“Are you a previous… participant?”
“No. I was born and raised here.”
“I’ve already tried to take a realm native with me.”
She answered with a completely blank tone, “You can only leave if you know about the realms. Most don’t. You can’t just tell someone. They won’t hear you. Don’t ask. I don’t know.”
“How do you know about them?”
“There are signs. Once I found them, a voice in my mind explained. Now I’m free to travel between the realms if I unlock the realm. Or if I have a guide.”
“So you were stuck here until someone showed up?”
“No. I unlocked the realm a long time ago.”
“Uh… Okay. Why not leave before?”
“No reason to leave.”
“Now you do have a reason?”
She simply didn’t answer.
Guess that’s a yes.
“Alright. Just to be clear, the alchemists have been helping you because you’re making an elixir for me. I’m not forcing them to now and I won’t in the future. They are free to leave you whenever.”
She remained silent for a moment, seemingly thinking about it then she cocked her head, “Some will stay. Some will go.”
“Alright. Do we need to do anything special then? Last time, touching the exit did nothing with a native in my Pocket Home.”
“No.”
“Okay then. I guess we can leave now then.” Mark, notify the Residents we’ll be leaving as soon as possible.
Affirmative.
Edira only managed to keep her full team of alchemists for just a few days after they left the realm. Then, the number of Residents willing to put up with her elusive sanity dwindled until there were just a few left willing to help her, mostly in the hopes of learning something from her ever changing demands.
Luckily, Felix had enough Residents that he didn’t suffer from having a few alchemists dedicating all their time to research.
He was also beginning to see why Romar and Zeraxes hadn’t gotten much further than where he was. They had likely worried about getting trapped in a realm if they hadn’t been able to complete the realm. Felix didn’t have issues with any of the realms except for combat. Those, he had lost all hope of getting multiple Prime Titles and even doubted he would get one or two. The others, he had multiple experts for.
Zeraxes and Romar had started struggling with forcing the floors through combat every time.
Even if Felix hadn’t made it nearly impossible for himself to fight anything properly by occupying all his will power, he knew he would have struggled with just forcing each floor with combat prowess. Zeraxes and Romar were stronger than him, but the natives average level was already in the low A grade and increasing on every floor.
If Felix had to threaten, intimidate and assassinate on every floor from here on out, he definitely wouldn’t have lasted as long as they had.
The fact that Adaline had gotten as far as she had when her only non combat skill seemed to be a very specific enchanting niche, was even more impressive.
By the time Felix and his Residents made it to the 1464th floor, Felix had thankfully managed to regain a small fraction of his previous will power, at least in terms of capacity. He was able to cast just 20 or so levels worth of Spells, instead of his previous 800 or so. He hadn’t actually measured in a while because he had been making steady progress and he hadn’t felt the need to quantify that.
The last time he had actually measured had been just before entering the realms in his Mana Control Mentorship under Fin.
Now that he had lost so much, he really wished he had quantified his abilities more recently so he knew what he was working to get back to.
On the other hand, the will power he had gained was so much more potent than it had been. He could only cast 20 levels worth of Spells, but it was easier to do so. Pushing himself against the Curses orbiting his Core Soul felt trivial instead of being a struggle. Most importantly, when he wasn’t casting anything or otherwise using his will power, his Core Soul was noticeably more stable. It still contorted itself to contain the Fractal Mana Form, but it no longer looked like it was on the verge of falling apart.
He still had a ways to go though because with the will power he had, he could either cast a couple Blade Spells, wrap himself in his Mana Skin, or maintain a single Reaper Skill.
Using any more than one of those abilities at once, put his Core Soul at risk.
For the most part, he maintained his Mana Skin because even though Reaper’s Instinct raised his Intelligence to eye watering numbers, he didn’t find it was ever necessary. If he were alone, he definitely could have used it to supplement his lack of knowledge in specific fields because it did help but, he had his Residents anyways.
That meant he was almost entirely focused on meditating and exercising his will power. He even got through a number of floors without doing anything more than touching the exit.
The 1464th realm was the first one he had to get directly involved in, or rather wanted to and should.
It was surprisingly, not a medically themed floor as Edira’s had been but according to the pattern, rather a magical crafting themed floor. They usually involved a fair bit of magic and some kind of complex crafting or invention for a specific task.
Felix had intended to leave the floor to his Residents, as he had many floors before but he was interrupted in his meditation by Arysha, who wore her favorite puppet, an elderly elven woman.
“Felix. You want to come see.”
He was skeptical, “Can’t you just tell me whatever it is later? Show me the memory?”
“Of course. You will want to see.”
“Okay.” He did ultimately trust her though.
She led him into a small village at the foot of a mountain that seemed to be sick. It wasn’t so small that a cold would quickly spread to everyone living there but it was small enough that the entire atmosphere of the village was altered. There were a few people out and around but those that were, didn’t look like they wanted to be. They didn’t look happy and they moved from destination to destination without letting anything distract them in between, like they wanted to get whatever they needed to do done as fast as possible.
Even if he couldn’t see the way they looked, ill and in pain, Felix immediately knew they were sick through his Mana Senses.
Every single person he saw, and didn’t see, were filled with Attuned Mana with a high Energy Level coursing through their systems. He felt entire bodies through walls and using his Mana Senses, not his Matter Senses. The Mana suffused their flesh and bones, coursed through their veins bound to their blood and everywhere it went, cells died. They burst and fused with one another, morphed and decayed completely at random sending their bodies into a constant state of fighting something it couldn’t touch.
As he walked into the city, he felt a number of sapients in the buildings around him deep in concentration, meditating to try and excise the Mana from their bodies. While none of them seemed to be completely successful, they did manage to remove much of the Mana. The issue was, the Mana was so diffused throughout their bodies that no matter how hard they seemed to try, some remained.
The amount that was left behind wasn’t enough to make them as sick as they were though, just enough to give them a mild illness. Considering how many were ill though, Felix assumed there was something causing the affliction to recur and he didn’t have to assume for very long. As soon as he began paying attention to his surroundings to try and find the source, he fond it.
All throughout every source of water Felix could find in the vicinity of his Matter Senses, including the water within juices and other beverages, even in the crops, was the diffused Mana.
So they try to remove it, cleanse their bodies. Then, they drink, eat or swim and it comes back. They must know what’s causing the issue, if they can sense and move the Mana within their bodies…
Instead of Grim, a Resident responded to him, Uh… Hi. Uh… Mark the fifteenth, gave me… permission. Uh… It’s easier to detect Mana in your own body… right? That’s how you discovered Mana?
