I’m also looking for a specific material but I don’t know what yet.”

Ayred nodded, “High rarity corpses are going to be… challenging. The demand for them has been unusually high for a while now. It’s essentially impossible to get your hands on any. Demand for materials has been similar but not quite as bad. I’ll see what I can do.”

Felix was thoroughly confused but the portal opened in front of them at that moment and he didn’t get a chance to ask before they stepped through.

They arrived in the familiar teleportation hub where Ayred immediately walked out and vanished. Felix turned to Melody, his confusion made obvious from his expression.

She giggled, “You dueled Ayred, right?”

Felix nodded.

“Was he particularly good? So good that he deserves a spot amongst the top 500 or so people born in the last 100 epochs?”

“Uh… no. Not really. Wait, everyone in the school has to have been born in the last 100 epochs?”

She shrugged, “Loosely, yes. Anyways, Ayred’s at the school because of his profession. His profession is a derivative of Merchant, something like Shadow Relic Dealer or Enlightened Artifact Fence. I don’t fully remember.”

“Oh. Wait, Strig? His spell modifications weren’t nearly good enough.”

“Artist. He’s a famous painter actually.”

They walked out of the teleportation hub together, towards one of the balconies, “Is that how you know Ayred?”

She shrugged, “Sort of. Anyways, where are we heading first?”

“Good question. I guess with Ayred handling everything I needed to buy… is there any point in my looking around for that stuff?”

“Nope.”

“Library it is then.”

She nodded and flew side by side with him to the library. Heading into the general section first, Felix had the librarian retrieve a number of books on materials, animancy and constructs. He scanned them all then headed with Melody into the memory section.

“I’m looking for Tanryel’s Caster’s Dueling matches?”

The librarian nodded then vanished into a backroom. He reappeared a moment later, “Which ones?”

“I guess the 20 most recent along with all the most prominent matches? Tournament finals, famous opponents, high level opponents.”

The librarian nodded then returned a few minutes later with a box of neatly organized memory crystals. Placing the box on the table in front of Felix, the librarian sat down and pointed at the crystals.

“These are the 20 most recent, these are all the tournament final and semi final matches he’s fought in and these are the highest level opponents he’s fought.”

Felix looked into the box at over a hundred memory crystals, “Any chance I could get copies of these?”

“Yes… It will take a few hours and the material cost will be… high.”

“How much is high?” Felix frowned thinking back to the soul gem he had bought for Inscripticae and how it had cost them 25 B.

“A few thousand A to an S.”

Melody stood, “That’s fine. We’ll be back in a few hours then, say 4 hours.”

“I’ll have them ready by then.” The librarian nodded then took the box and left.

Walking out of the room, Felix turned to Melody, “Uh, that’s not fine? I don’t have nearly that many creds.”

“I do. Don’t worry about it. You’re fighting over me anyways.”

“I… Thanks.”

Melody just nodded and smiled, “Where to now?”

Felix just looked around the lobby for a bit, “I guess… I guess I should visit Inscripticae and Raidran’s then.”

Melody gestured for him to lead the way and they flew over to Inscripticae together. Felix had almost expected the shop to be permanently closed considering what had happened. Opening the door though, it was like nothing had changed.

The lobby was just as he remembered it and hopping over the counter with Melody in tow, the workshop looked mostly the same as well. There were people he didn’t recognize working at the tables which made it feel different, even if the room was functionally identical.

“You can’t just jump back in here.” One of the enchanters drew a sword at their hip and approached Felix and Melody.

Felix completely ignored them and headed straight to Aldahn’s office, knocking on the door.

“Hey, wha-” The sword wielder was completely unsure of what to do but didn’t get a chance to make a decision as a moment later, Felix heard a very familiar, “Come in!”

Felix opened the door and let Melody through first then closed the door behind himself.

“Felix! Are you back or… you’re just visiting?”

“Just visiting for now. This is Melody.”

Melody waved with her signature ever cheery, overly gleeful and warm smile painted across her face.

“Pleasure to meet you.” Aldahn nodded towards her.

“I see you hired some new enchanters?” Felix gestured towards the workshop with his head.

“Yeah. They’re… okay. Not the same but like I said, you get used to tragedy and learn to just move on. The shop’ll be different but different is okay. Just… different.”

Felix nodded, “I don’t exactly have time right now but I’ll come by when I do to pick up a commission.”

Aldahn smirked, “Your personal client, the dueling coat? Her friends have been asking after you.”

“Have they been bragging about the infinite size of their wallets too?” Felix groaned.

“Not quite.” Aldahn laughed, “You gonna tell me where you disappeared to anyways?”

Felix hesitated and Melody leaned over and whispered in his ear, loud enough that Aldahn certainly heard them with his grade and stats, “He already knows, he’s just giving you the chance to tell him.”

Felix looked at her then him, “What, really?”

Aldahn shrugged, “I… had a suspicion? You’re an Integrated, it’s not that much of a stretch to guess that you got that scholarship.”

“Well yes, that’s where I’ve been and also where I picked up this parasite.” Felix gestured towards Melody.

She shrugged as her smile turned into a smirk.

“Well, you’re almost definitely going to be a better enchanter than I am then.”

Felix shrugged, “Maybe. Anyways, I just figured I should check in with you I guess.”

Aldahn waved him off, “You’re busy with school, don’t worry about it. We’re doing fine. I had to handle a few more clients than I normally do to pick up the slack but it’s probably good for me anyways.”

Felix nodded, “I take it Krinitor is still busy?”

Aldahn nodded, “Yup. That project he got was apparently huge.”

After a bit more teasing and chit chat, Felix bid Aldahn farewell then ignored the sword wielding and now confused enchanter as he and Melody left and flew off to Raidran’s.

Entering through the employee entrance, Felix and Melody walked into the main chamber where he found Rainoth and Kordran assisting some client.

Seeing Felix enter, Rainoth politely excused herself and approached them, “Felix, what the hell are you doing bringing someone else in here.”

Felix shrugged, “Didn’t really think it would be an issue. This is Melody.”

Rainoth’s eyes went wide as she stared at Melody, “You…”

Melody waved once again with the same warm and friendly smile she greeted everyone with, “Hello.”

After finally collecting herself, Rainoth actually bowed, “Melody, it is an absolute pleasure to meet you. Welcome to Raidran’s.”

“Thanks.” Melody smiled at her brightly.

“Was there something you needed in specific, Felix or did you come to bring me more… materials. Hopefully not quite as… dangerous? as the last?”

“I just came to check in actually because I found myself with more time here than I anticipated.”

“Ah I see, well, you are always welcome here.”

Rainoth was being far more cordial than Felix had ever seen her and he was pretty sure he knew why.

“You’re looking for rare materials? Felix here might not have any on hand but I happen to know someone you might be interested in talking to.” Melody smiled.

Rainoth stumbled to find words, “O- Of course. It would be an hono- my pleasure.”

Melody smiled and turned to Felix, “I’ll go get a message to Ayred to meet us here then. Meet you here in 30 minutes or so? How about you pick me out a new outfit in the meantime, design it yourself if you want.”

Felix sighed, knowing she was teasing him but the look on Rainoth’s face gave him the impression he couldn’t really say no without an actual fight, “Sure.”

Melody smiled wide to both of them then skipped out of the shop the way she had come in.

Rainoth’s face immediately reverted to the Drakene equivalent of a sour and crochety old woman’s, “Felix! You need to be kinder around people like her.”

“No I don’t. You want to get started on her outfit or what? I know you wouldn’t let me design it even if I had wanted to anyways.”

“Damn straight I wouldn’t. You would stick her in some kind of skimpy lit-”

Felix scowled, “Where the hell did you get that impression of me? I would have picked the nearest curtain and wrapped a belt around it. I could care less about what she wears.”

“You’re a young uncultured boy, of course you’d choose something revea-”

“Never mind. How did I even get roped into this. Make her whatever you want. She seems to like sundresses, she wears those a lot. I’m going to go read in a corner.”

Rainoth grumbled incomprehensibly as she rushed through the shop trying to come up with something.

Hey Grim, you get through that material registry?

We should have asked Ked or Professor Sal. These materials are largely mundane and boring.

Alright. Thanks anyways. How are things going up there?

Really well actually. We’ve come up with a few other building ideas we can put in place and some more ideas for reproduction.

I’m coming up, one second.

