The House of Promises was located on one of the three largest clouds that made up Azura. It was a large fluffy white cloud and closest to the iridescent bubble Felix had come through.
Amongst the massive towers that formed the majority of the Ephemeral City, sat a building that was shaped like a pyramid, just upside down. It had no pillars to hold it aloft and seemed to have been constructed for the sole purpose of showing off to all those who bore witness to its gravity defying majesty.
Pouring down from the pyramid from all sides were a number of thin streams of water that exploded into mist, joining the cloud it sat upon and creating a mystical atmosphere around it. Within that mist, sat a number of Rituals that allowed anyone that approached and supplied Mana to be lifted into the pyramid itself.
Felix had no need to use the ritual but he did anyways, both because Kether had to and because he was curious about the ritual itself. Unfortunately, it seemed to be nothing particularly special or outstanding, not that an elevator had to be, he had just been holding out hope.
Aela flew herself up ahead of them and disappeared into the building just before Felix and Kether arrived.
Instead of a hole or door for Felix to step through, there was a slit that spanned the entire perimeter of the pyramid, as if the top was completely detached from the base. It let some light through but as Felix was lifted up to it, he realized it didn’t let him see straight through the pyramid. Instead, there was a short set of stairs that blocked the main floor of the casino from being visible from the outside.
Felix waited a moment then followed Kether into the casino because Aela was nowhere to be found. At the top of the short set of stairs, lay what was obviously a casino. Everything about it was different and yet it was completely recognizable.
None of the games were ones Felix recognized as no one played cards or dice or pulled levers on machines. Those would be too easy for someone to cheat at. Instead, he saw tables that held glass orbs in their center surrounded by a half dozen people. He saw tables with large grids of pillars, tables with a number of open portals, all shuffled around and pointing in various directions.
While the various games and tables reminded Felix of a casino, along with the drinks being served, he also felt like he had walked into the highest end strip club he had ever seen.
Some of the waitresses and waiters were nearly naked and the way they were overtly flirting with patrons was a little more than he had expected. On top of that, almost half the main floor was dedicated to tables and booths that didn’t have games but hosted both clientele and staff. It wasn’t all the staff that were dressed provocatively though, just a small portion of them.
The rest wore everything from formal suits to robes to rags to full armor.
Kether led Felix straight across the floor to one of the booths in particular and gestured for him to take a seat before waving down a waitress in a long and flowing gown.
“Keth! You’re back!” She leapt over and gently placed a kiss on his forehead, “The usual I take it?”
He nodded once and she spun towards Felix, “And who’s your new friend?”
Kether gestured towards Felix, “Ari, this is Felix.”
Felix nodded.
She leapt over the table and squeezed her arms around him, “It is sooo nice to meet you.”
Felix looked over at Kether with confusion but he just smiled and blushed slightly. Once Ari released Felix, she pushed herself up from the table, her feet in the air behind her and her nose just a few inches from Felix’s, “What can I get you?”
“I’m good.” Felix shook his head.
The waitress stared into his eyes and began pouting with her face, “Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” Felix smiled politely and hid how off put he was.
Her expression changed in an instant and she shrugged, “Okay.” Then she skipped off.
Felix looked over at Kether who was still watching Ari leave in a somewhat dream like state, “You come here often?”
Kether’s gaze snapped away from the skipping waitress and over to Felix, “Basically live here, kid.”
“I see…” Felix looked around, “Do you… gamble often or… are you here for other reasons?”
The slightly overweight man bellowed out a hearty laugh, “Gambling makes me almost as much ros as anything else I do. As for the other reasons, they’re definitely a factor.”
“Wait, you make that much gambling?”
Kether nodded proudly, “Sure do.” He leaned in a little, “All these games you see in here,” He gestured out at the various tables, “are good fun and nothing more. They’re entirely up to chance.”
The man paused for a moment before continuing in a slight whisper, “The real ros is all made on the fights.”
Felix nodded quickly, “Duel, Spirit Fight and Mana War, right?”
He nodded, “Those are the most popular ones, yeah.” Kether sat back in his booth, “If you do your research on each fight, you can make a lot o’ ros.”
“Then you consume that ros?”
Kether shrugged, “Yup. Or you buy yourself land in a realm or you gamble it all away.”
Felix nodded.
“Realistically….” Kether continued, “I make more than I could consume. Don’t have any fancy connections myself.”
Felix frowned, “What does that have to do with anything?”
Kether made a face that he had forgotten Felix was a challenger for a second before explaining, “Basically, the big companies and clans have machines and techniques so they can consume much more much faster.”
“Really? I thought it was all dependent on how strong your will power is?”
“Sure.” The man nodded, “Mostly. You can also suppress the will in the ros you consume before you consume it. Then, you can also increase the strength of your Soul with various techniques.”
“Like Convictions?”
Kether nodded, “Exactly.”
Ari skipped and twirled her way over to their table placing a tall glass of some kind of bluish liquor at their table, winked and waved at Kether then skipped off again.
Kether took a long sip of the drink then dropped it back to the table and sighed as if he had been dying of thirst.
“So, anyone catch your eye yet?” A sultry feminine voice asked from right next to Felix’s ear.
Felix pushed himself a few feet away from Aela, “No thanks.”
“Oh come on. I’ll introduce you to some of our favorites then we can narrow it down from there.” She leaned in, closing much of the distance Felix had created.
He waved her off, “No.”
She grumbled then rose back to her feet, “When you do find someone, just let them know. It is their job.”
Felix nodded politely, “Any chance Godovan is in here?”
She shook her head quickly, “What? No. Why-”
“Never mind.”
Aela squinted at him, as if trying to figure something out.
“What?” He asked.
“You really don’t feel anything towards any of us?”
Felix shrugged, “Nope.”
She hummed in thought for a moment then quickly danced her way through the crowd to someone across the room that Felix couldn’t see. A moment later though, she came back with a muscular man covered in white and black tattoos with glowing blue eyes, dark hair and wings constructed from Anima that made him look like an angel.
“Felix, meet Areks.”