Right. Back in the Puzzle Dungeon in the tutorial. Huh. It’s interesting because it’s a decent amount of Mana it’s just so… it’s almost dissolved. I can sense it but… maybe there’s even some I’m missing?
Felix turned his head and nodded to Arysha, “You were right, thank you for notifying me.”
She smiled and nodded.
“What have you all found so far?”
“We know not at first what causes the illness. We spend much time in village, talk to people. Examine when they permit. Once we know Mana, we come to you.”
“Have you figured out the source of the illness yet?”
“We are not certain yet.”
He nodded, “It’s the water. That seems to have spread it to everything, food, plants and so on. Doesn’t seem to be in the air though.”
She nodded quickly, “This is fast. We can fix this.” She turned to him, “How you want us to fix?”
He smirked a little at the fact that she was asking him at all, “I’m sure you all have ideas now that you know. Let’s meet with the other Residents, I want to hear them,”
“Okay. I will have Mark organize meeting.”
He nodded to her and she ran off into the village. In the meantime, Felix headed through the village and towards the stream could hear from the village entrance. There, he collected some of the water and began to experiment with it, hidden from Mark, Grim and his Mind Residents because he wanted to see what they would come up with.
As he wandered the village, he wrestled with the water from the stream. He was pretty sure he could have removed all the Mana before he had destroyed his own will power. Now that he had, he was having a lot of difficulty. He could feel and move the Mana but doing so also moved the water it was bound to. To actually separate the two, he had to somehow grab hold of the tiny bits of Mana.
No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t seem to grab hold of them with his Mana Control.
He began to doubt if he would have ever been capable of doing so as they were just so small and his will power was limited. Even as strong as it was in a concentrated area, he felt like if he had more will power available to him, he would have been able to.
By the time he had to head to the meeting, he had pretty much completely decided it would be impossible for him unless they spent multiple epochs in that particular realm.
“I know Mark has already informed all of you that the cause of the illness is Mana dissolved and suffused throughout the water supply. Solutions?”
An older looking Rhunar man jumped up out of his seat and raised his hand like he was a child, “You could remove it, right?”
“I could.” Felix nodded and lied, “But a one time solution isn’t going to get us a Prime Title, let alone two or three. We need to come up with a permanent solution and something that helps the village grow.”
“So building a filter and dam alone isn’t going to be enough?” A Rakyt with long and scruffy facial hair said as he began to scratch and pull at his facial hair in thought.
“What if we trained them to have Mana Control like yours?” A woman with a devilish smirk asked.
“No. This would be much time.” Arysha shook her head, “Maybe not possible even.”
“Why haven’t their bodies acclimated yet? One of the villagers I was talking to said this illness had plagued them for thousands of rotations, their version of an epoch which seems to be even longer, 582 days to be exact.” A Resident who wore glasses for fashion’s sake asked, looking around the room for anyone to answer.
“There’s a faction that’s been attempting to replicate Felix’s bodies Mana processing, right?” An old man with a scarred face frowned, “How far have they gotten?”
“Even with vaccines based on Felix’s stem cells from Nova-” One of the Residents with a mechanical, enchanted arm responded, shaking his head, “-we’ve only had minor success. There seems to be something unique to him outside of his biology, which… makes sense considering all the evolutions and modifications he’s gone through.”
“Has anyone spoken to Edira?” A Rakyt next to Arysha looked around.
The Resident with the scarred face responded, “She’s still not making any sense.”
“Since this illness doesn’t seem urgent, considering this has been on going for thousands of years… I think we figure out how to clean their water first.” The glasses wearing Resident looked to the rest of the group for support.
“Or… figure out what’s causing this in the first place…” The devilishly smirking Resident chimed in.
That was exactly what Felix intended on doing.
They discussed for a while longer but Felix didn’t stick around for all of it. Instead, he left and headed back to the stream he had originally taken water from.
First, while still in range of the village, Felix reached down and dipped his hand in the water. Unlike the villagers though, as the Mana seeped into his flesh, his cells greedily devoured the Mana and became energized. Even more so than when his Mana Channels had been active. The effects varied and in its raw form, the Mana wasn’t completely usable.
It caused his cells to go into an undirected frenzy to some extent. If he could just alter the Mana slightly though, he realized he could massively upgrade his Mana Channels.
Once he knew that, Felix used his Reaper’s Mantle Skill to instantly strip himself then he stepped into the stream and completely submerged his body. He held on to the edge of the stream so he didn’t get pulled along and allowed his body to drink up as much of the Mana as it could.
I took a few hours to fully saturate his body and by that point he was confident it wasn’t going to harm him so, he stepped out of the stream, used his Matter Control to instantly dry himself, then Reaper’s Mantle to dress. Finally, he began the hike along the edge of the stream.
While he could have flown, it would have required him dropping his Mana Skin which seemed more important to him than the wasted time he spent walking. He also had Erevos on his wrist but for the time being, he walked and ran, feeling out his body and the effect the Mana had on him.
The stream wound its way through a small forest where it gradually grew wider and more rapid. He followed it up a waterfall over a cliff then up the side of a mountain.
As he did, the Mana in the water beside him gradually increased as he approached the source.
Climbing all the way up the side of a mountain with his own two feet was a bit refreshing, after having been sitting and meditating his way through hundreds of realms. Especially the part where he experimented with the new Mana from the stream.
It wasn’t just a wild and unpredictable set of Attunements with a High Energy level. It felt more to Felix like Mana that had been sent through a Universal Blender.
Normal Mana Attunements were like the frequencies of a wave, at least that was how Felix saw them. Differing Attunements ranges like Spatial, Elemental, Material and so on were split up amongst polarities, the waves rotated around at specific intervals.
The Mana in the stream, had none of that. It was complete chaos. There were no distinct polarities. There was no defined frequency or combination of frequencies. It was pure noise.
Following the stream, Felix made his way up the majority of the mountain before finding a cave from which the stream flowed. Heading inside, he didn’t have to travel far at all to find a cavernous lake of bright blue water.
In the very center of the cave, sat something Felix couldn’t explain even if he tried. He couldn’t even see it, let alone feel it, at least not entirely.
There were already a number of Residents inside the cave measuring the water and running scans on the thing in the middle of the room.
He headed over to the man with the scarred face who had been in the meeting with the Residents, Sezaron or as he preferred, Sez.
“What is it?” Felix asked curiously.
“No idea. Only got here a bit before you. Meeting went long.” He gestured over to the vehicles lying dormant on one side of the cave.
“Gotcha. Have you figured anything out so far?”
He shook his head, “Nothing useful. Threw some shit into it and more Mana poured out but no one knows anything more than that.”
Felix nodded and stepped away from the man, towards the edge of the lake.