Popping his consciousness into his Mind City, Felix saw Grim and Orion appear right next to him.

“Master Felix.” Orion bowed.

Felix was a little off-put by the honorific but just nodded to him, “You had some ideas for reproduction?”

“With your permission, we’d like to begin experimenting. We just need a little more access to… your soul and Soul Space.”

Felix nodded, “I’ll see what I can do. Anything else you guys need up here?”

“Access to more anima and mana would also greatly accelerate our work. Ideally we’d like to expand the computer growth farm.” Orion bowed again.

“I’ll see what I can do. I’m also almost done working on an improved version so I might replace that one soon.”

Orion bowed one last time then vanished, back into the city itself.

Felix turned to Grim, “Any concerns with giving more permissions to these versions?”

Grim nodded, “Yes and no. They are much smarter by themselves but I’m pretty sure they’re borrowing resources from your brain as well. Their own brains just aren’t big enough to be as smart as they are.”

Felix sighed, immediately catching on to the issue, “So if I let them reproduce without limits, my own Intelligence is going to plummet.”

“Yeah. Your new computer should fix that but you’re going to want to disable, or severely limit their access to using your brain at all.”

“Alright, thanks. Do you want your connection to be an actual computer or just a translation end point?”

Grim shrugged, “An actual computer would be great I’m just not sure how to… attach it?”

“I’ll make it anyways and we’ll figure it out later. I guess an endpoint is all Nova needs.”

“Agreed.” Grim nodded.

“After this, any other ideas on what I should be doing to prepare for the duel?”

Grim hesitated, “Actually… yes. You made the biggest jump in progress recently from fighting the Hungering Hollow, that inky stuff…” The fact that he suggested that despite the fear Felix knew he harbored, spoke volumes.

Felix nodded, “I’ll be careful.”

Shifting his consciousness back to his body, Felix was still sitting in a corner and Rainoth was still rushing around the shop like a headless chicken. He looked down into his main Soul Space and looked at the computer growth farm there.

It really did look ancient in comparison to the new one he had been working with. Before he destroyed it though, he opened a new Soul Space and moved the new computer growth farm there. Then, he dumped in half of his mana pool as a solid block and moved over a large chunk of Anima from his main Soul Space.

Finally, he entered his Mind City and rebuilt the fenced in section where the growth farm building had been located. Now, he had the fenced in section perfectly represent the new Soul Space he had just opened. The new growth farm building represented his improved farm, the blocks of mana appeared within a warehouse where he also added a spout that would output liquid mana from the block. Lastly, he added a massive, low hanging, white cloud above the area that represented all the Anima floating around in there.

Taking a step back and looking around, little had changed about the city. There were a few new houses that the new projections had built but nothing that looked awful. Realizing he was going to have a number of new residents arriving soon if reproduction ever started working correctly, he found an empty plot of land and erected an infinite skyscraper. Each floor would be one individual apartment and was completely customizable inside.

He wouldn’t force anyone to live in there but hoped that its existence would keep things marginally tidier.

Happy with his work, Felix returned to the real world and turned his attention to the Hungering Hollow that had been sitting in its very own Soul Space. It didn’t seem to have grown at all but his soul around it had gotten harder and denser.

He quickly expanded the Soul Space so he had more room to work with which, was a little tricky given he couldn’t just fill it and let the pressure expand it. Instead, he had to use his own willpower to push it open.

Once he had enough room around it, Felix began constructing spell forms nearby as practice. He pushed himself as close as he dared to the inky black orb then slowly added a second spell. He knew he could do more, he had done so before but he built himself back up just to be entirely certain he wouldn’t make a mistake.

The number of spells grew along with the complexity until Melody showed up again some time later with Ayred in tow. She made herself known by effectively knocking on Felix’s soul until he opened the employee entrance for them and led them back into the main chamber.

Rainoth was completely missing but the client Kordran had been dealing with was gone so he approached them instead, “Welcome, friends of Felix. Please follow me to the sitting area and I will bring you tea while we wait for my wife to reappear.”

The tea was good but in Felix’s mind, disappointing. It wasn’t quite as fantastical as some things he had experienced in the multiverse. Just to confirm he hadn’t gotten complacent, Felix rolled his Flask of Adventurous Refreshment until he found something that tasted like soap but was actually drinkable.

Melody’s eyes went wide when she saw the flask and she reached over wiggling her hand in a gimme gesture, like a child, until he handed it to her.

She proceeded to take a sip, make a ridiculous face then roll it and take another sip. Every once in a while she would pour some into Ayred’s glass, insisting he try it. This continued until Rainoth finally showed back up.

“Ah, my lovely partner finally returns.” Kordran gestured towards Rainoth in a rather dramatic way.

Rainoth walked up to them and awkwardly bowed, evidently unsure of what to do, “Welcome to Raidran’s.”

Melody smiled and gestured towards Ayred, “Rainoth, meet Ayred, The Deraav’n Shadow Dealer.”

Completely slack jawed, Rainoth was at a loss. Her husband Kordran though was much more collected, “It is both of our pleasure to meet you, Ayred.”

“He’s The Deraav’n Shadow Dealer? He’s a kid?” Rainoth seemed to be having a difficult time processing this new information.

Melody shrugged, “Yes and… mostly yes. Anyways you mentioned Felix bringing you materials and Ayred’s always looking for more clients.”

Ayred nodded, “It would be my pleasure.” Rising from his seat, Ayred handed a card to Kordran who was closest, “This is my most trusted intermediary who knows how to contact me. Send any requests his way and I’ll see what I can do.”

Rainoth snatched the card from Kordran and stared at it for a few seconds with wide eyes before making it vanish, likely stowing it in some kind of Soul Space or spatial storage.

Collecting herself, Rainoth bowed to Ayred then Melody, “You have my gratitude for putting us in contact Melody. Felix and I have picked out some outfits for you to try on, would you like to take a look?”

Melody hopped up to her feet giddily and hurried over to follow Rainoth. Kordran bowed to them both then headed to help his partner when they called for him.

Ayred was left holding the flask so he handed it back to Felix with a nod, “Looks like I’ll be able to get my hands on some materials. Any corpses above Rare though are difficult. Epic might be possible but it would take a while. Anything higher than that might take an Epoch or more.”

Felix took the flask and stowed it as his brow furrowed, “Couldn’t I just hunt them myself? How is the supply so low?”

Ayred nodded, “That’s what most people have resorted to. All the hunters and adventurers that are remotely capable of hunting beasts have been swamped with contracts already from the high grade crafters.”

“Guess I’ll have to go hunt some myself then. How much for the materials by the way?”

“I just assumed Melody would be paying.” Ayred shrugged.

Felix leaned in and spoke quietly though, he figured Melody could hear them if she was paying attention, “She hadn’t mentioned paying for materials but she’s already agreed to pay for something else. Should I be worried? Am I gonna owe her now?”

Ayred smiled, “You don’t officially owe her anything. Let me guess, she found you somewhere on campus and started inserting herself into your life at random. Appearing unannounced, inviting you to random events and things and now she’ll insist on paying for everything.”

“Is that how you two met?”

“Sort of. I get it can seem a little worrying, like she might be trying to get something out of you. From everything I’ve seen from her over the last 50 epochs or so, you have nothing to be worried about. Just enjoy the ride and make sure to get whatever you can out of it.”

“That sounds… exploitative.”

Ayred quickly shook his head, “No, think of her as a sponsor. Also you should ask her why she’s doing it, it will help you trust her. Helped me at least.”

Felix nodded and looked over his shoulder at Melody who was trying on a white sundress with an animated field of flowers shifting through the material.

Once Melody was satisfied, buying more than one outfit for herself, they headed to the shop Aldahn had brought Felix to when they were buying materials for the box.

Nela bowed as Felix, Melody and Ayred entered, “Felix, welcome back.”

Felix nodded, surprised she remembered his name, “Thanks.”

“What kind of material would you be looking for today?”

“I need a material that insulates all mana and is easily affinized and soul bound.”

“What shape are you looking for?”

“A sphere or rather, I need flat surfaces so an icosahedron or something like that. Also I would like it to ideally be… relatively indestructible.”

“Of course. Must it be homogenous?”

“Not necessarily.”

“I take it the inside will need to be protected. Can you give me any more information on what it will be protecting?”

“It will be used in a construct.”

“Excellent.” Nela bowed then led them over to the center of room with the large multicolored sandbox where she quickly constructed a multicolored icosahedron out of sand.