Felix nodded politely to the man.
Aela nodded to Areks and his wings began to glow.
Felix just stared at them, unsure if he should have been preparing himself to dodge an attack.
A minute passed and Felix slowly realized what was happening as nearly every other Soul in the building began to stare and wander towards Areks in trances.
Finally, Areks’ glow dimmed and he looked at Aela and shrugged.
She groaned and waved him off, “You really felt nothing?”
“Nope. I can feel what he’s doing but only if I reach out and try to feel the Anima around me.”
“Hmmm.”
“Do all the staff in here have that ability?”
She frowned, “It’s not one ability. It’s a trained skill.” She plopped herself down next to Felix in the booth, “Physical attraction is easy, any fool can modify their body. Only children care about what someone looks like physically. Everyone else, looks for traits and personalities that they’re attracted to.”
“So you each represent a different personality, set of traits?” Felix gestured around the room towards the various staff.
“No. We do, but that’s not the point. Our job is to read the client and adapt to their desires.”
Felix gasped in realization then asked anyways, just to confirm, “Do you do that consciously?”
“Some of us.” She gestured over towards Ari, “She’s probably the worst at reading and adapting but her Soul is attractive to a lot of people.” She glared at Kether in an accusatory way. He just shrugged unashamedly.
She gestured back to Areks who was now surrounded by a small crowd of sycophants, “He’s by far the best at reading and adapting but he doesn’t do it consciously.”
“You do.” Felix stated as he was catching on.
She nodded, “Not many work to develop the skill consciously, most are just born with the talent.”
“You couldn’t feel anything from me so you didn’t know how to adapt. You used Areks to make sure you weren’t missing something.”
“Pretty much.”
“Satisfied now?”
She scoffed, “No.” She leaned in uncomfortably close, “I will figure you out.”
Felix just leaned away for almost a minute until she sighed and stood back up, “You going to watch the fight?”
“Now?” Felix looked at her then Kether.
Kether nodded, “In a few minutes. I’m heading there too.”
Aela nodded and waved, “See you there.”
Felix turned to Kether as she left, “If it’s in a few minutes, why not head there now?”
He leaned in closer to Felix then pointed under the table off into the crowd. Felix followed his finger and knew who he was looking at, their Perception and Dexterity too high to be imprecise with a pointed finger.
The man Kether was pointing at was standing at a table with a handful of women surrounding him, only some of them staff. He looked to be quite far from sober and whatever game he was playing, he was not winning.
“Is that one of the fighters?”
Kether nodded.
“What fight is it?”
“Spirit Fight.”
“Getting drunk shouldn’t matter then, right?”
“It doesn’t. What matters is his confidence.”
Felix nodded, unsure if he agreed.
They continued watching for a few minutes before Kether finally rose to his feet and led Felix up a few floors onto the roof. There, the top of the upside down pyramid was covered in a single massive fighting ring that was fenced in by large pillars. Surrounding the ring, was a dense crowd who were drinking, placing bets and arguing with each-other.
On their way around, Kether found who he was looking for and placed a last minute bet, then led Felix over to an area they could watch from.
A few minutes later, the fighters arrived. The first fighter was a woman in a dress or robe that was clean and perfect, covered in a pattern of blossoming flowers.
[?] Mist Ryko (Lvl ?)
Then, a few minutes later and judging from the crowd’s reaction, late, was the man Kether had been watching.
[?] Mortalbane: Saru (Lvl ?)
Felix leaned over towards Kether, “What’s Mortalbane?”
A few people around them looked at him like he was insane but Kether ignored them, “It’s the biggest company in Azura. They made a name for themselves hunting down beasts throughout the realms and processing their spoils into products they sell. While it’s the biggest company it’s still not quite as big as some of the families, at least in terms of total power. One of those, is the Ryko family.”
Felix nodded, “So this fight is a big deal?”
“Sort of.” Kether shrugged a little then pointed at Mist, “She’s not of the main branch of the family and he’s not a very high ranking hunter in the company.” He then gestured around them, at the roof of the pyramid, “Any fight up here though, is considered a big deal.”
Felix nodded then held back any more questions he had as the fight was starting.
The two fighters stood at opposite ends of the ring, Saru taking a breath and almost completely sobering himself and Mist bowing to her opponent.
Then, their Souls appeared. More accurately, they both projected out Avatars from their bodies made of Anima. Felix could tell they still had their Souls in their bodies. The Avatars were closer to what Peace had done in their Group Combat class. These Avatars though were much denser and as a result, more opaque and vastly more powerful.
Mist’s Avatar was a projection of herself in more combat oriented clothes with hair that moved as if she were underwater. Saru’s on the other hand, wasn’t human at all. It was a wingless and thick dragon-lizard-turtle thing. Felix had no name for it but it was detailed enough that he could tell it was scaled and its skin wrinkled as it moved. That kind of detail wasn’t present on Peace’s projection and even that had been impressive and seemed impossible for everyone outside of the Realms.
They sized each-other up for a moment then leapt into action.
Saru’s Avatar immediately jumped to bite down on Mist’s Avatar’s midsection but her’s leapt into the air and kicked off of it’s head, rising for a moment before completely disappearing.
It reappeared in the same instant behind Saru’s Avatar and grabbed hold of it in a bear hug, struggling to lift it from the ground. Saru’s Avatar’s tail swung back and forth rapidly trying to free itself but it didn’t seem like it was going to matter because Mist’s just couldn’t lift it.
She changed course and her Avatar instead twisted herself around and forced Saru’s onto it’s back then, she began pummeling it from underneath.
“So… whoever is the best with martial arts and combat has a huge advantage, right?”
Kether shook his head immediately, “You’d think so but not really. You can do things with a Spirit Avatar that you just can’t with a body.”
As if to prove his point to Felix, Saru’s Avatar shifted in a matter of a second into a mouse, scurried away, then transformed into a lion like creature except instead of fur and hair, it was covered in spikes of some kind.
It leapt back at Mist just as Aela arrived with a platter holding one of Kether’s favorite blue drinks.