The thing at the center of the lake, just a few inches above the water line, looked like nothing and felt like something. It was a small warping in the air above the lake with a single black point right at its center. Like a dead pixel in reality itself.
To his Mana Senses though, Felix felt pure chaos pouring out of it. There was no doubt in his mind that this was the source of the Mana suffusing the lake and stream infecting the village.
As per what Sez had said, Felix picked up a small stone from next to his foot and tossed it into the thing from the edge of the lake. His aim was perfect and the stone sailed through the air until it reached the thing, and instantly vanished.
Picking up another stone, Felix used his Matter control to shape the stone, add a number of runes to it, then he imbued those and the stone itself with Anima. Finally, he tossed the stone into the thing and watched as it vanished, then felt it on the other side for just a brief moment before it was completely gone.
That moment, though incredibly brief, was enough for Felix to know mostly what was happening and gain a good idea of what the thing was.
He kept this from his Residents and everyone else in his head though and simply sat down at the edge of the lake, placing his bare feet in the water as he began meditating.
To some extent, he was testing his Residents. He also simply didn’t want to leave yet and if they figured it out, he knew a number of Residents would be eager to move on. Hiding the information gave him an excuse to keep everyone there, not that he needed an excuse but there was value in keeping them happy and he recognized that.
He didn’t want to stall forever, just long enough that he could figure out how to take the hole in space with him.
It took a few dekads for his Residents to realize what the hole was. Not just a hole in space, that much was relatively easy to figure out. The harder part, was figuring out where it led. Felix had recognized that as soon as he had thrown the second stone into the hole and lost connection with it in a very specific way.
The stone wasn’t too far or blocked. It was literally dissolved. The hole in space, led to somewhere deep in the Aether.
It was the exact thing he and Fin had talked about as a possible way for him to regenerate his Mana. Though somehow, the hole was completely stable. As far as Felix knew, it was a wormhole but from what he had managed to figure out in his mediation, he was pretty sure it wasn’t connecting space at all.
Which made sense to him considering space didn’t exist in the Aether. Instead, it felt more like someone had fired a gun through the wall of a space ship. It was like a literal hole in existence. On top of that, the other side was putting into question everything Felix knew about Mana.
By the end of the realm, Felix’s Residents had figured out an efficient way of isolating the hole in space from the lake. They also used Nova to relocate part of the lake, forming basins deep in the mountain to keep the water away from the hole. That allowed the water to slowly become completely clean, along with the filtering mechanism they had come up with which worked by using an Anima spell to imbue will into the Mana, forcing it to act like a solid. Then, they used an machine to boil the water and remove the particulates, creating something akin to Mana sand, much like sea salt.
The only issue was, Felix still had no idea how to move the hole. Conceptually, moving a tear in space through space made no sense, he knew that. Still, he desperately wanted to try. Even being willing to move the hole into his Soul Space if he had to.
Nothing he tried from Aether Tunnels to Sub Spaces worked though. He had even tried binding the hole to Anima but all that did was move the Anima deep into the Aether, where it was lost forever.
So, it was with great reluctance that Felix listened to his Residents telling him that they would find a way to create a stable hole in reality in the future, and left the hole behind.
Heading back down into the village, Edira was standing by as a custom medicine she had helped create was handed out to the various villagers, the final step of the realm.
“You’re out of your lab for the first time in over a hundred realms.” Felix noted as he approached Edira.
“It is done.”
“Wha-” Felix’s eyes widened, “You mean…”
“The elixir. Your elixir. It is done.”
She flicked her wrist towards him and twirled her fingers, a small vial appearing between them.
Plucking it from her, Felix lifted the vial up and peered into it. Inside, it didn’t look anything like a liquid and yet, he felt a strong concentration of the very same Chaotic Mana that had once permeated the water supply, imbued in the elixir. Instead of a liquid, it looks like a roiling purple and blue cloud made of sparkles.
To his Mana Sense, Matter Sense, Anima Sense and sight, it was more complex than he could realistically dissect, despite having some knowledge of the recipe.
The final product was a start to finish creation of Edira’s that she hadn’t seemed to have tested on a replica corpse of his at all. She had however, worked with many of his Residents during the iteration and experimentation process so he had some knowledge of what she was trying to do.
[? - Mythic] True Wizard’s Elixir
[Elixir][?]
This elixir was created for The True Wizard.
Huh. My Arcane Identify is failing me… Is this just beyond my senses? Or is The System too weak here?
Before he could even ask, Nucleus responded, Me and my chunk’ve got nothing.
Was that supposed to be a contraction?
Yeah… I’ve been learning more of your language fr-
Nevermind. How are we looking in terms of Prime Titles and my Custom Class?
Well… Your class is leaning towards some… pacifist, Profession combo all about research and politics since those are the most common titles you have right now.
Damn. Any more direction on things I need to do?
Yes and no. I can tell you there’s another step, something else that must happen… I can’t tell you what it is though. I haven’t been able to figure that out yet. Best I can offer is it’s something to do with your identity.
Congratulations!
You have received 1 new title.
Village Mage
Congratulations!
You have earned 2 Prime Titles.
Introduced to Chaos
Mana Doctor
Oh, sweet. How about now?
Well… It got worse. It’s even more pacifistic now.
Damnit. So what, I’m supposed to wipe out the village? How would Zeraxes or Romar have even completed his realm if they had it? Knowing Adaline, she might have been able to close the hole but them… Would they pass if they just wiped out the entire village? Or if they threatened the village into moving away from the stream?
I’m not sure if you’re still talking to me but… I doubt it? Nucleus offered.
Me too. Even with how strong they are… Felix looked around at the villagers whose levels sat firmly in the middle of the A grade. And I’m just talking to myself. I don’t care who responds.
Felix didn’t mind Nucleus responding. Part of him had wished Grim had responded though, and broken his streak of silence that had started just after the Fractal Mana Form incident.
“Well.” Felix looked back at Edira, “Thanks.”
Before she could stop him, he moved the contents of the liquid through his Soul Space and directly into his body, distributed throughout his blood stream.
His body reacted instantly and over the course of a few hours, Felix’s body was slowly morphed. It wasn’t overwhelmingly painful but the process itself was disturbing as his cells shifted and moved between themselves. They rearranged themselves then died and were replaced by three more only to shift and rearrange once again.
At the end of three hours of his body moving on its own, Felix rose to his feet and felt like his body was simultaneously three times lighter and three times denser. He didn’t look very different, his skin a little smoother than before but otherwise, the same.
Internally though, he had multiple times more cells in his body than before he had taken the elixir, despite his body taking up the same overall volume.