Felix spent about an hour tuning the materials with Nela. They settled on a combination of a few alloys. One on the inside that insulated the contents from almost all mana interference. Outside of that was a thick layer that connected the inside to the outside and provided structural support. On the outside, they chose something much harder that was essentially a suit of armor.

Once Melody assured Nela that their budget was effectively unlimited, the materials she brought out were far more interesting to Felix.

As they looked over the final product, Felix with satisfaction and Nela with a blank face that didn’t give anything away, Nela smiled to him, “Unfortunately, it will take me at least 6 hours to finish the product. This material isn’t the easiest to work with as there are few materials in the entire multiverse stronger than this.”

Melody nodded, “Probably just true Ry Mallus.”

Ayred chuckled and shrugged and Nela nodded knowingly. Felix turned to Melody, “What’s that?”

“The only truly indestructible material in the multiverse. No one can actually create it, some people question whether or not it’s even a material and none of it is still known to exist. It is one in the same with Adamantium and Mythril from stories. No one really knows what it is, any of its properties. All we really know is that it exists or… existed.”

Felix looked at all of them with confusion, “How?”

“Records, legends, stories from the oldest gods, primordials. There’s enough overlap, even if a different name is used, that we… know.” Melody shrugged.

“So it’s probably just a myth then?”

Ayred turned back towards them from the far wall where he was inspecting the material displays, “Not exactly. No one really knows anything specific but a lot of theories exist saying a few of the primordials have some, Rhonan keeps some in his vault and some other sillier theories.”

Felix nodded, “Ok then, what do you mean true?”

Melody sighed, “There have been countless attempts to create Ry Mallus but no one has matched the legendary indestructibility of true Ry Mallus.”

“What do we know about it?”

Melody shrugged, “Nothing really. Some think it’s a metal, others think that’s ridiculous and that it can’t just be matter. A popular theory is it also involves some state of mana but others say it is formed from some other unknown fundamental building block of matter… again, no one really knows. Maybe Rhonan but he hasn’t shared, so.”

“I see. So this is nearly indestructible then?”

Nela nodded, “Nearly.”

I guess it’s kind of unnecessary for it to be this strong but… I’m not paying for it.

She looked to Felix, “Would you prefer to wait here or come back to retrieve it?”

Ayred cut in, “I’ll wait for it and bring it to you. I’ve got a commission of my own I want to discuss with Nela. You go on ahead.”

“I don’t have anything else to do in the city then. Melody?” Felix turned to her.

She shrugged, “Alright, we’ll head back then and see you later.”

Ayred nodded and the two of them left for the teleportation hub.

As they headed back through the portal in Telviras’ teleportation hub, Felix turned to Melody, “So why are you helping me? Why did you pay for all these materials Ayred found and memory crystals for the duel?”

She looked at him and tilted her head like he was crazy, “So I take it gifts are not your love language?”

Felix shook his head, “Seriously. Why?”

Melody sighed, “Why can’t you just take advantage of the situation and not question it?”

“Not a trusting person I guess.”

“Look, I already told you I was born with the ability to tell if my dad was lying. I was also born with the other side of that coin too, the ability to manipulate souls. I would make my parents happy when they were sad and angry when I didn’t get what I wanted. I learned to control it and my mother was ecstatic because I was naturally gifted as a bard from birth.”

Felix nodded, “So she named you aptly then.”

“Yeah. She had wanted me to become a bard like her but once she learned of my natural talents, her ambitions exploded. She ultimately wanted me to be the right hand to a God until I could eventually ascend and became one myself. Given my talent and who my father was, the former was realistically possible.”

“From the way you say that, I take it you didn’t want that?”

Melody snorted, “Not anymore. At first I just went along with it but… once I realized it wasn’t what I wanted, I fought her and rebelled constantly. My dad was on her side but didn’t involve himself directly, he… never did. Anyways, eventually they relented, a little. I went off and mostly did my own thing until I met someone who I thought was genuine and… anyways, I gave them some of my credits, sponsored their work. It was really just because I liked them though.”

“Who were they?”

“Some blacksmith you’ve never heard of. Anyways, they exploded in popularity and my dad recruited them directly. My parents expanded my allowance and pushed me to sponsor more people. Sponsoring people is what gods do so they were more than happy to support me in at least doing part of what they always wanted. Turns out, my ability to read people helps a lot and everyone I’ve… liked has… turned out well. Now they give me more money than I can ever use and insist I sponsor people. So, think of me as a sponsor.”

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

“So it’s like an instinct you feel when you read people?”

“Kind of?”

“And you see that in me?”

“Nope.”

“So…”

“I said think of me as a sponsor. Not that I was your sponsor. The most important part of having a sponsor isn’t actually the money by the way. The most important part are the connections. I could have dumped god fortune levels of credits onto Ayred and it wouldn’t have made him who he is. Connecting him with merchants I knew, people that owed me favors, using my name to build his network, that’s what matters.”

“I see. I’m too insular though to have a network. Even if you introduced me to people…”

“Yeah, you’d toss them aside. I know. You aren’t Ayred or anyone else I’ve helped out. You’re very different, unique even. Which is why I said, I don’t see in you what I look for in… sponsees.”

“So, why are you paying for everything?”

“Maybe I just feel sorry because of how poor you are. Maybe, I just like giving gifts. Or maybe… I’m hoping to win your heart.”

“Alright, whatever. That’s what Ayred is then? A sponsee?”

“Yes and no. I am not a sponsor and have no sponsees. Those words have… implied connotations like contracts and servitude. I don’t do that. Ayred is someone I found a few epochs ago that I liked. Now he’s exploded so I don’t need to do much anymore. It’s not just a business relationship though, I do consider him a friend. Plus… we kind of had a thing a little while back…”

“What am I?”

“Some crazy Integrated kid who’s been chasing me around, desperately hoping to get into my p-”

Felix groaned, “Okay never mind. Fine. Thanks for-”

Out of nowhere, a tall lanky looking man wearing entirely black, simple clothes appeared in front of the two of them.

[?] Kairune: Chancellor of Eramith Academy (Lvl ?)

“Melody.” The man nodded in her direction.

“Chancellor.” She nodded in return.

He turned to Felix, “Felix, I need you to come with me.”

Felix turned to Melody but she just shrugged, “Uh… Why?”

“I have a message for you.” The chancellor stared at him blankly.

Melody looked just as confused as Felix but just shrugged, “I’ll see you later then.”

Felix didn’t really have any reason to refuse other than his rampant paranoia and distrust of others so, he followed. The chancellor led Felix over to his office which was basically just an empty room with a desk and two chairs on either side.

Taking the seat across the empty desk, Felix simply waited for the chancellor to start talking.

Leaning against the wall behind the desk, the chancellor sighed, “Not sure how you got the attention of an Archon but here we are.”

Wait… what?

Felix shook his head as he tried to form words out of the flurry of questions in his mind, “Wha- Who- What’s the message?”

“Tekragoraxius has requested a meeting.”

“The dragon god? Why?”

Kairune shrugged, “She didn’t say.”

“I… guess… I have to?”

The Chancellor shrugged, “You don’t have to. You should though.”

“What if she just kills me?”

The Chancellor nodded knowingly, clearly having expected this question, “She already would have killed you if she wanted to.”

“I… Okay. When?”

“Next 10th day. One dekad.”

“Where?”

“Just go to the portal room in the morning. I’ll have El there ready to open the portal.”

“I guess… is there anything else I should know?”

The Chancellor just shrugged, “Nope. Good lu- Oh wait, bring your familiar, the Matter Sprite.”

Oh shit. This is about the scales… isn’t it?

Felix sighed, “Thanks.”

With his Mana Structures class being recorded, Felix headed straight to Ked’s lab through the portal frame on campus. An Adept let him in and showed him around then guided him through the lab itself. After that, they worked together to assemble a simple construct that was still far more complex than any they would have touched in class.

They started with assembling a humanoid construct that resembled a robot. The complex part was having all the pieces work together. They all had to be individually affinized to their soul gems and the mana structures all connected.

The adept assembled the pieces, connecting the mana structures with each-other after Felix soul bound and affinized each piece of the final product. Observing the adept as they worked, Felix was astonished at how complex it all was.

This work was in a whole different league to anything he had seen at Inscripticae and he had no basis for even trying to understand any of it. Ideally, he could get there through his Mana Structures class given enough time.