“So, what do you think?” She gestured towards the fight while looking at Felix.
“It’s cool.”
She seemed unhappy with that response, “Come on, knowing where you’re from, have you ever even heard of a Spirit Avatar before?”
Felix nodded, “One of the people I hang out with most often used one of these in our first epoch of school.”
She stared at him, trying to figure out if he was being serious then grunted and turned back to the fight.
“If it makes you feel any better, another one of them also reads people. She’s the best at it. She can’t read anything from me either.”
Aela rolled her eyes, “I may not be the best at reading people, but I’d bet my bank account I could run circles around any challenger.”
Kether cocked his head slightly, “Careful Aela, Felix here proves we don’t know as much about the outside as we thought.”
She waved him off, “He’s just a freak with no emotions.”
Saru shifted through another 5 creatures before Mist finally managed to lock his Avatar down in a choke hold. Then, she used her other arm to slowly push her hand into its chest. Before she got to its center though, Saru’s avatar vanished and the crowd erupted in sound.
Looking over at Kether, Felix didn’t even need to ask, he already knew he had lost.
Betting based on the confidence of the fighters seemed like a bad idea. Wonder if he was lying when he said his betting was profitable.
“So what about Mana War?” Felix turned to Kether just as he was downing the rest of his drink.
“Mana War? All those happen on the lower floors.” Kether waved him off like they were unimportant.
“Mana War never happens on this floor?”
He shrugged, “Nah. Not really. It’s not important enough. No one really cares. This floor is almost always just the big Spirit Fights.”
“Do you bet on Mana War matches ever?”
Kether shrugged, “Not really. Don’t have time to research everything.” He handed his empty glass to a waiter as they walked by then gestured with his head back to the shaft they had taken to get up to the roof, “Come on, I’ll show you where I spend most of my time.”
Felix nodded and followed Kether. The shaft wasn’t nearly as busy as Felix was expecting because the majority of the crowd around the fight on the top floor simply flew off the side and back in through the slit around the Pyramid.
The two of them headed down just a few levels below the main casino floor where there were a number of much smaller rings set up. Within almost all of them, there were Avatar’s fighting it out, just as Mist and Saru had on the roof. Staff also walked around serving food and drink while the crowd placed bets.
The entire floor though was much darker and seemed almost like it was supposed to be hidden, instead of presented to the world as the fights on the roof were.
Kether made the rounds and placed a number of bets on about half the fights.
Felix tried to find some kind of pattern as to which fights Kether was picking but as far as he could tell, the contestants seemed perfectly even. In some cases one fighter’s Aura was stronger than the other but then they fought and their Avatar looked weaker. Other times, an Avatar looked unstoppable but their opponent was flexible and their Avatar’s form was almost liquid allowing them to win rather easily.
He also began to truly understand what Kether had meant about combat skill not overly mattering. Soul Strength mattered more than anything and allowed some fighters to roll over their opponent like they didn’t even exist. On top of that, martial arts were largely irrelevant when your opponent’s Avatar might literally act like a fluid.
After almost an hour of observing, Kether nodded, “Alright well, that’s all the ros I lost on the Mortal v Ryko fight, and some.” He sighed, “You want me to show you the Mana War now?”
Felix nodded quickly.
He sighed again, “Alright. Just to warn you though, it isn’t nearly as interesting as this.”
Felix nodded again in understanding then followed Kether down a number of floors again to the even smaller floors in the bottom tip of the upside down pyramid.
There, instead of rings, Felix saw small discs a few meters in diameter. At each end, sat a person and in the middle, a war.
They approached the largest disc close to the middle of the room and Felix leaned in close to watch. Within the disc, the two contestants had their Mana projected out and were fighting each-other with it. Instead of Avatar’s though, they fought with literal armies, clouds, vehicles and anything else they could come up with. The inside of the disc wasn’t open either, instead there were landscapes and labyrinths and obstacles, each disc slightly different.
In the main disc near the center of the room, the war was held through a number of floating bubbles that formed obstacles as they shifted around.
On one side, they had projected their Mana into spider like creatures that leapt from bubble to bubble. The other, had flying snakes of some kind. The two sets of projections battled it out through the bubbles, some taking direct fights and others trying to worm their way around the opposing side to make it to whatever the goal was.
Felix watched and the battle slowly progressed, the little Mana creatures desperately trying to occupy each-other.
Once some Mana made it the opposite side of the disc, it entered a small circle and the opponents overall Mana was reduced, in the case of the fight near the center, one of the spider was creatures suddenly cut in half.
Then, the side with the flying snakes had more overall Mana and was able to press their lead even further.
Though he had many questions, Felix didn’t bother asking Kether, who looked like he was so bored, he was at risk of falling asleep. Kether didn’t say anything though and respectfully waited for the fight to finish, the spiders winning out in the end by suddenly splitting up into a horde of smaller spiders that rushed the goal circle causing the disc to glow green.
“So, you seen enough?”
Felix nodded to Kether, “How do I register for one of these?”
Kether’s bored expression vanished, “You want to fight in a Mana War?”
Felix nodded.
Kether shook his head then led Felix over to one of the waiters walking around, “This kid is new here. He isn’t even registered. He wants to try a Mana War.”
The waiter nodded, “The only arenas we have free are Dynasty and The Forests.”
Kether was about to say something but Felix nodded, “Anything is fine. Whoever the strongest opponent who’s free is good.”
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The waiter nodded, “Dynasty it is then.”
Felix nodded and followed the waiter over to an arena near the edge of the floor that already had someone waiting. They were a man of just a few feet in height with a neatly trimmed beard and an intense glare.
[?] Tarobor (Lvl ?)
Felix nodded to the man then sat down on the other side. Looking back up at the waiter who had led him there, “So how do I play? What are the rules?”
The waiter chuckled as Tarobor scowled and he pointed at the Arena, “You agree to how much Mana you’re allowed to use up front. Most people use the Arena default. You aren’t allowed to control your opponents Mana, if you do, your half of the Arena will glow red and you are disqualified. Other than that, you just have to push enough Mana into the opposing side’s circle before they do the same to you. Any questions?”