Edira stood next to him and as soon as he began to rise, she grabbed his arm, ripped his sleeve back and began peering into his flesh, “Hmmm”
Felix looked at her and her tiny dinosaur bird familiar squawked at him.
“Were these the results you were… expecting?”
She shook her head, “Hardly.”
“Uh…” He frowned, “Shall we… move on? Or… are you staying here?”
She looked up at him with a blank expression then cocked her head like he was a curiously stupid person, “We can leave now.”
Mark?
Residents are ready.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Felix nodded then made his way to the exit, touching the bubble and moving on to the next realm.
With a large increase in his physical stats, Felix was hoping he might be able to do something. That thought was immediately proven folly in the very next realm when he realized, even if his stats were double those of others at his level, he was still far weaker than the Realm natives who were in the mid A grade.
Luckily, it never really became an issue of safety because no one specifically threatened him, almost entirely because he rarely interacted with them.
Even in combat dungeons, he remained completely out of the fight, mostly by request from his Residents. After all, if he died they would as well.
The combat dungeons mostly involved them enchanting and upgrading equipment along with coordinating realm natives. Luckily, the realms seemed to recognize that some people were focused on support and so they needed someone in the realms to support.
Support wasn’t necessarily easier, it was just safer for his Residents, which he now had a limited number of.
He was losing more and more every realm though and it was quickly looking like they might have to give up on some Prime Titles just to survive long enough, especially when Felix’s Soul was still struggling to do anything.
It wasn’t completely useless though, as Felix found out in the 1689th realm.
He had felt so useless for so many realms and the feeling of having lost something he had had was weighing on him, whether he believed it was or not. In the 1689th realm, a medically focused realm, he had long since started participating in the realms, or at least wandering around as he was growing increasingly frustrated with his lack of progress.
Walking through the city of tall sky scrapers, in the dark shaded alleys, Felix knocked on a dingy and beaten metal door.
A moment later, a smaller rhunar man in a tight and tailored suit, reminiscent of a butler, opened the door and welcomed Felix in.
Inside, the man who had opened the door looked completely out of place, at least with respect to the other people. The inside of the building itself was rather nice with artwork and well arranged furniture. It looked like a building that would have a butler within it.
The others in the building though, completely altered the vibe. While none of them were unkempt or smelled bad, they were all obviously high. Addicts, completely consumed by the new drug that had run rampant through the city just a dozen epochs prior.
Initially, the drug had been introduced to the elites, the richest and most influential people. Somehow, they had been convinced to try it and slowly, it began to spread from there. That direction made it so the drug wasn’t looked down upon by as many as it would have been, had it originated in back alleys.
The fact that it was so addictive, only made the spread worse.
Walking into the building, Felix made his way up to the top floor where he waited in a line of addicts, waiting to make their purchases.
No one’s transactions took very long and so it was Felix’s turn barely a minute after he stepped into line.
Stepping forwards, he casually walked into the office, the door magically closing behind him.
The office itself looked exactly like what Felix expected from an office in a rich person’s mansion with a large wooden desk, a table in the back with expensive bottles and glasses along with a bookcase and various collected artifacts on display. Sitting behind the desk, was the owner of the house.
Felix walked right up to the desk and held out a hefty bag of gemstones he had had Nova create.
The man behind the desk smirked as he took the bag, peered inside and roughly weighed it with one hand, “This is quite the haul. How much are you looking for?”
“Just one hit.” Felix responded.
He cocked a brow, “This is more than enough for a single hit…”
“Maybe. Not much more than enough for what I’m looking for though.”
The man stared at Felix, making him voice his desire.
“A Dream Hit.”
The man nodded, having expected that answer, “You’re a new customer. I have a policy of not handing out Dream Hits to new customers.”
“Hence,” Felix gestured towards the bag, “the excess I have provided in currency.”
He shook his head and sighed, “It isn’t about that. It’s a safety concern. Even those who have been Experiencing their entire lives can barely handle a Dream Hit”
“You mean you don’t want to drive potential customers insane when they could live to keep paying you again. I know. That’s just an excuse though, you want to make sure I don’t try and replicate it. I’m willing to take the hit right here and now.”
The man’s smirk returned, “Are you now?”
“Yes.”
“I wonder.” The man began to tap his desk as his head turned to the window, staring out in thought at the vast city below him. A minute later, he turned back to Felix, “You seem confident you can take a Dream Hit, you’ve taken something similar in the past?”
“Something like that.”
The man leaned forwards, hands clasped on his desk, “Would you be willing to try something stronger then?”
Felix cocked a brow in surprise, his Residents current intel said Dream Hits were the strongest and most recent development.
“Depends. What’s in it?”
“I call it the Paradise.” His smile grew, “Or the Heaven, I haven’t quite decided yet. It’s something my lab managed to cook up when they were creating the latest batch of Dream Hits. I haven’t found anyone willing to try it.”
Felix nodded, “Sure.”
“I’ll even let you pick the name… if you survive.”
“Of course.” Felix nodded confidently.
“First things first, I need to know you can handle it. I’ll give you a Dream Hit. If you can handle that, then we’ll talk.”
Felix reached out his hand and the man placed a small marble sized gem stone into it, “Please,” He gestured towards the couch at the side of his room, “Take a seat so I can observe.”
“No need.” Felix confidently absorbed the Anima from within the gem stone, despite Grim’s voiceless apprehension in his mind.
The Anima washed through his Soul, a beautiful series of experiences that felt almost richer and more real than reality itself. It’s like he had been watching a sitcom his entire life and this experience, the Dream Hit, was a perfect reality.
It lasted for barely a second though, Felix’s eyes only glazing over for a moment before he returned to his body and looked at the man before him, “You confident I’ll survive now?”
The man’s smile grew wide, covering his entire face in a sense of greed, “I’m Karis, Kairs Toral by the way.”
“Felix. Now, can we get a move on?”
The man nodded and got up, walking over to his bookshelf where he opened a safe.
Mark. I assume you’re keeping the Residents informed?
Affirmative. They are adjusting their plans as we speak.
Technically Felix wasn’t supposed to be participating. He wasn’t supposed to be doing something so reckless as actually taking the drugs.
No one actually knew what would happen to him because not only was his will power significantly weaker, but the will power and Soul strength of the user didn’t seem to matter at all. There was some other property of Souls that they hadn’t figured out yet that dictated how much the drug would affect the given user.
The Dream Hit doing almost nothing to Felix helped quell many of their worries, especially Grim’s but putting some experimental drug no one had ever done before into his Soul was something else entirely. Felix ignored their worries though because a part of him needed to know that he wasn’t useless. He needed to know that he hadn’t completely ruined himself.
So, when Karis handed him a blindingly bright silver gemstone, Felix grabbed it without hesitation, threw himself back onto the couch to the side of the room and happily drew the Anima into his Soul.