He spent a few hours there until the construct was done then headed back to his dorm where he finally assembled the entire computer. Ayred had dropped off the finished container a while ago and Felix was extremely happy with the result.

[S - Legendary] Container

[Nearly Indestructible]

An icosahedric container designed to contain and insulate its contents from ambient mana fluctuations and protect them from nearly anything.

All that was left was binding the container to the computer and placing it inside. That only took him a few minutes then he started connecting the computer to his own brain and the other constructs floating around in his soul and living in his mind.

Unfortunately, even though it was using his core soul to function, Felix couldn’t find a way to communicate with it through that so, he worked on a different method of communicating.

He stored the computer in a new Soul Space for the time being and attached everything to it using mana cables wrapped in anima. The anima kept the mana stable and protected while it transferred all the necessary information. His soul on either end could read the attunements and energy levels of the mana trivially so communication was rather simple.

Now to see if it worked. Grim? Orion?

Grim immediately responded, Give them a minute to sync up. Can you hear it yet?

Nope.

Maybe try reaching out?

Felix nodded and focused in on the connection he had made between the computer and himself. He tried sending a ping down the cable, just a spike of energy level and attunement. A few moments later he got a shifted attunement in response.

Oh, that’s what you meant by sync up.

Grim answered knowingly, Yup.

It took them a few hours of Soul Garden time to establish a method of communicating with each-other but Felix settled on transmitting sound waves directly through the cable. He had a representation of the cable appear in his mind city and attached it to a building that he erected, representing his ears.

As soon as he did, he was expecting the communication to work but instead, he had to teach the computer how to talk. Luckily he knew how to talk and knew a language so he simply mirrored his experience and knowledge from his own head and manually implanted it into the computer.

Finally, Felix heard a robotic voice echo out around him from nowhere in particular, “I am Central Computer Mark I.”

“Can I call you Mark?”

“Yes.”

“Have you figured out how to communicate with the projections in my head yet?”

“Yes.”

“Perfect. Let me know if there are any issues.”

“Understood.”

Grim, how’s it looking?

Initial observations? Good. It’ll become more valuable as soon as you get to the next step.

I’ll start that as soon as I can. I do have a duel to prepare for though. I should probably start training for that now that this is done.

You’re still severely lacking on stats though.

Yeah but I don’t have any idea how to fix that right now. Hopefully I can come up with some kind of trick to win.

Felix spent the rest of the night diving into the texts he had scanned on mana structures and spell formations along with experimenting with and dissecting the Caster’s Dueling spells.

Walking into Group Combat, the bottom placed class now that they had all done their placements, Felix took the seat he always did, at the back of the class nearest the door.

Notably he saw Peace, the monk that had surrendered their duel before it even began, Zeraxes, the Lightning Javelin wielder and the student that lit himself on fire and bounced around like a comet.

An Adept eventually walked into the room of 32 total students, “Alright, we’ll be splitting the class into two today and you’ll be facing off against each-other in a labyrinth. The game is capture the points. There will be 4 capture points all around the labyrinth. To capture one all you have to do is have only your team members standing on the point for 5 minutes. You can recapture points and the game ends when one team holds all the points or all the students on the other side are eliminated. Any questions?”

Before anyone had a chance to speak up, the Adept nodded, “Great. We already sorted the class based on rankings.”

Two portals appeared to either side of the Adept and they began calling names in front of each portal.

Felix headed through his designated portal into a large open chamber with multiple paths leading out of it in all directions.

Peace, Zeraxes and the comet kid, Romar, were all on Felix’s team along with 12 other students. As soon as they all stepped through, the portal closed behind them.

Zeraxes walked up to one of the exits and tried to walk through but found a barrier stopping him.

A few moments later, a voice echoed out through the labyrinth, “You have one minute to discuss strategy with each-other then the match will begin. The System protects the labyrinth so you can’t die but if you are reduced to 0 health, you will be eliminated and then return to the class room.”

One of the students turned to everyone else, “So what’s the plan?”

Zeraxes scoffed from the other end of their room, “All we have to do is eliminate all of them, right? Easy.”

Romar nodded, “Yup. Should be pretty easy.”

One of the other students spoke up, “So that’s it? You don’t want to try and split up into groups of four for each of the points?”

Zeraxes laughed, “No way. I don’t fight with others.”

“Can we just follow you then and stand on the points when you eliminate people?”

Zeraxes scoffed, “No, you’ll just get in the way. I’ll go eliminate them all and we’ll win like that.”

“What if they stay as a group? Won’t they just eliminate you?”

“Of course not. What’s wrong with you? This is the lowest tier class, who is going to realistically be able to beat me?” Zeraxes looked disgusted.

“Didn’t you lose to Adaline?”

Zeraxes sighed, “I- Yes, wel-”

“Twice?”

Zeraxes, obviously frustrated, snapped back, “Well, she isn’t in this class, is she?”

Why are you in a group combat class at all then? Wait… why am I in this class then? Stupid Melody.

Another minute passed while Zeraxes shot down everyone who tried to come up with any kind of plan that differed from his. Felix mostly just listened but he wasn’t hearing anything he liked and after a minute, all of the proposed plans had been shot down. After talking for a little while, ironically most people sided with Zeraxes and the consensus was to simply run in one by one.

I don’t like fighting with others either but these idiots are going to run into a group one by one and all get eliminated. This is idiotic.

As soon as the barriers disappeared, Zeraxes and Romar bolted into the course followed by a surge of everyone in the starting room except for Felix.

Felix didn’t really have much hope for winning, as much as he wanted to, he still intended to try though. Looking around, he was the only one left in the room so he started walking towards one of the exits but was stopped by a voice from behind him.

“Not as eager to prove your prowess against the rest of the class?”

Spinning around, Felix saw someone he recognized though had never met.

[C] Peace (Lvl 1428)

Wait… his level it’s… lower than before?

“Have you… been here the whole time?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t I see you just a second ago?”

Peace shrugged.

“Your level, it’s lower than it was last time I identified you.”

Peace cocked his head, “Is it?”

“Why? How?”

Peace waved him off, “This isn’t really the time to be explaining all of our secrets to each-other.”

Just a moment later, before Felix could respond, a very clear and neutral voice echoed out into his head, A member of your team has been eliminated.

The message was followed a few seconds later by an identical message.

Felix shrugged, “Well, I don’t really plan on running in there at this point so.”

Peace shook his head, “Meeee neither. It might not be permanent but dying still isn’t fun.”

“Why did you forfeit our match by the way?”

Peace just waggled his eye brows.

Felix heard another announcement for one of his team members dying and sighed as he dropped into a sitting position. He pulled out the flask and rolled it to something akin to fruit juice then took a sip and offered it to Peace.

Peace happily took a sip then handed the flask back to Felix, “So, you got any fun stories from the integration?”

Felix furrowed his brow for a few seconds then sighed, “Not really.”

“Wanna recount the tale anyways?”

“No. Not really.”

“Come on, I’ll trade you. You tell me about the integration and I’ll tell you a secret that only a handful actually know.”

“Will I think the trade was worth it in the end?”

“The secret starts with Rhonan is actually injured.”

“Lots of people suspect that from what I hear.”

“Sure but none of them know how.”

Felix was skeptical but the risk was low, “Alright, fine.”

Felix recounted the entirety of his integration from the day The System failed to awaken him to the day he left. He left out quite a bit about Grim and his abilities with mana but despite the gaping holes in his story, Peace never questioned him about any of it.

Once he was done skimming through his life, Felix nodded to Peace, “So how is Rhonan injured?”

Peace smiled and reached out a hand. Felix looked at it, confused, for just a few seconds before he grasped it.

Suddenly, Felix’s consciousness was drawn into a memory exactly the same way a memory crystal worked. The memory was not a real memory though, instead it had obviously been constructed.

Felix wasn’t even a corporeal being as he experienced the memory, just an observer. Standing before him was Peace. There was also nothing around them, it was just blank, like the memory creator simply hadn’t bothered to fill it in.

Peace began talking though he moved more like a puppet than a man, “Rhonan was infected with The Endless Hunger. A substance that exists outside of our universe that consumes anything and everything, growing endlessly. He only has a few more epochs to live.”

“Wait, this Endless Hunger, is-”

Peace’s projection nodded robotically, “The same stuff you encountered in Trelas, yes.”