Felix nodded, “Is it possible to bet on myself?”
The waiter smirked and Tarobor rolled his eyes, “The odds for this fight will be even and since you aren’t registered, a max bet will be put in place of a thousand Sinros.”
Felix shrugged, “Sure. I’ll bet that.”
The waiter nodded, “The odds are equal for all unregistered contestants.”
Felix nodded and held out a bag of Sinros but the waiter looked at him like he was insane. Kether stepped forward, “Put his bet on my tab.”
The waiter nodded then stepped away.
Kether leaned in towards Felix, “You don’t just hand out bags of coins. You transfer ros to the casino then use credit on your account. How would you have handed over 10,000 Sinros if you had to?”
Felix shrugged, “A bigger bag.”
Kether snorted then stood back up, watching the arena with much more interest than he had the last.
Felix looked over at his opponent who stared at him with disgust, “Standard amount for this arena, how much is that?”
The man scowled and scoffed, “The default amount for this arena is five standard.” He held up a handful of orbs in his hand that Felix could tell were each about a hundred Mana.
Felix instantly created a single orb of an identical amount of Mana to Tarobor’s 5, then nodded, “Shall we?”
Tarobor nodded then opened a hatch on his side of the arena, pushing his standard orbs through. Felix did the same except he opened his hatch with his Matter Control and moved his Mana in a stream.
He mimicked Tarobor as he condensed all his Mana into the circle on his side then Felix nodded, “When do we start.”
Tarobor’s nostrils flared for a moment before the Arena flashed blue and his Mana raced out of his circle. Then, it flashed green and Tarobor released his Mana in shock. His circle was already full.
“Well that was easy.” Felix looked over at Kether, “How do I get registered?”
Tarobor shot to his feet, “The Arena is broken. Something’s gone wrong.”
Felix shrugged, “We can do it again if you want.”
He nodded quickly and Felix reset his Mana then, the Arena flashed blue then almost instantly green again as Felix’s Mana moved from his circle to Tarobors in nearly an instant. It was moving so fast, the hills, mountains and even the fortresses constructed around each circle didn’t even matter.
“I…” Tarobor stared at the arena.
“Again?” Felix asked.
Tarobor nodded again instantly and they reset the arena. This time, it flashed blue and Felix simply waited. As he waited, Tarobor’s Mana streamed out and formed an impressive looking army across the battlefield with armor, weapons, shields and mounts. It rode up through the center of the arena. Felix, didn’t bother with fancy constructs. He could have but there was no reason to.
Instead, his Mana split from his starting point into thousands of needles that bent at ninety degree angles and stretched all the way across the field, piercing each and every one of Tarobor’s constructs before pouring into the circle on the other side.
Tarobor’s army had moved quickly but in comparison, Felix’s needles moved in an instant, like they were lasers.
Kether guffawed and Tarobor stared in disbelief.
“Let’s get you registered.” Kether slapped Felix on the back and led him back up to the main casino floor.
After he opened up an account and deposited nearly all of his ros, Felix’s win was registered and he was given a preliminary skill assessment based on his own fight. After that, he and a much more interested Kether went back down to the Mana War floor where Felix took any fight he could and bet right up to the betting limit, which was just 5,000 once he was registered.
His first 16 matches, including the one against Tarobor, were considered preliminary matches and were used to assess his skill. Felix beat everyone he was put up against relatively easily. Not all of them were as easy as Tarobor. Some of them were nearly as fast as Felix and others, held their Mana around their circle like a wall and Felix simply had to wait them out.
He quickly learned from those to not agree to too much Mana for the fight lest they completely block off their circle and wait.
After his first 16 provisional matches were done, the betting limit was lifted to the house standard of 10 Phenros which was 20 times higher than the betting limit for each of his preliminary matches. With his actual skill level evaluated though, the odds on the bets were so far in his favor, even if he bet at the limit, he made less than he did in all of his provisional matches.
There were opponents who were much stronger in Azura but none of them just hung around in that room all day every day.
It got so bad that people refused to take Felix on at all and so he began taking on multiple opponents, which lasted for exactly one match before no one was willing to bet against him again.
Once they realized there was no more ros to be made, Felix looked over at Kether and sighed, “I take it Duels are just straight up fights?”
He nodded, “Not even worth betting on.”
“Well, I guess I have enough to pay you all back now.”
Kether nodded, “Don’t pay me back yet. Keep it for now, you’ve still got plenty of time.”
Felix nodded, “While I could gamble it or bet it on Spirit Fights, I think I need a more stable income first. Any ideas?”
“Well, you’ve more than enough Mana Control and skill for Ward and Ritual work if you want to do that. It… doesn’t pay very well though.”
Felix nodded, “I take it it’s not a very hard job then, considering everyone in this room is likely more than qualified.”
He nodded in agreement, “Also relatively safe. Could try your hand at ros refinement but it’s tedious, boring and everyone wants to do it meaning…”
“It doesn’t pay well.”
“Exactly.”
“Everyone wants to do it because?”
“Because you get to train your will power all day.”
“Ah. That makes sense. Okay then, what are the highest paying jobs?”
“Spirit Engineering, Medicinal Spirit Alchemy and Dungeon Delving though, that last one isn’t worth it as a full time job.”
“Better off waiting for good dungeons?”
“Yup. Spot on.”
“So Spirit Engineering and Spirit Alchemy, what are those?”
Kether waved Ari down to refill his drink then explained, “Basically, remember I told you about how the big families and clans have machines that make it so they can consume ros faster?”
“Spirit engineering is making those machines.”
“Yes. Spirit Alchemy is making the pills and other consumables that help you consume ros faster.”
“So that must mean the demand for consuming ros is high. Is everyone in the city just consuming ros to get stronger then? Is there a particular goal or is it just for the sake of getting stronger?”
“Yes and no. If you asked most people, they’d probably tell you when they get strong enough they want to move on to the last realm with The Acharaya or fight The Dragon. Realistically though, no one is doing that.”
“So no one moves on to the next realm?”