The Dream Hit had been a beautifully crafted experience. It felt more real than reality.
The Paradise Hit-Felix had already decided on the name-was so much more. It did a similar thing to the Dream Hit, flooding every sense he had and didn’t have with an experience, or at least circumventing them through his Soul. The Dream Hit had been interpreted by his Soul to be something akin to a beautiful sunny day, the rays of sunshine warm on his skin, multicolored and intricate flowers before his eyes along with a fresh smell and a sweet taste.
Everyone experienced the drug differently though the Dream Hit was supposed to be a truly transformative experience, using your nostalgia and history against you.
To Felix, it was nothing more than a particularly sunny day.
The Paradise Hit, was much closer to what he had been hoping the Dream Hit would be. It was something he didn’t remember.
Walking through the streets of Onkora, Thotan carefully wove his way through the crowd of the morning market, picking up a breakfast of flatbread filled with fruit and spiced meat for breakfast from his favorite vendor, Siretta. Taking a bite of the sweet, savory and spicy dish, Thotan leapt over a few heads, off the side of a few buildings and finally over the gate separating the inner city from the market.
The guards ignored him because his colorful apparel was recognizable to anyone, considering the drab clothes the citizens typically wore.
He hurried along so he wouldn’t be late for his meeting. He jogged into the cathedral then slipped through the outer rim into a hall that led directly downwards, into the meeting chambers of the Nealian Soul Cult.
“You’re late.”
Eyes shooting open, Felix looked around and found himself restrained in what looked like a large laboratory.
DAMMIT!
His senses slowly coming back to him, Felix became aware of the large hole that had been physically bored into his chest. Not only was his physical body wide open though, his Soul had been torn open all the way down to his Core Soular System.
The lattice barrier had held but, it was evidently damaged and given more time, it certainly would have failed.
Looking around him though, Felix saw a number of Residents, including Arysha, who had been participating in the realm.
Congratulations!
You have received 1 new title.
Undercover High
Congratulations!
You have earned 2 Prime Titles.
Dream Addict
Disappointment of Paradise
Manually repairing his chest and his Soul, Felix began to sit up causing Arysha to hurry over and help him.
“I take it Karis kidnapped me?”
She nodded.
“Well, considering I just got two Prime Titles, looks like everything worked out.”
“We find the source tracking you. Now, process is given to city.”
“And you already established a government body with oversight to manufacture and distribute the drug safely?”
“Yes.”
“Any chance there’s any more of the experimental one Karis gave me?”
She shook her head but an emotionless voice responded from behind Felix, “We have the process now. We can make more.”
Felix turned to Edira behind him, “As soon as possible.”
“What did it show you?”
“My past.” Felix responded.
Unfortunately, while the process for creating the experimental drug was simple, it wasn’t easy. The one hit Felix had taken was actually produced by accident when they were harvesting materials and found a particularly active chunk of Anima within a creature’s Soul. Harvesting and refining that into the drug, had produced something that seemed to be unique.
Edira and his Residents still hadn’t managed to replicate it by the time they reached the 1850th floor.
They were spending more time in each realm they passed through, not just completing the scenario which took slightly longer, but also producing weapons, equipment and machines to help them.
Just because none of them were in the A grade, didn’t mean they couldn’t kill an A grade with a 10 meter cannon or rail gun.
Those machines and equipment that were the only reason they were able to complete the 1850th realm.
The realm was a combat realm through and through. There was a city on the top of a large hill that was surrounded by a wall. For whatever reason, Felix wasn’t really paying attention himself, the city was being attacked by an army or rather, a horde of large men with red skin and tusks riding giant rodents and massive rhinoceroses. The army was unfathomably big.
It was so massive, Felix and many of his Residents questioned the logistics of an army that numbered in the hundreds of millions. Even those that understood how the cities were laid out, how they had come together to siege the city, didn’t fully understand how they were possibly coordinating and traveling together.
Standing at the top of the wall and looking out over the endless sea of screaming enemies though, there was no denying what they would have to fight.
By that realm, Felix had managed to work his way back up to about a hundred Spell Levels which was a huge improvement but, even if he had his old will power with all his Spell Levels and Focus, he knew he wouldn’t have been as effective as he would have liked.
His Spells, while impressive, weren’t as impressive as the fortitude of the average enemy in the realms near the S grade. At least, not the Spells he could cast himself.
Astonishingly, the walls held firm for three dekads of the siege, taking hits and showing damage but never quite completely falling. Then, it finally broke for the first time on the south east of the city and the orc army poured through.
Luckily, they were just finishing up the project that Felix had spent nearly the entire time working on, along with Arysha, other Residents and the City itself.
Felix himself was one of the most knowledgeable and proficient enchanters, even amongst those that had spent their entire lives in his Mind researching and training their enchanting because he absorbed everything they learned. Even their experiences were filtered and transferred making him just as capable, if not more, than all of them. His stats and Skills, especially Quill Precision which he still had, pushed his abilities even further.
He only absorbed the knowledge and experience of enchanters and casters though because he didn’t believe he could absorb everything and he didn’t have time to build his own foundation for those disciplines. Just absorbing one of his Resident’s baking skills wouldn’t translate or work because he had no foundation of his own to build off of.
With Enchanting and Casting, he had a solid foundation and he practiced the fields often, so he was able to alter and adjust the knowledge and experience to himself constantly.
Still, even being arguably the best enchanter in the entirety of his Mental World, Felix still felt a bit useless with his Spells being completely ineffective.
Pouring trillions of points of Mana into the large machine at the top of the highest tower in the city, Arysha and Felix continuously adjusted the aim of the device according to a constant flow of measurements. It took hours for the weapon to charge all the way up. Hours of Orcs pouring into the city and destroying buildings all around them.
As he watched, every minute that passed, Felix lost a little hope, Whelp. I guess no Prime Titles for me this realm.
The wall broke simultaneously at the north and west as the weapon was finally ready. Felix and Arysha made the last modifications necessary then, Arysha let Felix do the honors and activate it.
On the walls, they used magical cannons, rail guns, plain old catapults with high grade ammunition along with armor and vehicles and alchemical bombs courtesy of Edira.
Those weapons were collectively wiping out millions of Orcs.
They also supplied armor and weapons to the city’s army and they managed to wipe out millions more.
Despite all of that, Felix knew there were always multiple ways to complete a realm scenario. In the Sphinx’s realm, he could have fought enemies throughout the desert and escaped without confronting the Sphinx at all. Here, he and his Residents were confident the harder and more rewarding enemies, were the leaders of the army.