“How did you-”

“Pleeeaase, I know lots of things. Got any more specific questions or can we go back? It isn’t exactly comfortable creating and maintaining this.”

“How was he infected?”

“On a hunt, he’s been fighting the Hunger Beasts for thousands of epochs now.”

“I-”

“Sorry, that’s all I got for now. Don’t mention anything about any of this outside of here or you’ll likely be killed.”

Suddenly they returned to the real world and Felix let go of Peace’s hand.

What the fuck just happened…

Felix looked at Peace incredulously, “Why did you tell me that? Who are you?”

“Name’s Peace. It was a trade, don’t you remember? Or do you not think my secret was worth your story?”

“No- It was. Just, not sure my story was worth the secret.”

Peace shrugged, “Not like you can do much with it.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth and how do you know… this secret?”

“Like I said, I know lots of things and… I guess you don’t.”

He knew about my encounter with The Hungering Hollow- or rather, Endless Hunger in Trelas though… I didn’t think anyone knew I was there…

Peace smiled as he stretched his arms behind his back, “So anyways, now that everyone else on our team has been eliminated, should we just surrender?”

Felix sighed, “Not like we have much of a chance anymore anyways.”

“Really? I thought you would try anyways, despite the odds?”

“I’m just not sure what I could do by myself. They’re probably just capturing the last points now.”

“You aren’t by yourself though and don’t underestimate hubris. I bet you they’re hunting us down right now so they can win through elimination.”

“I… thanks, I guess? I don’t really know what you can do though.”

Peace shook his head, “That isn’t completely true. You’ve already seen I can be stealthy.”

“That’s… true.” An idea began to form in Felix’s mind, “How stealthy?”

Peace shrugged, “You looked right at me and didn’t notice me.”

Felix nodded, “Considering it’s just the two of us for now, there’s no way we can win just by holding the points, we don’t have the numbers.”

Peace dropped to the ground, sat against the wall and shrugged, “So we win by eliminating the other half of the class instead.”

Felix looked at him blankly for a few seconds as a plan began to sprout from his idea.

“Oh, I also don’t really fight people, just so you know.” Peace added with a smile.

“Actually, that’s fine. I don’t think I need you to. Wait, how did you win any of your combat class placement duels? Actually, never mind, later.”

Guess this is as good a time as any to test this out.

Sitting on the ground, Felix pulled out all the materials he needed and got to work. Over the course of the next 15 minutes, he counted out the rest of his team members being eliminated meaning it was just him and Peace left. They were offered the chance to surrender, by the professor or Adept observing them through The System but, they both declined.

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

“Religar, why can’t we just stand on the points and be done with this?”

“You counted the notifications, didn’t you? There are only two left. Don’t you want to be able to say we wiped out Zeraxes team in Group Combat class?”

“I mean… I guess? We already eliminated him, what does it matter anymore?”

“We’ve already won anyways, it’s not like the random two who are left have any chance of capturing the points. Why not have a little fun?”

Leren sighed, “Ugh, fine. They’ll probably surrender themselves anyways.”

Religar snorted, “I hope not. I’m kind of itching for a fight after we beat Zeraxes. I mean, I get the logic behind teaming up on him with as many as we can but still, didn’t you want to at least try fighting him youself?”

“No.” Leren shook her head.

Religar looked back at Leren then shrugged and continued down the hallway of the labyrinth around them. It was impossible to discern a difference between these halls and any of the others but luckily, they had Leren who had almost the entire labyrinth mapped out.

They headed towards the only section of the labyrinth they hadn’t mapped yet which was where they were assuming the other team’s starting room was.

Fortunately for Religar, most of her team agreed with her and wanted to win by elimination, especially once they had eliminated Zeraxes and Romar. There wasn’t really anyone else notable in the bottom class anyways so they weren’t too worried about the outcome. Worst case scenario though, they had 2 people posted at each of the capture points that would start capturing as soon as a few of their own team were eliminated.

Religar sauntered ahead of the others and turned a corner that looked exactly like all the other corners in the labyrinth.

As soon as she stepped into the hall though, she was engulfed in flame and paralyzed by an electric shock, holding her in place. It wasn’t enough to kill her though so, she turned around to signal they should retreat, finding only corpses behind her.

“What… the fuck…”

A moment later, she was eliminated.

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

Walking back through the portal to the classroom with Peace in tow, Felix was rather happy with how everything had turned out, all things considered.

He had won the group event by eliminating everyone else on the enemy team without anything more than his hand leaving the starting room.

That has to be an achievement or something, right?

Taking his usual seat at the back of the class, closest the door, Felix waited for everyone else to be seated before the Adept debriefed them.

Peace took the seat next to him but Felix didn’t mind, Peace had been completely integral to his win. Really, it was their win.

“That was far more interesting than I had hoped. Anyone from the losing team want to talk about what they did wrong?” The Adept smiled knowingly as he looked over the students in the class.

“We got greedy. We could have just won, ended the match.” Some student Felix had never seen before named Leren seemed more disappointed than anyone else. Everyone else on her team seemed to mostly be angry, either at Peace and Felix, themselves or something else.

“How were we supposed to expect that? How could we have possibly known?” One of the other students sneered angrily at Leren.

Leren just sighed as infighting and arguing broke out amongst the losing team.

“OKAY! How about the winning team, what did you do right? What led to your victory.”

No one on Felix’s team seemed willing to speak up, the majority of them because they had nothing to do with their win. Felix didn’t want to speak up because he didn’t like to draw attention to himself and Peace seemed to be distracted by a bug flying through the room.

Finally, after a few minutes of silence, Romar spoke up, “They worked together, built off of each-other’s strengths.”

The Adept shrugged, “Fair enough. How about what you guys did wrong?”

Romar sighed, “We shouldn’t have gone in one by one. It was too predictable and none of us stand a chance against any four of their team by ourselves.”

Zeraxes grumbled something but it was unintelligible and contained no actual words or sense.

“What do you think the losing team did right?” The Adept placed their hands on their hips.

At this point, more of Felix’s team began speaking up, “They grouped up in teams of eight, predicted us.”

“Placed sentries at each capture point.”

“They spent time to map the area and used that to their advantage.”

The Adept nodded along with each point, “With all that said, how did they lose? Losers, what did the winning team do right?”

“Had the better teammates.”

The Adept chuckled a little but otherwise ignored that comment.

“They started by capturing one point so we couldn’t just end the game.”

“No, they set up the traps well before that.”

“How could they have possibly coordinated the two? There were only two of them.”

Leren sighed, “They set up portals first.”

“Portals? As in multiple? I thought we weren’t allowed batteries in there?”

“That doesn’t seem very likely but… I don’t really see how else…”

“They could just be really fast. Have a skill or something.”

“So they made sure one point was locked down, removed your easy win condition. Then what?” The Adept tried to wrangle them back on topic.

“Then there were the traps…”

“Wards everywhere.”

“Kind of stupid in a labyrinth. Anywhere else and they wouldn’t have really done much.”

“Yeah, they just got lucky.”

“We’ll beat them next time, just give us an open field or something instead of a stuffy labyrinth.”

The Adept sighed, “You often don’t get to choose where you fight. You need to learn to adapt. Anyways, if you want a chance to fight them again, you’ll have to do better cause they’re moving up a class.”

Felix looked around and found comfort in the fact that he wasn’t the only one hearing this for the first time.

“At the end of every class, 4 people are swapped out. Two move up a class and two move down a class. This class is at the bottom so we only have two moving up. Considering how poorly the rest of you worked together, Peace and Felix will be the ones moving up a class. Until then though, how about we go through the match together?”

The Adept then turned to the board and drew out the labyrinth. They used different colored chalk for each person in the class and began dissecting their every movement and decision.

Considering how the match had gone, Felix only barely paid attention to the first half then watched with fascination as Peace’s movements were revealed to the class.

Felix had just been the mage behind the portal, placing traps on walls wherever Peace directed him to. He hadn’t actually seen were Peace was, directed him or even known where he was putting anything, other than the capture point.

After that, it was all Peace who tracked down and got ahead of every single one of the enemy team, never once being seen or even detected in the slightest.

It was even more impressive as the Adept drew out Peace’s path showing him walking through groups of people, stopping right in front of them then turning a corner and having Felix place a ward.

Had Felix not experienced being in the same room as Peace but not being able to detect him just a few hours ago, he wouldn’t have believed it.