“Crazy people and those in the main branch of the big families, highest ranking hunters and clan elites. Plus, those lucky few that find something spectacular in one of the dungeons.”
Felix nodded, “So how do I get into Spirit Engineering? Alchemy is less interesting to me.”
“You spend a few hundred epochs getting an education in it first.”
Felix sighed, “Okay… What’s the highest paying job I can do right now.”
“Well… I mean…” Kether took a long sip of his blue drink, “If you’ve got the will…”
Felix nodded which seemed to make Kether just comfortable enough to finish his sentence, “You could sign up to be a Damned with one of the big families. The longer you last, the more you make.”
“What does that mean?”
“Means you test items to see if their cursed.” A familiar male voice explained from over Felix’s shoulder.
Varex sat down at the booth and nodded to Kether.
“That sounds perfect. Where do I sign up for that?”
Kether laughed, “You really shouldn’t be excited about this.”
“If you want to actually make a decent income, you have to be skilled at detecting anything.” Varex explained, “It’s not just about putting it on and seeing if you die.”
“Though…” Kether leaned in, “Depending on what you can survive, you can make a hefty sum doing that too.”
Felix nodded, “I’m not very good at sensing things. Aela’s got me beat by a decent margin, I take it that’s not enough?”
Varex shook his head.
“Well, in that case, how much shit can you take before going down?” Kether smirked.
“That is actually one of my strengths. Especially Spiritually. Where do I sign up?”
“That depends.” Kether squinted, “You sound confident but how confident are you?”
“I’d put my Soul up against anything without much thought.”
Varex nodded, “If you’re that sure, you should sign up with one of the larger companies, but not the largest. Then, make a name for yourself and either accept an offer from the biggest companies or oldest families, or strike it out on your own and take contract work.”
Felix nodded, “I think contract work is more up my alley. Any downside to that?”
“You won’t be trusted enough by specific family or company to test the strongest items.” Varex crossed his arms.
“Unless, you’re so good they have no other choice.” Kether added.
“Alright. Where do I sign up for this? You said a larger company?”
Varex nodded, “There’s always demand because most Damned die. I’ve got a few contacts in Cumulo Tech.”
Felix snorted, “Like the cloud?”
He nodded in agreement at the ridiculousness of the name.
“Speaking of, you want me to pay you back now?” Felix looked at Varex.
He shrugged, “Sure.”
Felix handed him the ros.
“How’d you make so much so fast?”
“Mana War.” Felix answered simply.
Kether went on to tell Varex about the matches and how much they made while they ate. Once they were done, Varex headed off to talk with his contacts and Felix managed to find himself a few Mana Wars though, no one would take his bets on the matches anymore.
He wasn’t willing to try his hand at Spirit Fight just yet because even though he had tendrils he often used outside of his body, he had never even tried to project an entire Avatar and he realized it was a lot harder than it seemed. Even if he wanted to use the tendrils, they didn’t reach far enough. It was going to take him quite a bit of practice just to become proficient with it and even then, he would need a lot more Anima so he could dedicate it to the Avatar. That way he wouldn’t be pulling Anima out of his Soul or Soular System.
He also asked Varex and Kether about how he could find Godovan but neither of them had any idea. Even Aela didn’t have a clue and after asking around, no one seemed to really know how to find him or even places he frequented.
Varex’s contact came through relatively quickly and Felix met with them in one of the tallest buildings on the main cloud, the same one that housed The House of Promises. It was a tall and block like building with just a few small windows on the top floor.
Stepping inside, Felix realized why that was. The building was essentially a series of vaults and since they couldn’t build underground, they were stuck with a building that towered up into the sky.
“Varex tells me yer lookin for a job?”
Felix nodded as he took a seat in the man’s office.
“You know what the work is?”
Felix nodded again.
“Yer okay with the risks?”
“Yup.”
The man nodded then leaned back in his chair, “You gonna try and detect the traps or tough em out?”
“I’m not very talented at detecting anything. I won’t be able to tell you for certain if an item is trapped. What I can do though, is tell you if it will immediately kill you.”
He nodded, “Plenty of work doing that around here.” He leaned forwards on his desk, “Not a big deal if you can’t sniff out the issues. We’ve got others that can do that, if you can screen the items before it reaches them though to make sure they don’t explode or have a Curse embedded within em.”
“What do you do with those items?”
“Dispose of em.”
“Can I have them?”
The man snorted, “That’d be a conflict of interest now, wouldn’t it?”
Felix shrugged, “Yeah but if you’re disposing of them anyways.”
“You got a fair point. Issue is, if you come across something and claim it’ll kill anything around it, we can’t exactly verify that, now can we?”
“You must have some way of verifying that?”
He nodded, “We have multiple Damned look at each item.”
“Ah.” Felix nodded, “If they disagree, you know.”
“We can talk about you getting yer hands on some of them items once you’ve survived at least a few dekads.”
Felix nodded, “Good enough for me. How’s this work?”
“The items are stored in various vaults all throughout the building. You’ll have a record keeper who’ll follow you around and open all the doors. You just gotta head in, try the item out and give yer keeper the scoop.”
“Okay. When can I start?”
The man shook his head, “Gotta test ye first.”
He reached into a desk drawer and handed Felix a ring. He took it and immediately equipped it onto his finger. As soon as he did, his finger turned black followed by his hand. At the same time as it rotted his physical body, it also reached in to his Soul and tried to do the same there but, it didn’t get anywhere on that front.
Felix removed the ring and offered it back to Woodruff, his interviewer. With the ring off, Felix’s body quickly healed, replacing everything that had been ruined.
Woodruff seemed hesitant but nodded, “Yer body ain’t as strong as we’d like.”
“Any chance you could point me to the more Spiritual stuff?”
The man nodded quickly, “Everyone’s got there own specialty. We can do that. It’s not always possible though since you gotta be the first sometimes.”
Felix nodded, “I can manage. I take it my keeper can tell me if I’m the first?”
He nodded, “They can. Can’t tell you much else though.”
“That’s fine.”