64 lines of white appeared from the weapon in an instant. They didn’t move or travel, they appeared. They connected the weapon’s head to the army in 64 different places, 58 of them targeting leaders of the Orc army, the other 6 strategically placed to do as much damage as possible.
Everywhere the white lines connected, a completely opaque white bubble grew until they had each swallowed a massive area of the battlefield, each one nearly 8 kilometers in diameter.
Then, they all vanished and left behind nothing, at least most of them.
A few of them left behind tiny black specs, like dead pixels floating in the air.
From Felix and Arysha’s distance, they couldn’t actually see them, even the warping of the light around them was minimal. They had scouts specifically for that reason, mostly to help them target the leaders of the army but also to tell them if they had succeeded.
“Three holes confirmed.”
Felix looked at Arysha excitedly, “I’m glad we waited till a combat realm to test this thing.”
She laughed, “Is as effective as we think.”
“In terms of damage but, 3 out of 64 is pre-”
“Two have just closed. Damage appears to be minimal from the aftershock. None dead.” The scout nearest them interrupted.
“Okay so… we can open them. How do we make them stable? Also… I can’t blow a trillion Mana to open a hole to regenerate my Mana.”
“Last one is closed. None were stable.”
Felix sighed and looked out at the army surrounding the city that had suddenly been cut down to less than half of its size just a moment ago, “At least it makes for a good weapon.”
Then, he heard a loud groaning noise from behind him and felt something rather disconcerting with his Mana Senses. He immediately grabbed Arysha and the scout nearest him then used a series of instinct casts to throw everyone else off the top of the tower.
A moment later, the top of the tower was gone as a much smaller and much less stable spatial bubble appeared, wiping the top of the tower out of existence.
Lowering himself to the ground slowly, Felix sighed as he placed Arysha and the scout down, “Looks like we’re not quite ready to use it on the Dragon just yet.”
It took them another dekad to clear out the rest of the Orcs with the City’s army as they were unbelievably persistent, to the point that they were essentially suiciding themselves into the city.
Congratulations!
You have received 1 new title.
City Defender
Congratulations!
You have earned 2 Prime Titles.
Horde Slayer
Plague Bearer
Plague Bearer? Mark, did we use any weapon that could be considered a plague?
The aftermath of the Spatial Boring Anomaly Generator opened unstable holes in the spatial fabric. This allowed chaotic Mana to leak from deep within the Aether and infect a large portion of the remaining army.
SBAG? Who came up with that name. They’re even worse than I am at naming…
Grim didn’t take the bait, remaining just as silent as he had been ever since Felix had taken the Fractal Mana Form into his Core Soul.
There was nothing left for Felix and the Residents to do in that realm so, they spent some time repairing, iterating and inventing new weapons, enchantments, armor and machines they could use in future realms before Felix finally touched the iridescent bubble.
The realms took longer and longer as they progressed as they were pushed harder and learned more. The situations themselves became more complicated both in terms of the scenario and in terms of how they had to navigate their relative strength compared to the realm natives.
They picked up a few realm natives as they progressed but as Edira had said, they could only bring people who already knew about the realms. It turned out, those were exceedingly rare.
Though he hadn’t gotten even close to restoring his will power, Felix began shifting his focus within. Instead of practicing and training his will power to grow it as fast as he could, he began internally searching his own Soul. They didn’t manage to recreate the Paradise Drug he had taken but he was still getting closer every day.
It was a weird process for him because he was very good at focusing on a specific task, it was in his nature. What he wasn’t good at was focusing on nothing and just listening. He didn’t see any better way though and he didn’t feel like asking his Residents. So instead, he sat every day and banged his head against the problem, making slow and arduous progress.
By the time he had reached the 1932nd realm, he was right on the verge of what he had been working towards, mostly because of the sheer amount of time they had spent in each of the later realms.
Felix and his Residents could all feel the next realms and so, they prepared for them based on what they felt. The natives, who mostly didn’t know they were in a realm or what the realms were, also knew what was in the next realm. Instead of knowing there was a realm and what was in it, they had rumors and legends that all seemed to coincide with what Felix and his Residents felt from the next realm.
The realm and the scenario itself was incredibly simple which usually meant, whatever they had to deal with would be extraordinarily hard.
For most people, it would have been. For Felix, curing someone from the Curse of Oblivion, wasn’t quite as hard as it should have been.
In the largest bedroom of the castle in the middle of the Realm, Felix floated in the air, his body horizontal and just a few inches from the sleeping princess below him. His Soul Tendrils, just 4 of them, moved faster than he could physically and extracted tiny pieces of Oblivion from her Soul while taking little to none of her Soul in the process.
It took a half hour in total to remove all the Oblivion since she had been hit with a spray all over her body making the entire realm the shortest realm they had completed to date.
Congratulations!
You have earned 3 Prime Titles.
Surgical Exorcist
Exponential Speed
Gratitude of the Accursed
The Prime Titles were a very welcome surprise, considering how fast and relatively easy the realm had been.
Once that was dealt with, even before they began to prepare for the next Realm, his Residents began exploring. Their logic was that there had to be some way to complete the Realm if a participant wasn’t Felix so, they wanted to figure out what that was.
In the meantime, Felix went back to meditating where he turned his attention inside himself. No longer was he listening though. He had decided it was finally time for him to actualize more convictions, and he planned on doing both at once to finally bring himself to three.
Reaching into his Soul, he used his will power to slowly draw forth the essence of the convictions. Not one, but both of the convictions he knew were lying dormant within him. He made sure to keep them separate as he was drawing them to the surface and he began replaying various experiences in his Soul, defining what the convictions meant to him.
Two closely related convictions with slightly different applications. That allowed him to use both at once and in a fight where his life was on the line, all three.
Dominion. Control.
Where they differed for him, was in application. Dominion was about dominating a fight, dominating other people and winning completely. Control was about controlling Mana, Matter and his surroundings.
Both would ideally help him determine the outcome of situations, and shift them in his favor.
The entire process was simple and uneventful. He had spent so much time listening to his own Soul that it had become more trivial than he had realized, otherwise he would have done it much sooner.
As he manually reactivated his Mana Channels, his Mana Skin, his Reaper’s Skills and finally his Aura, he felt like a god.
His stats immediately sky rocketed to surpass most A grades. His flesh was nearly impenetrable and he moved faster than he had ever seen anyone in the realms move.
On top of that, he had his Focus back and it was significantly improved which meant he could once again cast spells as he desired although, they still wouldn’t do much damage. Luckily, he already had a path to rectify that.
Opening the Sphinx’s Vault behind him along with his Pocket Home, Felix began collecting the various pieces of loot he had obtained through the realms. Taking them, he sat down beneath the Attunement Crystal World Tree, a favorite meditation spot of his over the past few realms.
Before touching any of the loot, he quickly tested to see if he could break into the Soul Vault he had stolen from Trinity yet but frustratingly found he couldn’t. He didn’t let that sour his mood though and stowed it for the time being, shifting his attention to various pieces of loot.
Starting, with the Boots of the Whispering Wind, his first piece of loot in the Realms and, he destroyed them.
Then, with the mundane leather that was quickly aging without a Soul attached to it in one hand and the Spirit from the boots in the other, he tossed the leather to Nova and began dissecting the Spirit. From it, he removed the Concept of Wind and placed it in his Concept Treasury, a planet of Anima orbiting his Core Soul that had segmented and designed to preserve Concepts.
The next item offered him a Concept of Fire followed by a Concept of Sharp and a Concept of Durability. He had specifically picked interesting ones but he was moving relatively quickly so he knew he was definitely going to get through them all in the next 68 realms.
The last step in his plan was making sure he could apply those Concepts to his Spells which, he should have more than enough time for. For the time being though, he simply extracted Concepts for him to play with later.
All throughout the following floors up to the Dragon, Felix felt a huge sense of satisfaction with having regained his lost strength and some. He figured out how to integrate Concepts into his Spells though he avoided doing so when he didn’t have to because it cost him Anima. With his stats, he began to participate in the scenarios along with his Residents and he even restored their numbers, creating an entire army to fight the Dragon with.
Felix had once been arrogant enough to do everything on his own and a part of him still wanted to fight the dragon by himself but he ignored that part of himself. His convictions were about never giving up, having absolute control and winning completely. Not about fighting by himself or taking stupid fights.
In the last realm before the Dragon, Felix had already built up an army. He, Nova and his Residents had created some of the finest equipment they had collectively ever seen, all of it enchanted and imbued with Concepts and Spirits. They had vastly improved the Spatial Boring Anomaly Generator and it no longer exploded after a single use, although they would only get one use out of it considering it took trillions of points of Mana to use even once.
They had cannons, rail guns, flame throwers, bows, swords, daggers, axes, wands and staves and they had been practicing their coordination through Mark who saw everything.
Still, the feeling they got from the next Realm, was dreadful. The legends and myths from the Realm had been odd and incongruous for the first time, something about a complex war based on a trade agreement. What they felt from the iridescent bubble before them though, was something else entirely.
It was a Dragon. There was no doubt about what was in the next realm. It was massive, terrifying and it looked completely unstoppable. Felix knew it was a Realm though so it had to be beatable. There might even be armies he could leverage in the fight, considering the legends and the fact that it was a strategic realm.
He didn’t feel any of that though which was a little concerning and none of his Residents did either. They all felt the exact same thing, a sense of dread and a massive threat, blood lust, imminent death. It was so much stronger than the feelings they got in the other realms, even more than the last realm. There was a huge jump in the predictive feelings they had but they all seemed to agree it was likely to do with it being the 2000th realm.
The best theory they had, was that the Dragon was the final boss of the realms which excited most of them.
Felix could feel everyone around him, so there was no reason to, but he looked to his right anyways. All his Residents were already in the Sphinx’s vault, which had gotten quite cramped even after they used the Giant and Sphinx bodies to fashion super soldier Residents.
The person standing beside him, the 10 foot tall behemoth in full Spiritual plate armor, with a long sword and cloak of shadow was someone else. Someone who had been with Felix from the start, even before Nova who was sitting on his shoulder on the other side.
“So, you can feel the next realm too. You think we have a shot?”
Grim just grunted.
Felix nodded and turned back to the bubble, “On a scale of everything I’ve done, how stupid?”
A minute of silence passed before Felix realized Grim wasn’t going to answer him so, he reached out and gently pulled Grim’s new body into his Soul Space. Grim allowed it and Felix did the same with Nova before touching the iridescent bubble and moving himself into the 2000th realm.
The instant he appeared, Felix released Grim and Nova then dropped the Sphinx’s Vault and opened his Pocket Home to allow his army to roll out.
Then, he looked around at the realm. It wasn’t quite what he expected. Instead of a large mountain with a massive cave housing a Dragon, it looked like a complete wasteland. Whatever had once lived there, had been wiped out. There were mountains, or what was once mountains, what was once a forest and a lake. Now, there was just charred ground, severed mountains and piles of ash.
It was immediately clear the Dragon had been the one to wipe everything out but Felix and even his Residents weren’t quite sure why. The Realms had crafted scenarios around its natives for every other realm so far. The only, now less acceptable explanation, was that this was the final boss of the realms.
As for where that final boss was, Felix looked around but saw nothing. He didn’t rush ahead though to scout and made sure everyone was ready. He adjusted his new jewelry and armor, having switched to flame resistant plate for this particular fight and held his new wand in hand, something that had taken them a few realms to perfect but something that he felt satisfied with. It didn’t feel perfect, but it was much better than nothing, especially since it helped him imbue the Concept of Oblivion into his Spells.
The Concept was a particularly proud achievement of his, having circumvented the Curse itself to create it.
“Scouts?”
Already deployed. Mark responded.
“Where do you want me?” Felix nodded, speaking out loud to build morale and ensure his Residents of the plan.
Where you are. Please retrieve your Pocket Home and the Sphinx’s Vault in 1 minute 7 seconds.
Felix nodded and waited a little beyond the precise time Mark had given him before retrieving his items and stowing them.
Dragon sighted. 329 kilometers 83 degrees from North.
Felix nodded and by the time he floated off the ground, his army was already in motion. They didn’t move in perfect synchronicity, that would have been stupid when they could instead, be perfectly coordinated. They were all different sizes and speeds but as they moved, no one trampled anyone else, everyone moved with specific purpose and direction.
Grim floated a few hundred meters to Felix’s right and they all collectively headed mostly East, towards the Dragon.
Traveling there was rather easy. Easier than it should have been. They were traveling into a mountain range but the mountains themselves had been completely obliterated by what appeared to be Dragon’s breath long ago. So instead of scaling a mountain or moving around it, they simply walked through the massive hole that had been bored through it.
It hadn’t been long enough that the sharp edges at the top of the hole had been worn down though so Felix’s Residents that were more experienced with erosion had concluded it must not have happened very long ago. Curiously, that seemed to be the case for everything which, considering how much time seemed to pass in realms, was odd.
Despite his desire to be a team player, Felix couldn’t help himself and flew a bit ahead of the group, not too far but enough that he was the first other than the Scouts to spot it.
[S - Ancient] Creation of )$*#@!&%: Dragon (Lvl 4004)
Creation of what?
The Dragon itself was smaller than Tekragoraxius but only slightly. It lay in the crux of a mountain it had melted into a nest, on its back, with its legs all in the air, stomach exposed. The ridiculous pose which, was admittedly adorable, did nothing to quell Felix’s sense of foreboding though.
Despite being a mountain away, Felix could feel the Dragon. Its Aura was unintentional at the moment and completely consumed the area in a whole smattering of emotions. Hunger, bloodlust, boredom. The Aura alone was enough for Felix to wonder whether the Dragon he was looking at, was actually stronger than Tekragoraxius, despite her being a god. It was a ridiculous thought, Felix knew that but he couldn’t quite dismiss it.
He patiently waited, watching the sleeping Dragon as his army set themselves up all around it. Machines, weapons and cannons anchored and targeted, the army readied and in position.
Seeing as it was still sleeping after all of that, they began charging up the Spatial Boring Anomaly Generator. It was the most damage they could deal in a short period.
The SBAG charged, hundreds of thousands of Mana, millions of Mana, billions of Mana. The Dragon slept the entire time. It charged up into the trillions and Felix felt the excitement from his Residents as it seemed actually possible for them to do this.
Just a couple seconds short of it being fully charged, The Dragon began to rouse. It didn’t immediately spring to its feet though so it didn’t seem like it would matter. It slowly stretched and rolled over, looking around it as the SBAG was activated and one singular line of pure white formed from its tip.
A massive bubble of blinding white, which was actually 256 bubbles all directly on top of each-other grew out of the Dragon and completely engulfed it.
A moment passed. Then two. Finally, the bubbles receded and left behind, a spec of black. A hole deep into the Aether.
“I…” Felix stared in disbelief, “Holy shit. We did it.”
He looked up at the mountain where Arysha, her team of enchanters and the new and improved SBAG sat and smiled wide, waving to her.
She didn’t notice him though as she was still staring at the hole in disbelief.
Then, she was gone. The entire top of the mountain she had stood on was gone. In its place, a beam of deep blue flames with flecks of purple hundreds of meters in diameter.
It was Felix’s turn to stare in disbelief for a moment before flicking his head to the side, towards the source of the beam. There sat The Dragon, or at least its head. The rest of it seemed to still be on the other side of the hole. Its head though, was floating in the air and casually wiping out the top half of a mountain.
Felix’s jaw dropped as the Dragon’s jaw shut and it casually pulled its arms, body, wings, legs and finally its tail through the hole. Then it turned back towards the hole and sniffed at it before releasing another beam of pure death at the hole. Its fire wasn’t consumed though, at least not enough of it as a tenth of Felix’s army that sat beyond the mountain were gone. Dead in an instant. Their bodies and all the equipment and weapons they had made, gone.
The rest of the army was already moving according to Mark’s instructions and began releasing their best long ranged attacks, after the SBAG.
They showered the Dragon in Spells, Arrows and various other projectiles but it just lifted a wing to protect itself before growling at them. Then, it released another beam of deep blue fire and swung its head to the side, wiping out over half of the army.
Felix’s eyes went wide and he stopped flying towards The Dragon. He felt Grim a hundred meters to his right also stopped.
We can’t kill this thing.
No. You can’t. Grim responded in Felix’s mind, the first thing he had communicated to him in almost a thousand realms.
So… we’re just stuck here until we find a way? I have to just run and cower until then?
You have to survive first. Grim responded, All these Residents dying is tragic, but their Souls are in you. You need to go.
Felix nodded, You’re right. I know you’re also still in me but… come with me.
Grim stared at him through his helm, no actual eyes beneath them then he nodded once.
The two of them quickly darted off, flying away from the terror that was that Dragon.
They didn’t get more than a few kilometers away before the entire army was wiped out. Then, the Dragon looked in their direction.
Felix immediately hit himself and Grim with an instinct cast the moment he felt the Dragon’s attention fall onto them through its Aura. He flew back but not fast enough as his arm was consumed and instantly gone. Flying out of the way, his arm was still burning so he reached over and ripped it off from the shoulder, tossing the stub away. It frighteningly burned up just a second after he released it, the Concept of Fire and Destruction coursing through the flames.
Well… there goes two rings, a wand and a brac-
SHUT UP. Grim interrupted him, RUN.
Felix acknowledged what Grim was saying by flying as fast as he could away from the Dragon. He did risk a glance over and took relief in the fact that Grim’s body seemed unharmed, which for some reason seemed to annoy Grim even more judging from what Felix felt in his mind.
He didn’t have time to figure that out though and literally no focus to spare on it as he flew as fast as he could towards the piles of ash that had once been a forest.
Grim flew off in another direction entirely but the Dragon was solely focused on Felix. It dove towards him, multiple times faster than he was no matter how hard he tried. Seeing it barreling towards him, Felix activated the other two rings he had crafted forming a barrier of Force imbued with a Concept of Impermeability and Spatially Translocating himself dozens of kilometers to the side.
Looking back, The Dragon shattered the barrier without even seeming to notice it was there and Felix’s ring that had created it cracked, as it had been supplying it with Mana. Even though they had engineered in specific fail safes to prevent that situation, it was useless.
He still had the other ring though and he began flooding it with Mana as the Dragon looked over and saw him.
It used its wings and a single flap to stop itself and switch direction but as it did so, Felix saw a Lightning Bolt smack into the Dragon’s back. It turned to the source of the pain and all Felix could do was thank his savior.
Don’t. Run.
He didn’t and he kept running, moving as far as he could as fast as he could in a desperate bid to hide and survive long enough to try again.
It didn’t seem possible considering the complete lack of cover the ruined realm offered but he had to try, he wasn’t just going to give up. He darted through the piles of ash, dragging them into the air in his wake and completely visually obscuring him. He wove through mountains, some less melted than others. Finally he found a large chasm in the ground and felt the Aura of The Dragon growing behind him.
With no where else to hide, he dove deep into the canyon and flew right along the cliff face, a few inches above the stone ground.
Daring a look behind him, Felix saw The Dragon just peeking its head over the top of the canyon and Felix pushed everything he had into flying faster, tearing the Mana back out of his Translocation ring to repurpose it and shattering it in the process.
He felt a surge of blood lust in the Dragon’s Aura and knew the breath was coming but didn’t have any way to avoid it.
Then, he saw it. In front of him, at the end of the canyon. An iridescent bubble floating just inside the mouth of a cave.
What?
Shoving all his Mana into an instinct cast Force Spell, Felix launched himself in a wild and uncontrollable flight, like he himself was the cannon ball. His body spun and contorted from his Spell as the breath destroyed the ground behind him and began following his path.
Then, he was gone.