The class seemed to generally be more impressed with the temporary portals he had made on the fly but those were trivial to him. Essentially perfect stealth was far more interesting.

After everyone left the class, Felix and Peace were held back so they could get the location of their next class now that they had been moved up.

Turning to Felix, Peace nodded, “Well, it was nice to finally meet you Felix. I’ll see you day after tomorrow on the fourth then?”

Felix nodded, “Thanks for… working with me and winning the match.”

Peace smiled and waved as he ran off, “Course.”

Just a few meters from Felix, he vanished.

Felix shook his head and headed back to his room where he continued researching various spell formation techniques along with the mana structures for rituals, wards and enchantments. His goal was to become much more proficient with spell formation, as much as he could, so he could create efficient Caster’s Dueling spells of his own. He still planned on modifying his body before the duel and still considered that his highest priority but he didn’t have any corpses to work with at the moment.

The rest of the dekad leading up to Felix’s meeting with an Archon was rather mundane.

Constructs and elementals was a lecture and he had recorded and delivered to him in a soul crystal so instead, he spent the day examining the Caster’s Dueling spells. Soul Manipulation was another lecture which Felix attended although Peace was oddly absent even after mentioning he would see Felix in that class.

The next four days, the break on the fifth followed by Spell Formation, Solo Combat and Animancy which were actually all just lectures that he managed to get recordings for. He spent the time alternating between advanced spell formation and working in Ked and Professor Sal’s lab. He helped with the constructs but did nothing more than assisting an Adept for the moment as he was still learning the ins and outs of the lab and constructs themselves.

In Mana Control, they collectively worked on testing each Adept’s limits and finding the best ways to have Felix and them grow as fast as possible. It was actually rather boring and mostly involved measuring out the exact distances Felix had to stand from the boards to not instantly win.

For all the classes he had recorded, he simply watched them back in his Soul Garden which saved him a lot of time.

A day before the meeting, Felix called Nova through their soul bond. He was hesitant about calling her so early at first but when she strolled in just two hours before the meeting, Felix was grateful he had.

Placing Nova in one of the outer pockets of his robe, Felix headed down to the portal room where he found El, just as Kairune had said. El smiled and nodded as Felix approached then tapped away at a pedestal causing the portal frame to blink to life.

Felix nodded in gratitude to El then stepped through the portal into a large white marble room that resembled a cross between a massive church and a castle. There was a carpet down the middle, benches that looked like pews and pillars holding the ceiling aloft. Ironically, Felix was pretty sure it still wasn’t big enough to contain an adult dragon, just judging from Endycor’s size.

The portal closed behind him as he looked around, unsure of what to do. Luckily, he only had to stare blankly at the room for a few minutes before a Drakene in white and red robes approached him.

“You must be Felix Kade. We’ve been expecting you. Please, follow me.”

[?] Reverent of The Dragon Mother: Silgar (Lvl ?)

The soft voiced Drakene bowed to Felix then led him down the carpet to the other end of the room. Although The Reverent walked slower than a normal human on earth ever would, Felix didn’t dare practice anything lest they assume he was trying something nefarious.

Considering where he was, not that he actually knew, but more importantly who he was supposed to be meeting, Felix wasn’t willing to risk anything. Luckily, Nova was rather calm, possibly as a byproduct of feeling Felix’s own nerves through their soul bond. He knew under normal circumstances, she would be running around and at least inspecting everything because the materials used here were clearly not anything in the same grade as the materials he was used to.

It wasn’t anything visual, but now that Felix’s matter senses were somewhat usable, he could feel the matter around him and he could tell most of all, just how dense it was.

Though he didn’t actually lift anything, he knew everything in here would have been extraordinarily heavy. He couldn’t tell anything about composition, durability, strength or hardness though so he had no idea if the use of high grade materials was a functional decision or more to be an ostentatious display.

At the back of the room, Silgar led Felix off to the side where there was a large door made of the same high grade, white marble. It was so massive, and judging by the sound it made as Silgar pulled, Felix didn’t think he could have opened it himself.

The hall behind the door was long and led to many different rooms, none of which Felix could peer into on account of them being closed, despite his curiosity.

After what had felt like a day but was actually around 2 hours of following Silgar, Felix was finally led to a massive dark metal door that even Silgar struggled to open.

“Simply follow these stairs downwards.” Silgar bowed and waved Felix through the doorway.

Felix stepped forwards onto rougher stone ground as his worries mounted.

It’s a little too late to turn back anyways… shit, please don’t just kill me…

In any other situation, Felix would have flown down the stairs. Here, he didn’t feel safe casting anything so he simply stepped forwards. As soon as he stepped past the doorway, Silgar closed the doors behind him, adding to his growing wariness.

The stairs were a little large for Felix necessitating he jump just a little down each step but they weren’t unusable. It just seemed like they had been made for a larger race on average.

While Felix wanted to be as respectful as possible, the stairs were really long and by the time he had reached the thousandth step, he decided it just wasn’t worth it and so he flew. That proved to be a smart decision as even flying over the stairs, it took him a couple hours to even start approaching the end.

He first noticed a warm glow filling the hall ahead of him followed by an itching heat. The odd part was that his body was largely resistant to temperature changes from his D grade evolution alone. He was pretty sure he could put his hand in a normal fire and sustain little to no damage. Considering he couldn’t even see the heat source, he started to doubt the normalcy of the heat.

To confirm, Felix quickly constructed a spell to measure the temperature, connecting a measurement node to a light node that would simply change color. Oddly enough, the room was barely warmer than room temperature, confirming his theory that something else was at play.

Ding You have become more proficient with the Profession skill: [Rare] Identify Material Properties (Novice I => Novice IV)

Huh… I didn’t even use… I guess? Whatever.

After just a few seconds of searching, Felix realized what was happening.

The heat was not physical but rather soul magic of some kind. It was his soul radiating the experience of being hot to him directly. It was also very simple for him to block out so he quickly did so before heading any further in.

As the staircase widened and the glow from ahead brightened, Felix’s nerves mounted which were a stark contrast to Nova’s excitement that leaked through their bond. Her inability to tell how serious the current situation was actually made Felix chuckle and his nerves wash away, at least somewhat.

Whatever happens, happens. Not much I can do about it at this point.

With acceptance washing over Felix, he finally dropped to the ground and dropped off the last step into a massive stone room.

He was fairly certain it was a cavern, judging solely by the distance he traveled downwards but peering around and seeing the room, he began to have doubts.

The walls and ceilings were straight and connected at right angles making it look more like a room. On the other hand, the walls were made of a dark igneous stone with reflective and multicolored minerals glittering through. He suspected it was both a cave and a room or, he had walked through a portal without realizing it.

None of it was random though. The minerals that glittered throughout the igneous rock walls were either strategically placed or carefully measured as the carving that adorned every surface of the room were perfectly accentuated.

The glittering minerals formed the illusion of colorful eyes and crimson blood. Most impressively though, they reflected the sconces throughout the room causing the depictions of flame to flicker in a mesmerizing way.

All of that was secondary though, as Felix stared down towards the opposite end of the room and saw a massive crimson dragon the size of a shopping mall. They were surrounded by towering flames on all sides except for a small opening facing Felix.

Despite the less than optimal lighting though, Felix immediately recognized the color of their scales. They weren’t just red, they were specifically crimson, a dark shade of crimson.

As Felix approached, his blank acceptance shifted back to a combination of fear he was going to be killed and a glimmer of hope that this might have been something else and he fairly certain he knew what it was.

Walking through the small opening in the surrounding flames, Felix approached the Dragon and identified them as their head lowered towards him.

[SSS - Divine] The Dragon Mother: Tekragoraxius (Lvl ?)

It didn’t feel right for Felix to speak first so he simply looked up at the colossal head above him and met the gaze of her massive eyes. After a few moments of awe, he began to wonder if her pupils alone were larger than his entire body but quickly decided, they definitely were.

Before either Felix or the Dragon God said anything, Felix felt his hood grow a touch lighter and suddenly his nerves spiked. Before he could properly react though, he saw Nova out of the corner of his left eye, morphing into the form she had used to hunt with Endycor.

A small crimson dragon, no doubt using some of Endycor’s actual scales this time.

Felix’s instinct was to stop her but it was too late for that. Nova was able to morph her form very quickly and it was painfully obvious what her intention was the instant she started changing. He still screamed out at her through their soul bond but she just reassured him in response that she knew what she was doing.