“You know. Most people want the opposite. They want the stuff that’ll poison em and fuck up their bodies.”
“So what your saying is I’ll make more ros than they will?”
He laughed, “Yeah, guess that is what I’m saying. S’long as you survive.”
“Sounds good to me. When can I start?”
He stood from his chair with a sigh of effort, “Come on, I’ll take yer to meet yer keeper.”
Felix followed Woodruff through the building to one of the few rooms with a window which seemed to be a break room of some kind. Inside, he introduced Felix to a woman who went by the nickname of Ruks, for some reason she was unwilling to explain.
She seemed a little nervous and a little bored at the same time as they headed to their first vault. There, she opened the first door and Felix stepped inside, then she closed that door and opened the next door, much like an airlock.
Given the security, Felix was expecting to be bombarded as soon as he was inside the room but instead, he felt little to nothing, even when he reached out and looked for it. In the center of the room, was an ancient looking coffin.
Walking over to the coffin, Felix immediately realized why the coffin was there. The coffin itself was completely covered in inscriptions that formed a complex array of Anima Wards. It wasn’t completely new to Felix in terms of the actual patterns but the full system was rather impressive and so Felix spent some time fully inspecting and memorizing it.
Then, when he was done, he finally opened the coffin and found it was completely full of shiny metal and gemstones that felt completely mundane. Just to be sure, he rifled his hand through them but didn’t feel anything.
Once he was done, he closed the coffin and used the activation array on the inside of the room to open the inner door. His keeper then opened the outer and he gave her his report.
She nodded, recorded the information then led him to the next vault.
They continued on like that through hundreds of vaults before Ruks decided she needed a break so, Felix had Woodruff swap her out with a new keeper.
Felix moved from vault to vault with the new keeper, reaching just over a hundred before he dropped dead.
Seeing him on the ground and feeling his Soul completely obliterated, Felix was worried he had missed something at first. When the walls in the hall outside the vault immediately boxed him in with a blaring alarm, he was even more worried.
After a few hours of sorting through the mess, Woodruff concluded that the item in the room, an Amulet, had ignored Felix for some reason and made its way out of the room. Apparently it happened often enough that Woodruff wasn’t worried. He assured Felix that he had done nothing wrong then assigned him a new keeper.
Felix was more bothered by the time that was wasted from the investigation than he was by the keeper’s death. The wasted time was enough of a bother that he was even more careful and he spent at least a minute in the air lock each time, making sure it was cleared out.
That helped tremendously because he managed to make it through swapping out his keeper thrice before another one dropped dead. That one, was because of a poisonous gas though and Felix had warned him about it. He insisted he would be fine because Felix was completely unaffected and opened the door anyways.
Woodruff shook his head at the explanation and sighed, “We get idiots like this a lot more than I’d like. I’ll get’ya another keeper.”
Felix ended up spending a few days examining items in vaults and even then, he’d only visited one twentieth of all the floors in the building.
Then, he finally took a break and headed back to The House of Promises to see if anyone else would take him on in a Mana War. He had made about a Pheros a day on average which, over five days, was only just over half of what he’d made in a few hours of betting on himself in Mana War. It was more than he could make now that the betting odds were so unfavorable but it still felt like a paltry sum.
It felt even worse when he even considered consuming the ros he had earned. If he consumed the entirety of his net worth, it would still be less than a tenth of that first Spirit Anomaly Varex, Aela, Rel and Kether had let him consume.
He knew that was only because Varex had spent half an epoch scouting and mapping them out so it wasn’t like he could just consume those freely.
Either way, he needed a way to make more ros fast, and a lot of it if he was ever going to stand a chance against The Dragon.
He met up with Kether and Varex in The House of Promises, Aela was also there but she was working and wearing a skimpy swimsuit. Rel also joined them briefly but she spent the entire time worrying about Felix.
Varex told Felix that Woodruff was quite happy with him, which was good because Felix wasn’t entirely sure considering how many keepers he’d gotten killed. Felix insisted on paying them all back because he felt like they were already invested enough into helping him and he had gotten most of what he had hoped for out of them. After eating, he failed to find anyone to fight him in a Mana War and so, he headed back to Cumulo Tech and Woodruff assigned him a fresh keeper.
It took a few dekads for Woodruff to gain enough confidence in Felix to start giving him more dangerous items to inspect. With those, he got more competent keepers but they still died almost as often, which Woodruff claimed was a good thing. With the stronger items, even with better keepers, he had expected them die more often, not the same amount.
Felix continued to take on anyone that accepted a Mana War but he wasn’t really getting anywhere and had essentially given up on it, only checking in once a dekad on the busy nights.
Otherwise, he patiently waited for Woodruff to trust him more. Each day, his pay was going up gradually. After 5 dekads of work though, he had still only made around 175 pheros. It was a decent amount but that first larger Anomaly was around 100 pheros.
One day, Woodruff finally called Felix into his office but it wasn’t for the reason he was expecting. Stepping into the office, Felix found not just Woodruff sitting at his desk, but also a tall man in perfect and clean, flowered robes.
[?] Renson Ryko (Lvl ?)
The man looked to be older, middle aged, which was evidently a choice given his overall strength.
Renson bowed as Felix entered the office and Woodruff sighed gesturing towards him, “Felix, this man’s been looking for you.”
Felix nodded and turned to Renson, “Nice to meet you.”
He nodded, “Likewise. I am here to extend to you, a formal invitation.”
Finally.
“An invitation to?”
“The Ryko Itsu House for a match of Mana War with Mist Ryko.”
Oh. Not at all what i was expecting.
“That sounds great. When? Also, I’m new to the city so… where?”
The man smiled, “Of course. If you would like,” He turned to Woodruff who just nodded and waved him off, “We could depart right now. I will guide you there.”
Felix nodded quickly, “Works for me.”
“Excellent.” Renson bowed to Woodruff then led Felix out of the room and building.
Felix followed him all the way across the large white cloud he had spent all of his time so far on and over to a large and angry looking storm cloud with lightning coursing through it constantly.
Walking across the cloud though didn’t seem to bother anyone and standing on it, Felix felt nothing despite being able to feel the lightning with his other senses. It seemed as though the Realm protected them, just like it supported the city for whatever reason.
All the buildings on the storm cloud were shorter with a larger footprint. They also looked more classical and less modern with painted wood beams and sloped roofs. Within some of the buildings, there were even gardens housing some greenery and ponds.
Renson led Felix into one of the buildings and down a series of hallways into a large, nearly empty room, made of wood paneling. The only thing in the room, was a large disc near the center that was four to five times large in diameter than the arenas Felix was used to in The House of Promises.
Felix looked back at Renson and he bowed slightly, “Mist will join us shortly. Please, take a seat.”
He headed over and knelt on the ground at one end of the arena and waited. He only had to wait a few minutes for the same woman he had seen fighting in the Spirit Fight a few days before arrived. She bowed slightly to Renson then to Felix, then walked over to the other end of the disc.
“I am pleased to finally meet you.”
Felix nodded, “Happy to be here.”
She smirked, “I have heard you are quite gifted at this.”
“Yes.” There was no point in being humble, it was the truth.
“The Atman Struggle is an old and underappreciated art.” She lowered herself to her knees at the disc, “It is something few continue to take pride in.”
“I take it you don’t bother with The House of Promises then? You have others you… Struggle against?”
She nodded, “My family is one of the oldest in Azura. Some of us have moved on and embraced modernity. Some of us, have not.”
Mist moved one hundred standard into the disc, ten times more than Felix had ever fought with. Normally, he would never have agreed to a Mana War with that much Mana but, the Arena they were using wasn’t just bigger than those in The House of Promises. It was also vastly more complex and each of them had 28 goal circles to target and protect.
The landscape within the arena was odd too, it was like someone had shattered glass then frozen time a second later. There were floating shards, triangles and two dimensional shapes at every angle. They helped obscure the Mana and made it harder to detect, though not by much at all. The main goal of the landscape seemed to be to give too many sides to block everything.
If it were completely open, he could have just copied where her Mana was exactly. With the disc in the way, she could fake him out and move to a new point of attack with a more direct route than he could.
Whether or not any of that would make a difference though, Felix wasn’t convinced.
Even before they started though, Felix was impressed she had split her Mana 28 ways and put some in each circle. Felix did the same then nodded to her.
She smiled back and a moment later, the disc glowed blue.
Felix immediately shot his Mana out of each of his 28 circles and then further split each of those hundreds of times, weaving them all over the disc. Mist though, wasn’t just idle. Felix’s Mana Control was definitely faster than hers but she was nowhere near as slow as those he had beat in The House of Promises.
She moved all the Mana out of the circles closest to her and used them to bolster the her circles closest to Felix. She formed walls and barriers wherever she could but she didn’t have enough Mana to build anything truly robust. Instead, she made small mobile shields she could deploy and move around freely.
Felix’s beams of Mana twisted their way through the disc, except for a few he had kept around to deal with the sneak attack she was trying to slip through without him noticing. As they did, she moved her shields to block as many as she could but Felix completely surrounded her circles and was attacking from every angle.
Just a few moments from Felix’s victory, she shot the Mana she had been trying to slip by at full force and Felix created a barrier that was so thin, it completely blocked out a fifth of the disc with just a trickle of Mana. She pushed her Mana faster to try and punch through but Felix’s barrier didn’t even flinch. At the same time, his Mana touched one of her circles and the disc glowed green.
“That’s it?” Felix looked over at her.
She nodded, “These discs are much more sensitive. You need very little Mana for a victory.”
Felix nodded in understanding, “That’s why you tried to send so little through, you didn’t need any more and the more you use, the easier it is for me to detect it.”
“It is difficult to manipulate such a small amount.”
“Well, I appreciate the match.” Felix smiled.
“Would you like to go again?”
Felix nodded, “Sure. You’re easily the most interesting opponent I’ve fought.”
She smiled, “You are nice. I am still far below your skill.”
Mist set up her Mana again in the circles, Felix’s was already in place.
“You remind me of my father, playing with complete aggression to dominate your opponent.”
Felix shrugged, “There hasn’t been a point in doing anything complicated yet.”
She giggled and shook her head, “You two are so much alike.”
They fought over a hundred times that first day. They changed the amount of Mana they used, the layout of the arena and the number of circles with each match and every single time, Felix won. Mist was still quite impressive though and judging from the way she spoke about her father, Felix wasn’t sure he could win with certainty against him.
He had briefly brushed against the idea of playing him but she essentially ignored the question and he didn’t bring it up again.
After the first match, she played with almost equal offense and defense which seemed to be her comfort zone. Felix varied his play style to make things interesting, jumping from full offense, to just a trickle of Mana racing through her defenses. Each and every time they played, she got better. All of it was through the strategies she employed though and none of it was enough to overcome Felix’s Mana Control.
Eventually she got tired and rose to her feet. Felix did as well and bid her farewell then Renson escorted him back to the entrance of the building, “If you have the time, you are welcome to return at this same time, one dekad from now.”
Felix nodded, “I’ll be here. Thanks.”
The man bowed again and Felix flew back to Cumulo Tech where he assured Woodruff he wasn’t being poached, at least not yet.
He and Mist continued their dekadly sessions as he worked in Cumulo’s Vaults and had the occasional dinner with Varex, Kether, Aela and sometimes Rel, when she was free.
Nothing really changed in Felix’s day to day. He made little to no ros, though he wasn’t spending any either. His keepers died nearly daily and he won at Mana War against Mist. He no longer bothered with The House of Promises either as no one would play him.
The only downside to that being he couldn’t bet on his matches either. He jokingly mentioned that fact to Mist and she nodded, “I am not willing to bet on my victory. Your time has been quite valuable to me however and you are deserved a reward.”
Felix hesitated a moment, trying to decide what was appropriate to ask for. He avoided asking to play against her father because he suspected he wouldn’t need to ask for that and if he did, it might not go over well. Items didn’t seem appropriate either because he didn’t feel like the reward was big enough that the item would be of any value.
Finally though, something came to mind that he thought was perfect to ask for, “I’d like you to set up a meeting for me.”
She cocked her head slightly, “With whom?”
“Godovan. I’ve had trouble getting in contact with him myself.”
She looked over at Renson for a moment then nodded to Felix, “That is something that can be arranged. In return,” She smirked, “This time, you may only use half of the Mana for our matches today.”
I thought the meeting was in return for all the other matches we’ve already fought.
“Sure.”
She nodded, her smirk still present for all of a few seconds. Then, she started lowering how much Mana he was allowed to use until he was stuck with just a single point. At that point, he was forced to push his Mana Control speed to the limit of what he could achieve and even then, she managed to win a few matches.
Neither he nor she counted those victories but she did take pride in finally having beat him.
He didn’t mind, especially since she was doing him such a huge favor.
It turned out the Ryko family were exactly the right people to ask because Felix had a meeting scheduled with Godovan just over a dekad after mentioning it to Mist.
She set up the meeting in one of the rooms in the Ryko Itsu House where they had been having their dekadly matches. Felix suspected it was so that they could listen in on their conversation but Felix didn’t mind in the slightest. Everything he wanted to talk to Godovan about had to do with the outside world and the realm natives seemed to be completely unaware of it.
On the day of the meeting, Renson led Felix into a room that held two couches and a table between them. On the table, there were a number of drinks ranging from tea to a liquor equivalent and an assortment of snacks. Other than that, the room was entirely empty and rather minimal.
Felix took a seat on the furthest couch and waited patiently.
He had to wait for nearly two hours, Renson assuring Felix, unprompted, that he was confident Godovan was coming, multiple times.
Finally, a man with copper colored irises, dark skin, a neatly trimmed beard and hair tied back into a bun stepped into the room. He looked almost entirely human, except for the horns on his head. He lacked other distinguishing Rhunar features though so Felix assumed he was something else, whatever that may be.
He sauntered into the room and fell back onto the couch opposite Felix sighed for a moment, then reached forwards and began stuffing one of everything into his mouth.
“You’re Godovan?”
“The one and only.” He managed to get out with food stuffed in each cheek.
“I heard you were the last challenger in Azura.”
He nodded, “That’s me.”
“Do you know about The System?”
“Course I do.” He looked taken aback. He took a swig straight from one of the bottles then cocked his head, “Why are you asking bout The System?”
“I want to know what’s changed since you left.”
It took him much longer than it should have to catch on but once he did, Godovan’s eyes went wide, “Wait. Are you a challenger?”
Felix nodded, “Yes.”
He leaned forwards, suddenly engaged in the conversation, “What integration did you leave from?”
“256. You?”
He shook his head and frowned, “Wait… what? I know time’s fucked here, it ain’t that fucked.”
“When did you leave?”
“1420.”
Felix just stared at him for a moment.
“I don’t even think I know a single thing that’s happened before the 500th integration.”
“Well, first there was Rhonan, then Eramith, Dragons appeared, Archons, Dracopurge, System Credits, Telviras, a skipped integration. Do any of those sound familiar?”
Godovan shook his head, “No. I’d never even heard of a thing like a Dragon until it stuck itself in the 2000th.”
Never even heard of Dragons?
“What currency do you use?”
He shrugged, “Whatever the person I’m buying from uses?”
“So not System Credits?”
“No, what’re those?”
He has to be from a different universe, right?
“What about your System? What’s your Race, Class and Profession?”
“My what?”
“You don’t have… Any of those?”
“No.” He shook his head, “I got skills, an inventory, a display and a whole lot of menus.”
“Menus? Like what?”
“Crafting Menus, Quests, Maps, Messages, Parties, Guilds, all kinds of shit. Don’t you?”
“No. Not all those I don’t. What’s your level?”
“6023, why?”
“Okay, at least that’s normal. It’s… high. What level were you when you entered?”
“3824 I think? It’s been a while.”
It has to be another universe… So The Realms are connected to multiple universes and his universe has a System in it too?
“Does yours translate everything for you?”
Godovan nodded, “Yeah but, it didn’t always do that. Once upon a time people had to mime nearly everything because there were way too many languages.”
“Mine’s done it always as far as I know… Last one, have you heard of The Abyss?”
“The what?”
“Nevermind. So, it would seem we come from different universes then.”
“You think? And we both just have Systems?”
“I mean, the concept of a System isn’t so original that this is surprising.”
“I guess…”
Felix scooted forwards a little, “Here, let’s try something. System, show Godovan my Profession Skills.”
Godovan stared at Felix for a moment.
“Anything?”
He shook his head, “Let me try. System, show Felix my Inventory.”
Felix waited a moment but nothing appeared, “I got nothing.”
Godovan leaned back on his couch, “Huh. Guess we are from different universes.” He stared off into the distance, which meant at a blank wall, for a moment before continuing, “So what’s a Class?”
“A set of skills and abilities basically. Class is mostly about combat, Profession is about crafting or some other kind of work. Race is… your race. Then we have General Skills. 5 of each for 15 total Skills. How many do you have?”
“Currently I have… 708? I’ve done a lot of combining since arriving in Azura though. Used to be a lot higher.”
“Holy shit. Do you have a Skill for everything you do?”
“Pretty much. Most of them are just level 1 or 2 though. You know, you work a forge one time and get Blacksmithing Skill level 1.”
“Yeah, definitely not how my System works.”
They spoke a bit more after that but Godovan was clearly less interested once he was convinced Felix was from a different universe and Felix didn’t really have any other questions.
Godovan left first and as soon as he did, Mist entered the room with Renson, “Did the meeting go as you hoped it would?”
Felix shrugged, “Not sure I was hoping for anything. Actually… learning about the past of my universe maybe so, I guess it didn’t.”
She nodded solemnly, “I am sorry to hear that.”
He shrugged, “Thanks for setting it up for me.”
“Of course. I will see you next dekad for our game?”
Felix nodded, “Of course. I look forward to it.”
She smiled and Renson escorted him out of the building.