Watching in masked horror, Felix just stood there, stunned as Nova bristled her scales then roared a stream of flame up at The Dragon God.

Nova’s breath didn’t have the power required to even reach Tekragoraxius’ head where it was but in an instant, The Dragon God’s head moved. Her head appeared just a meter away from Nova and the flames washed over the front of her lips.

Felix was completely paralyzed from shock but just a moment later, The Archon’s mouth opened just a touch in the middle, which was easily a couple meters. A massive spout of flame poured out of her mouth and washed over Nova, completely drowning her in a dark orange and red inferno.

The soul bond connecting him to Nova was the only reason Felix knew she was alright and astonishingly, not in any pain whatsoever. She seemed to actually feel warm but in a nice emotional way rather than with a physical sensation.

As the God’s breath subsided, Felix looked up at her and winced as he spoke, “Should I also… greet you…”

A surprisingly soft motherly voice responded, “Are you a Dragon?”

Felix answered with confidence and understanding, “No.”

“Is Nova a Dragon?”

Felix answered with much less confidence as he questioned his understanding, “No.”

“How do you typically greet strangers you are meeting for the first time?”

“A hand shake… I guess? That might… not be possible though.”

“Do you know the significance of a Dragon’s greeting?”

“No.”

“Do you know why you’re here?”

“I think so.”

She nodded slightly, which looked like a much larger movement considering the size of her head, “Which one?”

“Wait… there are… multiple?”

She didn’t bother responding to his question.

Felix responded with an exhale as he voiced the most worrying possible reason that came to mind, “Endycor.”

With no expression coloring her words whatsoever, “Did you slay them?”

With a combination of shock and desire to stay alive, Felix stumbled slightly over his words, “I- No.”

“Tell me what happened.”

Felix rushed to explain things, speaking faster than he ever had, “Their hunts were inadvertently causing waves of monsters to attack a human settlement. The leader of that settlement asked me to go investigate and we found Endycor. I relocated them to a continent on the other side of the planet that didn’t have any humans on it after digging out a new cave. Nova hunted with them for a little while before we left.”

“How did you relocate them to the other end of the planet?”

“Portal.”

Her eyes instantly lit up, “Do you still have the anchor?”

“Yes, I remember it.” Felix whipped out a blank metal disc and quickly started to inscribe the anchor with his quill, “I don’t think… The System will let either of us open a portal… to it.”

She reached forwards as soon as Felix was done and carefully pinched the slate between two massive claws.

“Rathelius, deactivate the protective portal anchoring in here.” She said out loud but clearly not directed at Felix.

Looking back down towards Felix, “You can open portals yourself. Will you try?”

The first part was said as a statement of fact so there was no point in denying it. Felix nodded as he pulled out his portal mold and quickly filled it with mana. He carefully pulled the raw spell form free from the mold but only shifted it upwards by a fraction of an inch to try and hide what he was doing.

Swapping out the anchor and filling the spell the rest of the way, Felix was astonished when the portal actually opened but his surprise quickly washed away when all the air in the room was suddenly sucked towards it.

Looking through, he confirmed the portal pointed to somewhere in the middle of space.

“Oh I- Sorry, the anchor must have degraded. That wasn’t in-”

She sighed causing a cloud of billowing smoke to pour into the room, “I understand.”

“I can try opening a portal to the coordinates? If you… still want me to try.”

Her shock leaked into her voice, “You have the coordinates?”

“Yeah…”

She nodded and Felix repeated the process, this time replacing the anchor with portal coordinates and adjusting the rest of the spell accordingly.

Once again, Felix was astonished the portal opened but he was even more surprised when he looked through and saw the starry night sky of Trenus above an expansive jungle.

In complete shock, Felix reached forwards towards the portal but was stopped before his hand could pass through. There seemed to be a completely invisible barrier preventing anything from passing through the portal, except light and apparently, sound.

Just a moment after the portal opened, Felix realized he could hear the wind along with the sounds of the jungle at night.

Tekragoraxius must have noticed it as well because she whistled a small tune a moment later. Nothing happened for a few moments at which point Nova half squawked half roared into the portal.

They all looked on with bated breath for a few minutes when finally, a proud looking baby dragon sauntered into view.

At first, Felix had no idea if Endycor could see them as well but when they leapt at the portal full speed and smacked their head into it a moment later, he was pretty confident they could. Endycor rolled back onto the ground then tried a few more times before roaring angrily at the portal and trying to set it aflame.

Tekragoraxius just stared at the portal which Felix assumed was a good thing. Nova on the other hand, roared and squawked, seemingly in conversation with Endycor who responded in kind.

After a couple minutes she turned to Felix and very quietly said, “Close it.”

He didn’t question her and abided, much to Nova’s dismay.

“May I have the coordinates?”

Felix nodded then quickly wrote them out and handed them to her.

She, even more gingerly this time, took the metal plate and stowed it somewhere.

“Thank you. For not… slaying Endycor.”

Felix nodded, “Of course.”

“I had reports of Dragon scales appearing and I… feared the worst.”

Felix simply waited for her to continue.

Her voice was tinged with overwhelming emotions, a fact that spoke volumes considering Felix knew for certain, as a god, she should have been able to mask it, “Have you told anyone about Endycor?”

“No one outside of the Integration.”

She nodded, “Keep it that way. You must also never open a portal to those coordinates ever, do you understand?”

He nodded, “I do.”

“Are you willing to commit to a System or Soul contract?”

“I am.”

She nodded, “Good. In exchange, you can keep the scales you already took. You and Nova.”

He bowed, “Thank you.”

“I’ll inform the cult that you alone have permission. What did you do with them by the way?”

“I made… pants. Shorts really…”

She frowned a little then nodded, “Make sure Nova doesn’t morph into a Dragon again. That is more than anyone would believe I gave permission for.”

“Of course.”

“As for one of the other reasons you are here, you are the Dragon Defier.”

Felix desperately reached for any possible explanation, “What- No, I- I’m not the only integrated escapee. There’s also Arthur.”

“Yes, that is an interesting skill of yours.”

“I-” Felix was too worried about what was about to happen to do anything else. He thought he had concealed things well but apparently not well enough.

“That was a rather… interesting… evolution. I’m surprised you didn’t take it.”

Felix released the breath he had been holding, “I… It just wasn’t me.”

“I see.”

Felix took a couple deep breaths, “How did you know?”

“About you being The Defier or being one in the same as Arthur?”

“… both.”

“You, just now, raw cast a portal right in front of me, with some assistance. Wasn’t hard to connect the dots to a Mana Dragon evolution. You are also the only integrated anyone knows about and it seemed reasonable the Defier would have escaped by now. As for your skill, I have… eyes everywhere Dragon Scales might surface.”

Felix gasped in understanding, “Raidran’s.”

“Correct. They are also worshippers of mine.”

Felix thought through the implications for a few moments before answering, “Isn’t that a violation of my System contract with Rainoth?”

“No. They are not aware of my observation.”

“I see… I’m sorry… about the evolution.”

She nodded, “I understand. You have however, inadvertently set things into motion. And made… what’s coming significantly more challenging for me.”

“I’m… sorry?”

She sighed, “I might be able to salvage the situation though-” This time without producing any smoke, “May I see your skill? Can you… switch? at will?”

Felix nodded and activated his Persona skill, replacing his body and wrapping his soul.

After inspecting him for a few seconds, The Dragon God’s head just a few meters from him, she pulled back to a more neutral stance, “This body is significantly stronger and faster than your… real one. And your soul is perfectly masked. How?”

“It grows based on enemies I consume. I also… manually modify it. Soul thing is just… layers I guess.”

Her massive eyes squinted slightly as Felix spoke, “Is this a core skill for you?”

“Uh… sort of…” Felix sighed, he didn’t really see any point in trying to keep secrets at this point and The Dragon Mother didn’t seem to have any desire to obliterate him, “It’s actually an item, a set of items. I’m not sure what to do with them at this point though.”

“Even better. How quickly can you absorb and grow from enemies you consume?”

“As fast as I can manually modify the body so… depends on the complexity of what I’m integrating. It took a few hours for a D grade Mana Infused Leviathan.”

With a tinge of surprise, “Hours?”

Felix fell back a step, the emotion leaking into her voice worrying him as he too understood the implication behind his statement, “Uh… yes?”

“Do you need to slay the enemies yourself?”

Felix shook his head as he sighed, “No. I’ve already tried buying corpses though. There seems to be a shortage.”

“How quickly can Nova integrate corpses?”

Felix looked over at his familiar and shrugged, “It’s taken up to a few dekads for complicated materials like Demitium. I’m not entirely sure though.”

“Dekads? That’s it?”

Felix was taken aback again but this time, kept his footing, “Yes?”

“Can I ask a favor of you, Felix Kade?”

“Yes?”

“I require use of your skill, Arthur. In exchange, I will supply you with high rarity corpses among… other things.”

“For… what? How?”

“In due time. Had your skill not offered such a convincing disguise, I might have asked you do this yourself. Instead, this will be much safer for all involved.”

“Uh…”

“We will craft a reputation for Arthur as an enemy to the Dragons. It will paint a target on their back. You will be hunted down because of it.”

“Wait- Why? Why me?”

“You would be surprised how difficult it is to find someone with no history, no ties and no background. I can create rumors and there will be no one to contest them. If anyone looks, there is simply nothing there except a single contract you took in Telviras. It will be difficult to survive being constantly hunted by the Dragon Cult but luckily, you can simply remove the mask.”

“Why would I ever switch over to Arthur then?”

“You shouldn’t. Except when I tell you to, at very specific instances.”

“I’m not sure this is worth it for me. What if someone else finds out about the skill? Figures it out?”

“You will exercise extraordinary caution when switching. As for ‘figuring it out,’ unlikely. It is a completely unique skill. Dark Magic from another universe with complex Soul Magic on top of it all. We will aid in quashing rumors that arise and keeping up the charade for as long as possible. I will also make you, Felix Kade, seem like a friend of the Dragons.”

“So I’ll be enemies… with myself? Felix vs Arthur?”

“Exactly. We will also make it so you two fight each-other, publicly.”

Felix’s mind was reeling, “What if I don’t want to do this?”

“I will not force you.”

Felix got the sense she wasn’t giving him the full story, which also seemed odd considering she was a god. It should have been trivial, at least Felix assumed, for her to hide the fact that she was hiding something. The only logical conclusion he could come up with was that she wanted him to know there was more to the story.

Felix hesitated for a second then sighed, “Okay. Do you want me to sign a contract or something?”

“No. Contracts don’t mean much to gods. You know you can’t survive revealing any of this to anyone. That is enough.”

Felix nodded as he found his resolve, “What do you need me to do?”

“For now, use the corpses I provide you well. This plan will not come to fruition for many Epochs yet, but we will need it to be believable.”

“So how strong do I need to become?”

“As strong as is possible, in the time given.”

“Okay then. I uh…”

“Any specific requests in terms of corpses?”

Felix’s mind immediately snapped to clarity as this was something he had thought about extensively and he didn’t want to waste the opportunity, “Mana cores and channels if possible. High grade and rarity. Efficient organs. Smart creatures? I’ve been struggling with finding ways to enhance my mind… safely.”

The Dragon Mother simply nodded then called out to the side, “Rathelius.”

They waited for a few moments before an entirely black Drakene stepped through a portal next to Tekragoraxius’ head. He stood in mid air and spoke with her for a few moments then bowed and disappeared through another portal.

“I will provide you with one corpse now. The rest will be delivered to you at Eramith.”

Felix half nodded, half bowed, “Thank you…-” His brow furrowed as his head rose, “-Why one now… at all?”

“You’ll see.”

Felix nodded, “By the way, is Endycor your… child?”

A hint of amusement crept into Tekragoraxius’ voice, “You couldn’t tell just from the color of our scales?”

Felix shrugged slightly, “I don’t… really know Dragon physiology that well.”

“Yes.”

Felix nodded and a moment later, Rathelius opened a portal and dragged a massive Dragon corpse into the room.

The corpse wasn’t nearly as big as Tekragoraxius but it was still massive. Instead of dark crimson scales, it was covered in a dark, slate grey scales.

Felix looked down in awe at the corpse, “This…”

“I must insist you be careful with the materials. Use the scales only for Arthur if you’re making anything publicly visible.”

“I will. What were they… the dragon of?”

Tekragoraxius’s head dipped slightly, “Nothing. They were a natural born Dragon. One of the victims of The Great Hunt.”

“Wait, that was…”

“Yes. I have many corpses preserved from that time.”

Looking over at the corpse, Felix spent a few minutes trying to figure out the best way to divide and store it.

“Any chance you could… cut it in half for me? Tip to tail symmetrically if possible.”

She nodded and Rathelius walked forwards, casting a spell that looked like a long string. He ran it down the corpse and it easily cut through the flesh, like there wasn’t any resistance at all.

Unfortunately, Felix was pretty sure the spell form was obscured by them or The System because he hadn’t felt a spell form being shaped at all. It was also possible it was simply a skill and not a spell considering how quickly he cast it. Or, the truth Felix was hoping for, that it was a spell so advanced and so fast, he was unable to sense it.

It meant he could learn it himself and the existence of spells that complex and powerful excited him.

Walking up to the body, Felix touched one of the bloody halves and tried to stow it in his Soul Space. He knew his main Soul Space wasn’t nearly big enough, but he was hoping it would stretch to accommodate. He also wasn’t overly worried about pushing too hard because he figured it would likely be forced out of him before it burst his soul.

With that in mind, Felix pushed, or rather pulled, on the corpse half before finally giving up.

“Could you… dice this half?”

Rathelius nodded then quickly cut one half into more manageable pieces. As each piece was freed, Felix quickly stowed them until one half of the corpse was completely gone. His Soul Space was not big enough, before. Now, it had stretched to contain everything although, that had gotten blood everywhere. It wouldn’t be hard for him to clean everything, considering they were in his Soul Space, but it was still gross.

Though Grim didn’t complain, he could tell he wasn’t pleased with the blood soaking into his pages.

With one half dealt with, Felix activated the blood ring and absorbed the other half. He knew based on how many Grelmite corpses he had stored that the other half would fit so there was no concern this time.

As a byproduct of the ring, all the blood from the floor vanished so there was no trace of what they had just done at all.

Nova was a little whiny at first, just through their soul bond but Felix assured her he would give her some later. For the time being, he really wanted to start dissecting the Dragon corpse as soon as possible.

Felix looked up at the colossal Dragon God, “Is there… anything else?”

“Just one more thing.”

Leaning her head down until it was just in front of Felix’s face, The Dragon Mother released a billowing cloud of orange and red flame that completely engulfed him.

He braced himself initially but quickly realized the flames weren’t actually hot at all. They were warm and… welcoming. The flames were a greeting, he knew that but he didn’t understand it. Now, he knew just how little he understood.

A true Dragon’s greeting didn’t just bathe the other person in flame, it conveyed feelings through anima woven into the breath. It was a conversation about their state of being, how their day was going, how they felt in general and about the other specifically. It was small talk with depth and intimacy in a way humans didn’t tend to convey, at least not in any form of greeting.

Felix had no good way of responding with anima, he had no practice doing so and he had no intention of trying it for the first time here so he just responded a simple Flame Thrower that he modified slightly to be more billowing and less hot.

She nodded and drew her head back to neutral stance, “I will let you know when we need of you further.”

Felix nodded and slightly bowed to the God then nodded to Rathelius. He turned to Nova but she squawked at him that she was staying.

Nova you can’t ju-

Tekragoraxius cut in, clearly aware of their internal conversation, likely through simple deduction, “She’s staying.”

Felix’s worries mounted once again, “I’m not sure I’m… why? For what?”

“She too has a part to play in my plan. We will train her.”

“She’s my familiar…”

“You would rather have her wandering around Eramith, frolicking on a planet with nothing to keep her occupied? Isn’t that a little cruel?”

Looking over at Nova, Felix could feel how much she wanted this so, as much as he was against the idea of abandoning her with someone he didn’t really trust, he relented. He wasn’t her parent, he didn’t see himself that way, and she could make her own decisions.

Felix nodded then turned and headed back out the way he had come in.

At the top of the staircase, Silgar met him just outside the doors and led him to an already open portal leading back to Eramith.

Entering a meditation in his dorm, Felix quickly checked in with Grim, Did that all… really just happen?

Grim seemed to share in Felix’s shock, Yeah…

Should I have just said no?

I don’t know. I… guess we’ll find out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .