The way the Staff worked, or the way Felix assumed it worked, was that it would only affect his Spells as much as was needed in the moment. That meant that while Felix could just fly up a few floors and wipe out droves of innocent guards, his Spells would only be minimally upgraded which meant it wouldn’t be a real test of how it would work against The Dragon.
So, he needed to find an opponent that was on a similar level to The Dragon. There was only one being he was aware of that was even remotely close that he had access to, Kerix.
That also meant he could get Kerix’s assessment of his readiness and The Dragon itself, in case he was missing something.
Opening an Aether Tunnel, Felix stepped through into the Ryko family facility where he had previously left Kerix.
Even though it had been nearly an Epoch, Kerix was still there, napping on the couch. Whether or not he had moved at all or had simply been napping the entire time, Felix wasn’t entirely certain.
Felix used his staff to whack Kerix on the head, not nearly hard enough to even hurt.
He jumped up from the couch and rubbed at his head, “Ow.” Kerix looked Felix over then nodded, “You ready to go then?”
“Gotta kill The Dragon first.”
“Ugh. You still on about that?”
“I told you, I’m not moving on until I do. It’s not like I can come back, right?”
“From the next realm? Nah. Acharaya controls everything there, keeps it locked down.”
Felix squinted, “You mean this Acharaya, whoever they are, can let me into previous realms?”
Kerix shrugged, “Probably. Can do all kinds of things.”
“I can’t count on that, they won’t just let me go back if I ask, right?”
“No. Acharaya does whatever’s best for you, regardless of what you want.”
“Okay, sounds like I can’t count on it then. Which brings me back to the reason I came here…”
Kerix sighed, “You want to fight?”
“Yes. I need to make sure I’m ready and test some things. You’re the only real opponent I can think of to do that against.”
“One condition.”
Felix’s eyes widened hopefully as he had expected more resistance, “Yeah?”
“I’ll give you one dekad, ten days of sparring. Then, you have 10 days to fight The Dragon. Assuming you aren’t dead at that point, we’re leaving.”
“So I have 10 days to fight you and if I don’t kill it within the next 20 days, I have to give up?”
“Yup. That or you can figure it out on your own.”
So either I get to spar and test things or… I can take as long as I want.
Do you think if you had waited and been more patient, you could have been more ready before sparring with him?
Maybe but, I don’t want to wait any longer. I want to fight it now.
Then do it.
What?
I mean, take Kerix up on his offer and spar him. Upgrade and practice whatever you need to but, if you want to fight The Dragon soon, you should.
I didn’t expect such a complete turn around on your stance. You don’t care about me killing myself with stupid decisions anymore?
I definitely do and this is definitely stupid but, I don’t think you’re going to outright kill yourself.
You think I have a chance?
No. Grim chuckled, I would bet against you every time.
So you’re just trying to be nicer or something? If this is from some misguided notion to make up for something, I really-
No. I’m not. Your amulet.
OHHH! You’re right, I should be able to get out before it can kill me as long as I’m careful.
Exactly. I think you should optimize and practice so you can get out as quickly as possible but realistically…
This isn’t like I only have one shot. I can keep trying over and over again. Felix nodded as the plan began to materialize in his mind, I really wish we could test whether the amulet would work in the Acharaya’s realms or not. Being able to get to Titan first would make this a lot less risky… I think.
You could try and keep probing Kerix or try to bargain with him on that but… I don’t think that’s going to get you anywhere.
The Residents haven’t found anything have they?
No.
“So about Titan-”
“No.” Kerix said in no uncertain terms, “You don’t know what you’re asking. Trust me, you do not want me to get you there. The Acharaya is waaaayy more qualified.”
“That may be but my reaching Titan… that’s the right terminiology, right? Reaching it?”
He shrugged.
Felix continued, “I’ll be a lot stronger, right?”
Kerix nodded.
“Strong enough to kill The Dragon.”
Kerix squinted for a moment, seemingly evaluating Felix, before shrugging again, “Likely.”
“Okay, so… you don’t want me to die… It wou-”
“No. You got this far so you aren’t actually stupid or suicidal, you aren’t going to just kill yourself.”
Felix sighed, “Fine. I’ll take you up on your offer then. Let’s spar.”
Kerix nodded, “Let’s move down a few realms then.”
“Huh.” Felix shrugged as he followed Kerix to the door, “I didn’t think you cared.”
“Not… I don’t care that much. Enough to spend a couple hours flying though.”
“More than that.”
“Yeah, sure. I’ve been here for like… ever. Your 2 dekads won’t start until we start sparring if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Perfect.”
In reality, it took them just a few hours to get to the 2050th realm, using rifts and Aether Tunnels, which was one of the barren realms. All the realms closer to the 2000th, were barren but kind of gross. The 2050th was relatively normal with forests of long dead trees and mountains.
“I take it you want me in my Spirit Avatar?”
Felix nodded, “I assume that’s the best analog, right? You seemed pretty solid and physical last time so…”
Kerix nodded, “Yup. One of the benefits of Titan. Mind, Body and Spirit, all the same thing.” He said as his body exploded, thick streams of Anima pouring out in every direction. Those streams grew and expanded rapidly into the form of a massive serpentine Dragon. It didn’t take more than a second but Felix was completely focused on him and took in everything.
He didn’t learn anything useful from the transformation because it happened exactly as he expected it to. Anima formed the dragon around, or from, his body. How exactly that was also physical was unclear to Felix because it didn’t seem like his Anima changed, instead it was more like the Anima of his Spirit was fundamentally different from normal Anima.
Once his form had fully shifted, Kerix waited a moment then, flew right at Felix.
Felix had chosen Kerix because he was the only being even close to The Dragon that he could spar with and even then, he didn’t think Kerix was as strong as The Dragon.
When Kerix’s form lunged at him, Felix was at least expecting to be able to react and respond. He was wrong.
Kerix was far faster than he had been when he tore through Azura. Now, Felix realized, he wasn’t holding back.
Felix moved but he literally couldn’t move his body fast enough to leap out of the way. He could use an Instinct Cast Force Burst to move himself but, he just couldn’t move his body in accordance and was essentially stuck treating his body as a ragdoll or a corpse.
At the same time, he cast a shield through the Staff. He didn’t trust the shield to completely stop Kerix which was why he also dodged but he needed to know how effective it would be.
As Felix had expected, the shield he cast was nothing like the shield that appeared before him. It wasn’t a simple barrier of Mana, naively thrown together with a Concept of Durability. Instead, it was structured and formed from interlocking hexagons of Mana while within the Spell, his Concept of Durability was gone and in its place lay a weave of Concepts Felix hadn’t supplied.
Kerix’s Dragon Maw was as wide as most buildings and given how fast it was moving, nearly impossible to avoid. The barrier that the Staff provided though slowed him down just enough that Felix’s body managed to clear the edge of his teeth, before shattering.
His feet still clipped the scales on the side of Kerix’s head though, sending his body careening through the air with an uncontrolled trajectory.
Felix caught his body as soon as he could with his Matter Control and righted himself, before beginning to heal the bruising and fracturing in his legs as Kerix stood off to the side, staring and waiting for him to be ready.
Felix had managed to avoid getting swallowed but, in a real fight, he would have died. Getting launched through the air the way he had and being completely out of control of his body was a death sentence as Kerix, had he wanted to, could have easily spun around and killed him.
Once Felix was ready, Kerix immediately shot towards him once again and Felix, without any better options, tried the exact same thing again, desperately pushing himself to move faster.
He died, theoretically, once again.
As stubborn as Felix was, he wasn’t stupid so, when he failed a second time, he had Kerix wait a moment while he reassessed.
Then, he had Kerix go again.
This time, instead of trying to stop Kerix, he simply tried to shift him to the side and redirect him with a Force Burst.
Once again, the Staff interpreted and translated his Spell, producing something with the same intent but wholly different from what Felix had cast himself. Instead of a massive Force Burst, what came out of the Staff, was subtle, targeted, calculated and refined. It didn’t just push Kerix’s head aside with a blast, it redirected his head and twisted it slightly.
It was just barely enough for Felix to move out of the way and subsequently get slammed into the ground from Kerix flicking his neck outwards a moment later.
He tried again, pushing himself with the Staff which managed to move Felix completely clear of Kerix but also made it nearly impossible for him to control his own trajectory.
Then, Felix tried a barrier of Force, an explosion between them, a cage around himself and everything else he could think of.
What about an elastic barrier? Like something that gives a little before pushing back.
How are you going to create that as a Spell?
Actually, I might not have to. This is the perfect time to test things anyways.
As Kerix shot towards him once again, this time Felix didn’t cast any Spell at all. Instead he pushed his intent into the Staff followed by Mana, in the hopes it would craft a Spell for him.
The Staff proceeded to do absolutely nothing.
He then tried specifying his intent with the most basic possible barrier Spell and also added his intent into the mix, followed by Mana. That did produce a result but the barrier it produced wasn’t any better than Felix could have cast himself, had he used a more complicated Spell.
So my intent is irrelevant but the actual Spell I provide matters. It upgrades whatever Spell I give it so the better the Spell I provide, the better the Spell the Staff casts.
It’s like it’s trying to teach you. Improving your Spells but not doing anything for you. Showing you the next level of progression for your Spell without completely removing you from the equation.
Yeah… that’s exactly what it’s like. In which case…
This time, Kerix shot towards Felix and he cast the most complicated Barrier he could, a layered combination of Force and Mana. The Spell that the Staff cast took that concept, and completely reworked the Spell. Instead of just layering them, it created interlocked nodes that reminded Felix of the enchantment he had inscribed into his robes at Inscripticae.
The Staff was either too fast or not creating a Spell Form at all though so Felix was forced to try and figure out the Spell Form to create the same thing himself.
Moving his consciousness internally, he summoned the relevant Residents and began dissecting the Spell to determine how he could cast it with a form. The Perceptual Time Dilation in his Mental World made it seem like an instant when in reality, it had been anything but that. In the end, they ended up using a Three Dimensional Chaining Fractal Spell Form. It was one Spell that created one shield tile that then chained and cast itself again to create the next node.
The hardest part was specifying when it should stop instead of just chain casting forever in every direction until it ran out of Mana which would result in a misshapen barrier.
The solution, was to provide a framework for the chaining to determine when it should chain and when it should stop chaining which, was possibly the most complicated spell work Felix had ever done. The result, was a Fractal Chaining Spell contained within a Three Dimensional Spell that wrapped and modified the inner Spell. It allowed one Spell to Cast and manipulate the contained Spell in what essentially amounted to a Meta Spell Formation.
Returning his consciousness to his body, Felix indicated to Kerix he was ready then formed and cast the Spell through the Staff. It was a multiple thousand level Spell which, Felix had the focus for, but would have taken much longer had he not created and scrutinized the Form so thoroughly. It was familiar and known to him, even if he had started creating it literal seconds in the past.
So, when the resulting barrier that the Staff cast was so completely foreign to him, he knew he had been right about how the Staff worked.
The barrier that was produced took everything about the barrier he had intended to cast, and improved it. The hexagons were lost and in their place, was a three dimensional shape Felix didn’t recognize that tiled perfectly, without repeating itself, throughout the barrier. It wasn’t just tiles of Mana anymore either, the surface of the tiles were Spells all by themselves.
They looked like each and every one of them were constructed from a Spell Form folded onto itself into a three dimensional shape.
This time, Kerix bounced off the barrier and Felix was completely unharmed.
He recoiled in surprise then indicated Felix should step aside. When he did, Kerix shot himself multiple times faster and shattered the barrier.
He was still holding back… Fuck.
After that, Felix tried a basic Force Barrier which was transformed into a barrier consisting of no Force at all. Instead, it was a reactive barrier that consumed itself when struck to produce a counter Force. Felix dissected and replicated that Spell to the best of his ability then cast it through the Staff producing a Spell shaped like a net that morphed to encompass Kerix’s head and push it aside.
That wasn’t enough either though as Kerix pushed against it more intentionally and the net snapped, as if made of rope.
After that, Felix moved on as even though dissecting and replicating the Spell was possible, he knew it would be easier and he would learn more if he moved on to a different Spell. So this time, he tried to move himself out of the way with an Instinct Cast Force Burst.
Felix examined the actual output of the Spell and found it wasn’t just a burst of force in a direction, it was an explosion of Force followed by a consistent push, both distributed across his body based on mass and designed to keep him mostly upright.
He replicated that fairly easily, showing just how simple his Force Burst had been, and the Staff turned that into something wholly different once again. This time it surrounded him in a Shell of Force that made it so he didn’t even feel the inertia at all. Felix didn’t have any idea how it did that so, he moved on once again.
Once he had gone through all the Spells that were remotely relevant to his situation, he went through them again. This time, upgrading them once more using the Staff as a guide for how he should be upgrading his Spells.
At that point, there was nothing more he could do but, he had successfully survived Kerix’s opening move and, he had options for doing so.
Then, he worked towards having options against Kerix’s second move. Then his third.
Felix made progress exponentially quickly as he didn’t need to upgrade his Spells with every move Kerix made, he just had to upgrade each Spell once. He began to see the holes in his abilities, or rather the Staff began to point out the holes in his Spells. No matter what the Staff pointed out though, Felix realized it would never tell him what the correct solution was, just what the next step of progression was for the exact Spell he used.
Even using ever slightly different Spells, the Staff produced completely different results.
It became even more obvious though when he began to try and hit back. Using a complex barrier Spell to defend himself was one thing but significantly hurting Kerix or even The Dragon, was another. Felix was pretty sure a Spell alone wasn’t going to cut it as they were both ridiculously durable so, unless Felix was going to pump his entire Mana pool into every Spell he cast, he had to find another way.
He was already convinced that that other way was to weave Concepts into his Spells. No matter how complex the Spell Form got though, the Staff refused to fill in the gaps for him. When he threw a Concept into a Spell with his admittedly awful weaving, he ended up with a weave of Concepts barely a step up from what he had put in himself.
When he cast a barrier, the Spell produced was a work of art. A series of three dimensional shapes where the surface, edges and volume within were all individual Spells interacting with each-other. That barrier had just a simple pair of basic Concepts thrown into the mix and barely integrated into the Spell. It was better than Felix had done, but paled in comparison to the Spell Form and output of the Spell that had been cast.
So, even if Felix could cast one of the most impressive looking Fire Balls ever, it didn’t really do much of anything.
He continued to focus entirely on survivability for half a day of their sparring before gesturing for Kerix to take a break. Kerix, shifted back to his humanoid form and laid back on the grass, his hands interlocking behind his head.
“Okay, so. I’m starting to get a hang of surviving, so n-”
“Against me.”
Felix nodded, “Right, yes. You’re the best facsimile of The Dragon I’ve got.”
“Sure but… When that thing first showed up, I tried to fight it… a few times.” Kerix sighed, “It’s probably about… 3 times faster than I am? Just physically. It’s also more than twice as strong and way more durable than I am.”
Felix gaped at him for a moment, “I mean… I fought it… kind of. I mostly just ran away but… 3 times faster? Really?”
Kerix nodded, “At least.”
“When you say way more durable…”
“Like… I couldn’t significantly hurt it in our fights. Nothing more than scratches and bruises.”
“What did you hit it with?”
“Admittedly not that much. I don’t have some super weapon like its stupid breath. I just… you know, bit and wrestled and clawed it.”
“So… You’re saying even if I could hurt you… I would need to be doing a lot of damage to be ready to kill that thing?”
“Yup.”
“Okay. That brings me to what I was hoping to ask anyways.” Felix lifted his hand before him and formed the shape of a simple Fire Ball Spell, “I’ve been trying to weave Concepts and Anima into my Spells for… a while now.”
Kerix looked over and smirked, “Hey, you’re almost as bad as I am at Spirit Weaving.”
“Shit. I was hoping you could teach me.”
“Yeah… I mean, I can tell you what I know, the theory mostly. I was always really bad at this shit so… I kind of just ignored it.”
“Oh… Well shit.”
“You know who’s basically an expert at this shit?”
Felix’s eyes almost brightened but, he caught himself when he realized what Kerix was going to say even before he finished.
“The Acharaya.” He finished predictably.
“Doesn’t really help me right now, does it?”
“Nope but, you could also just forget about that stupid thing and learn whatever you want from them.”
“I can’t. I need to fight it again.”
“Whatever you say kid.”
“So Spirit Weaving?”
“Right. Basically, you weave a Concept or Conviction into a thing.”
“What about a Curse?”
“In some cases you might be able to but most of the time, it’ll just fight you for control the whole time instead of doing anything you want it to.”
“Okay so, how does it work? What do I do?”
Kerix sighed and sat up into a meditative stance, “Alright so, I was taught to…” He squinted for a moment as if he was looking for something then a simple looking sword appeared in his hand, “Right so, basically you just run your Soul through the sword- Spell for you I guess? I was taught with a sword.”
“Same way you would affiinize Asphellum or Star Metal?”
“Yeah, kind of. You’re trying to constantly cycle it in and out of the sword in a loop.”
“Okay but, your Soul and a Concept are very different.”
“Yeah, so the next step, once you can do that well, is to refine your Soul. All that means is you adjust what’s going in to amplify a specific Concept.”
“Why not just take a pure Concept and shove it into the sword?”
“Well, Concepts are not exactly stable. At least, not in a sword. You’d need not only a Sword Concept but the Concept of the specific Sword you were imbuing for it to be truly stable and remotely worth it.”
“So instead we imbue our entire Souls and that’s better?”
“Yes. Way better because your Soul stabilizes the Concept and empowers it.”
“Okay so then what is the ideal? The ultimate goal here?”
“To put your Soul into something and empower a Concept to the point where your Soul is there to support the Concept, not direct it in any way.”
“That doesn’t sound that hard.”
“It’s harder than it seems because the nature of a living Soul is to experience and control. You basically need to go against your Soul’s nature and let the Concept lead.”
“Oh.” I’m not even sure that would be… possible for me. “Is that the only way?”
Kerix shrugged, “No. It’s the only way I know. As I said, this is a question you want to ask the Acharaya, not me.”
“Shit.”
Felix had Nova produce a simple sword in his Soul Space, like the one Kerix had, then began moving his Soul in and out of the sword. That part was relatively easy for Felix.
After that, he began emphasizing a Concept of Sharpness within his Soul as he pushed it through the sword but the results were pretty much what he had expected. The Sword seemed sharper and more dangerous but no more than it would have been had he simply imbued the Concept by itself, directly.
He tried to do as Kerix said, to have his Soul flowing through the weapon to take a backseat to the Concept but no matter what he did, his Soul refused to budge.
He even tried doing the same with a Spell then casting that through the Staff to see if it would provide him with some direction but that didn’t get him anywhere either.
“Is there any chance you know anything about any other techniques for doing this?”
Kerix shook his head, “Nope. I don’t even remember the names of other techniques. I was… not the most attentive student.”
“Student?”
Kerix waved him off, “Not literally just tutors that were hired by my family.”
Okay well… I need some way to at least damage Kerix, let alone The Dragon. Since it doesn’t seem like this is going to work…
“Is it possible for a Spell or Weapon with no Spirit Weaving to even hurt you?”
“Of course. It’s not like I could just fly through a Star.”
Felix sighed, “Right… I was kind of hoping for something a little less expensive than a Star.”
“I don’t know where the line is but yeah. There are definitely Spiritless weapons that can do damage. I do remember they were popular amongst assassins because they’re harder to sense.”
Latching on to that ray of hope, Felix and Kerix began sparring again and this time, Felix kept pushing his Spells with the guidance of his Staff. He wasn’t sure how far they could go because ultimately, how complicated could a Fire Ball get?
The answer was way more complex than Felix had imagined. He went from a simple Spell form disc, that he had initially designed long ago, to something closer to a Pocket Star. That required multiple layers of Spells that were nested within each-other, one on the inside to generate flame and heat and one surrounding that to maintain stability within another, on the outside to control trajectory and launch the thing.
He was ultimately pretty happy with that, considering the massive destruction they caused to the landscape and the complexity of the Spell but, disappointed as soon as he hit Kerix with one.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
Then, things got far more complicated and Felix was no longer capable of designing a Spell Form to replicate the Staff’s effect in a single pass. Instead, he was forced to replicate small parts of it one at a time and slowly progress, approaching his goal.
After a Pocket Star like Fire Ball, there was a fusion based Fire Ball that didn’t rely on his own Mana for energy and instead, fused atoms to create energy, just like a real star. That was exponentially more complicated as he had to contain, time and control the reaction to produce energy at the right time.
Then, the Staff kept going. Instead of just containing and timing the reaction, controlling it to explode in the right place at the right time, it pushed him to directly control the fusion reaction using a Spell Fractal to manipulate things on a much smaller scale.
At that point, the Staff adjusted his Spell in ways he couldn’t even comprehend for the moment so he didn’t bother. Luckily, it wasn’t necessary as at the very least, he was hurting Kerix.
Launching himself to the side, Felix controlled his trajectory and spun the staff around his body, casting two spells at once behind his back. Kerix’s massive Dragon form careened past and a moment later, his tail, just behind his back legs, was hit by a small bead of Fire from an Aether Tunnel that instantly grew to just a few meters across as a ring of Force and Fire shot out of it in every direction.
The ring was absorbed and blocked by Kerix’s body, leaving Felix completely out of reach of the effect but on the other side, the ring shot out into the landscape, scarring the mountain range behind them.
Kerix reverted to his humanoid form and gestured for Felix to stop as he regenerated the blackened scar along his butt and thigh.
“How much damage was that?”
“I don’t know but it fucking hurt.”
“Right. No System. How many more of those before you were dead do you think?”
“Uh…” Kerix poked at the charred flesh, picking away the blackness to reveal new flesh growing beneath, “50 maybe?”
“That is… doable.”
Kerix sighed and shrugged, “If you say so.”
Once he had regenerated, they began sparring once again and Felix began to upgrade each and every one of his offensive Spells one by one. He had started with Fire and upgraded Fire Ball followed by Flame Thrower then even created a few new, more exotic Spells, such as a persistent ball of Fire that spewed out Fire Bolts in every direction for nearly a minute.
After that, he went through his Cold Spells which, went from being one of the least efficient, to one of the most as the Staff guided him through extracting energy from matter and then harnessing it in the Spell. Instead of just freezing an area, the Spell persisted and grew, chaining itself and growing wider and colder over time.
Then, there were his Lightning Spells. From a Lightning Bolt, the Staff taught him to create a highly conductive path through the Aether, instead of the air. That resulted in a weird laser like Lightning Bolt that didn’t deviate at all. Then, it pushed him further, to create a Spell that didn’t carve a path, but found one, making it look like a normal Lightning Bolt once again. He also created variations that connected multiple targets together and persistent spheres that hit everything around them.
He never quite managed to create Chain Lightning though, no matter how much he wanted to. He didn’t spend too much time on that though as he was preparing to fight a single target, not multiple.
The last offensive Spells he upgraded were his Force Spells. Force Bomb, Force Blast and Force Beam were useful but, paled in comparison to Force Blade.
Felix had previously struggled with making Force Blade efficient. Keeping it sharp and maintaining its shape throughout the flight of the Spell was complicated as the sharper it was, the more stable the Spell had to be, exponentially.
The Staff however, kept throwing out Blades that were better in every way from Felix’s own Blade Spells. It took him over a day to finally figure it out but once he did, it was like a dam had broken open in his mind. The Spell wasn’t perfectly stable when cast, it was infinitely chaining itself, taking a Blade and making it sharper and sharper as it traveled.
That opened up new doors to Blade Storms and other persistent Spells.
Finally, with only a couple days of sparring left, Felix began upgrading each and every one of his defensive spells again. They were less exciting than offensive spells but now that Felix was pretty sure he could actually hurt The Dragon, he needed to be able to create openings for himself.
He always had Blink to fall back on but he didn’t want to ever rely on it in any situation and only use it when he absolutely had to.
Then, with just one day of sparring left, Kerix reluctantly agreed to let Felix save their last day of sparring in case he needed a refresher and so, they traveled to the 2001st realm.
Standing before the Iridescent Bubble to The Dragon’s realm, Felix took Nova out of his Soul Space and handed her to Kerix, who agreed to watch over her, then commanded her to stay in that realm. Felix then quickly checked everything, just to be sure.
His Robes were equipped and bound to his Reaper’s Mantle Skill.
[S - Arcane] Aether Woven Asphellum Spirit Robes
[Regenerative][Spirit][Bound]
Robes crafted from an intricate weave of Asphellum, Mana and Anima in equal quantities creating a heavy and highly flexible fabric. The Anima within is bound to The True Wizard which, along with the woven Mana, allows for the weave of the fabric, along with the color and other properties, to be changed and manipulated at will. These robes render the wearer impervious to nearly any attack within the A grade.
He had his Staff in hand and all his upgraded spells memorized.
[?] Staff of Arcane Wisdom
[?]
A Staff crafted from the branch of a tree containing vast wisdom, bound to a living Spell. Spells cast through the Staff will be upgraded. Other properties of the Staff remain unknown.
He had the Amulet equipped and slightly embedded into his chest.
[? - Mythic] Amulet of the Realms
[?]
An amulet of unknown origin bound to the universes themselves. Upon entering a universe, this amulet binds itself to the universe up to 16 times. At any point, one of the 16 bound universes may be selected transporting the physical entity that touched the amulet to the bound universe, at the last location of the amulet within the bound universe.
He even still had the hat that he often forgot about, stuck on his head and providing him no real benefit from existing.
[? - Mythic] Mysterious Hat
[Hat]
The appearance of the hat changes based on the person wearing it.
Weren’t you D grade last time I checked?
Finally, his body and mind were as strong as he could reasonably make them at the moment. The Fractal Mana Form had upgraded his Mind beyond his understanding while the elixir had upgraded his body beyond what he could have done himself. All the ros his Residents had collected along with the Anima he had sucked from his bracer left his Soul as strong as he could currently make it.
Name: Felix Kade (The True Wizard) FREE 0 Innate: Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard) STR 433,500 Class: [C - Ancient] Reaper (Lvl 1,948) DEX 1,915,916 Race: [C - Ancient] Wanderer (Lvl 1,962) AGI 873,059 Profession: [C - Ancient] Lifebinder (Lvl 1,976) PER 1,084,958 Health: 15B / 15B VIT 1,532,893 Mana: 500B / 500B INT 4,483,262 Resistance: 99.985% END 664,373
This whole no leveling in here thing seems ridiculous. Am I going to gain a bunch of levels as soon as I step outside?
The Nucleus answered, Yes and no. You won’t immediately get levels but The System might recognize a bunch of your upgrades. There are restrictions so you can’t gain levels without killing something or in a few other specific situations.
Okay so, as long as I avoid killing anything, I can still head into The Abyss?
We are unsure how The Abyss evaluates entrants but, assuming it somehow knows about levels, yes.
Right. If you had to estimate my level right now, what would it be?
Mid 3000s. I can’t get more accurate than that as level approximation is one of the most complex parts of The System.
Thanks. I guess I’m as ready as I could be in two dekads.
Grim mentally nodded, Even though I recommended it, I’m still a little surprised you took Kerix’s offer honestly.
Limiting myself to just a dekad of this?
Yeah. There’s a lot more you could have done.
Yeah for sure. I don’t want to spend any more time here though. I feel like I’m missing out on so much not visiting The Acharaya and I don’t want to wait any longer. I want to fight this thing and I want to talk to someone who actually knows things. Get real answers.
What happens if you don’t manage to kill this thing in time?
Felix clenched his jaw, If it doesn’t happen… He silently hoped the Amulet would let him return and try again but he knew he couldn’t count on that. He mentally sighed, If it doesn’t happen now, I probably couldn’t have killed it no matter how long I spent here. I’ll just have to hope The Acharaya lets me out or the amulet works.
Then, he reached out and brushed his hand across the Iridescent Bubble, instantly transporting himself into The Dragon’s realm.
As soon as he arrived, Felix was confused. The Iridescent Bubble he had used to leave was located in a canyon and he had been chased by The Dragon right to it. He was still in that canyon and, The Dragon was still right above him, as if barely any time had passed at all.
There was a hole and molten slag surrounding him, as if The Dragon’s breath had just hit the ground around the bubble a few minutes ago. Luckily, Felix was already flying instinctively so he wasn’t falling into the molten slag. Looking around, he realized some time had passed, but not much. The Dragon was still flying overhead and had melted most of the canyon around him, seemingly in a rage that he had barely escaped.
It was still thrashing around and didn’t even notice Felix appear again as its breath carved a whole new canyon into the ground a kilometer in front of him.
There was no good way to measure how long it had been since Felix had left the realm but he guessed it couldn’t have been more than a few hours, a day at most. The black clouds above from the ash and dust The Dragon kicked up made it impossible to tell what time of day it was and everything else was long since dead or destroyed.
Maximizing the opportunity presented to Felix by being unnoticed, he quickly flew up towards the top of the canyon so he wasn’t boxed in.
He didn’t get further than a few meters before The Dragon noticed him though and excitedly breathed a beam of blue and purple death in his direction.
Felix blinked a kilometer straight up as the beam filled the canyon leaving him nowhere to run because he wasn’t willing to test a Shield Spell when failure meant death. The Dragon immediately followed him, its gaze snapping onto his position nearly the instant he arrived.
It ended its breath, leaving a hole beneath the canyon large enough to build a small city within then roared in his direction.
Its roar, especially when angry, was easily strong enough to be considered a Sonic Attack. Felix’s Mana Scales vibrated in tune with the attack, or rather at the same frequency but a half period off, canceling the attack before it even reached his body.
The Dragon flew towards him at a ridiculous speed.
He had trained against Kerix and had been expecting The Dragon to be at least 3 times faster than that but being in front of it, witnessing The Dragon’s maw approaching him, was completely different. It was easily more than 3 times as fast as Kerix was when he wasn’t holding back.
Even from half a kilometer away, Felix barely managed to move his own body out of the way. Not only did he have to avoid its head as he did with Kerix but, with Kerix’s Dragon form, his head was the widest part of him. This Dragon had a massive body behind it along with massive wings it tried to slice through him with.
So, even though he managed to get clear of its head, he had to immediately Blink just to avoid its wingspan as it spun to try and snag him with it.
Appearing in an instant two kilometers off to the side, Felix poured Mana into The Staff of Arcane Wisdom and released a bead of Fire that moved nearly as fast as The Dragon did. It wasn’t just a bead of Fire though, it was a bead of Fire surrounded by a gyroscope of glowing blue arcane lines.
It hit the dragon right on the side of its stomach as it was spinning and exploded into a huge inferno, created a horizontal shock wave that incinerated the air as it snapped over Felix’s head and off into the distance.
The Dragon though, didn’t look harmed at all. Its light brown and yellow scales were slightly blackened but even from 2 kilometers away, Felix could tell that was just from the dirt and grime that had built up on its body. Felix had merely managed to clean it with his Spell.
Okay, no fire. That’s fine, we expected that.
The Dragon spun and snapped its wings back, launching itself through the air towards Felix once again as he fired off a beam of arcane blue lines that struck The Dragon on the side of its mouth and trailed down its body as he dodged to the side.
The impact point of Felix’s Spell hardened and creaked as The Dragon’s flesh began to freeze, the inherent heat of its body being sucked out along the entire line Felix had drawn, empowering the Spell. The line of white and blue along its body began to grow and spread slowly as it turned towards Felix then, it opened its mouth and breathed fire in his direction.
Its breath started as a beam of blue with flecks of purple then it slowly graduated as the flecks of purple grew and engulfed the beam until it was entirely purple with flecks of white.
The Dragon was completely distracted by its breath which barely gave Felix enough time to dodge to the side but as he turned back to hit its side in the same spot and accelerate the freezing, there was nothing there. The Dragon’s breath was hot enough to course through its body and completely overwhelm the Creeping Cold effect of his Spell.
Its head snapped to the side, its breath trailing through the sky towards Felix forcing him to Blink towards the Dragon, a dozen meters behind its head where it couldn’t easily track him.
He prepared a Propulsion Spell for once The Dragon tried to bite him as he cast an Arcane Blade right into the back of its neck. His Spell no longer looked like a thin, barely visible, blade in the air. Instead, Arcane Blade looked like a perpendicular line of arcane blue spellwork that dug into its neck.
As he preemptively pushed himself away from The Dragon, Felix smelled the blood before he saw it begin to leak out between The Dragon’s scales.
Its fire breath was cut short suddenly and it swung its body around its head to retarget the tiny fly of a man that had inexplicably hurt it. Instead of flying right at him, The Dragon flapped its wings twice in quick succession, once behind itself then forwards, creating horizontal burst of air, a shockwave that shot towards Felix.
He was once again forced to Blink as the shockwave that started as a horizontal line spread out into a massive cone that was impossible to dodge. He had debated trying to block it but he still hadn’t found an opportunity to test his Shield Spells against anything so, he couldn’t risk it.
Knowing the Arcane Blade was capable of hurting it though, Felix refocused himself on hitting back.
It breathed fire in his direction again, tracking his flight as Felix flew towards and behind The Dragon, trailing Arcane Blade Globes in his wake as he flew dangerously close to The Dragon.
The Dragon tried to track him with its breath but that became impossible as he got close to it. As soon as the first globe began spewing Arcane Blades into The Dragon’s side, it cut its breath off and snapped at it, crushing the Spell in its teeth. It repeatedly snapped at all the Globes, crushing them before they could leave any more than a few dozen shallow cuts along its body.
Then, it swung its body back the other direction, swinging its tail in Felix’s direction. He shot himself upwards and left a Spell Shield behind. The tail not only shattered the Shield but it was only barely slowed, flicking itself upwards and forcing Felix to Blink once again.
As much as he wanted to keep fighting, he had already Blinked 5 times in the last minute and Felix wasn’t stupid. He touched the Amulet embedded in his chest using his bodily control and reappeared in the 2001st realm, sighing and falling back a few meters from the Iridescent Bubble.
He looked over and saw Kerix laying on the ground and Nova running in circles around the Bubble.
Felix flew over to and reassured his familiar, something he was trying to get better at, then he poked Kerix awake, “How long has it been?”
“A few minutes maybe?” Kerix responded without opening his eyes or moving.
“Really? In that realm, it was like only a few hours had past since I ran away from it… epochs ago.”
He shrugged, “I take it you didn’t kill it?”
Felix grumbled his response then began flying around the realm in circles as he mentally ran through his Spells, trying to find any upgrade he could while he waited for his atoms to fully reattach to reality. He and his Residents had theorized that moving around might help and it cost him nothing to do so. He was willing to do almost anything to shorten the nearly hour of wait it took as well.
It was also probably more efficient to return after just 3 or 4 Blinks as each one increased the time it took his atoms to reattach exponentially.
His first attempt though, he had to see how close he could get.
After reviewing all his Spells, Felix also spent some time simulating the battle in his Soul Garden, slowing himself so his projection of The Dragon was appropriately fast.
Then, after an hour of time in the 2001st realm, he shot back towards the Iridescent Bubble and into the 2000th realm.
He could have used The Amulet of the Realms but it would have brought him back to the point he left from which meant, The Dragon was probably still right there. If it was, he would have to immediately Blink, wasting his most valuable resource in the fights.
Flying up and out of the canyon, and now massive cave beneath it, Felix found The Dragon circling around in the sky near where he had left from. As he approached, he annoyingly realized it had completely healed itself.
One part of him was happy he wasn’t going to slowly whittle it down by jumping between the realms. To win, he would have to fight it start to finish.
Another part of him was a bit annoyed as he was much less likely to be able to kill it if he had to kill it in one fight.
Flying up towards it, Felix began setting up Arcane Blade Globes hundreds of meters apart in the hopes he could lead The Dragon into them but before he had even finished casting the first one, it began diving towards him.
Felix had more than enough time to fly off to the side and avoid it as he shot a series of Arcane Blades into The Dragon following him.
It was so much faster than him though that it forced him to Blink eventually.
He moved himself as far as he could while staying in range and continued showering Arcane Blades behind him while flying off to the side so The Dragon couldn’t build up too much speed in a straight line.
Blinking again, Felix cast a massive sphere in the sky using an enormous 10 billion Mana, a sphere of Ice and Wind and Lighting. A vastly stronger blizzard Spell he had dubbed Thundersnow Hurricane, after the real things.
It wasn’t meant to obscure Felix as he knew The Dragon could somehow sense him, instead it was meant to slow it down.
Felix felt it fly into the storm and the Thundersnow Hurricane latched onto it as it flew, the outside of the storm being ripped away by the incredible speeds. He used that time to lay a minefield of Arcane Blade Globes behind himself before Blinking back behind The Dragon just as it reached him and the Thundersnow Hurricane had completely fallen apart.
Now visible, Felix saw its body covered in ice and snow as Arcane Blades showered it from every direction.
The Dragon, as much as it was a beast with a bestial intelligence and nature, it wasn’t stupid. Opening its mouth it roared for a moment before releasing its fire breath into one of the Arcane Blade Globes. It then spun around rapidly, destroying each and every one of them before swinging its head back in Felix’s direction where, he had left behind a sequence of 5 Spell Shields before launching himself towards The Dragon.
It tracked him with its breath which, shattered each and every one of the Spell Shields before shooting off into the sky above.
Got it. No defending against the breath. Dodge only.
The Dragon cut its breath and spun to the side, using its wings to knock Felix off course and cause minor damage before flipping its body over its head and resuming its breath.
Felix immediately Blinked behind it then activated his Amulet as he had Blinked 4 times, returning to the 2001st realm where, nothing had notably changed.
He pet and reassured Nova once again before running through the battle simulation in his head while he waited just a half hour for his atoms to fully reattach to reality.
As he fought The Dragon in his mind, he compared the first fight to the second and realized they were different. The Dragon in the second fight had used its wings to throw Felix off course before flipping around as he flew by its body. In the first fight, Felix had simply flown by its body unimpeded and hit it multiple times.
It’s learning.
Felix had silently held out hope that when he returned, The Dragon would retain some of its injuries but, even having been gone for half the time, it appeared to be completely healed.
Felix dodged past the Dragon’s breath with a Blink and cast another massive Thundersnow Hurricane between them. He began to setup a wholly different trap he had thought of but didn’t manage to cast a single Spell before The Dragon roared.
As it did, the Thundersnow Hurricane was disrupted, though it wasn’t dispersed until, it flapped its wings and accelerated through it. The sheer force of The Dragon’s massive body tearing through the air was enough to get rid of the rest of it, forcing Felix to cut his plans short.
Felix fought it nearly a hundred times before it taught itself to keep its mouth closed as it breathed fire for a moment, creating a massive explosion around itself when it finally released the pressure. That destroyed all of Felix’s Arcane Blades and the Globes spawning them in an instant.
He fought it another couple hundred times, and it learned to swallow rocks between their fights, creating a storm of meteorites whenever it wanted to.
Felix didn’t even bother with his last day of sparring with Kerix as using his Mental World and Soul Garden to simulate the battle seemed more effective.
Given he had just 10 days to fight it, 11 considering the sparring he was giving up, and the fact that he had to wait a half hour between each fight, Felix knew he had just over 500 tries, given the fights themselves took 2 minutes at most. Often, he had to leave just a few seconds in.
As time went on, as he fought it again and again, he lasted longer and longer though never more than 2 minutes.
He learned The Dragon’s habits and it never strategized enough to feint or change its behavior but, it learned. It taught itself new tricks and abilities making it harder and harder for Felix to dodge everything, let alone hit it. He learned what he needed to dodge and what he didn’t. Although, it was slow as every time he put his Spell Shields to the test, he was risking his own life.
The end of the timeline he had agreed to approached as Felix headed back in for his 503rd try.
He used the Amulet of the Realms to appear where he had left and immediately dropped an Spell he had already begun casting before he activated the amulet, in the shape of beam, rivaling The Dragon’s breath in girth.
The Spell enveloped the core of The Dragon’s body, only its wings and legs sticking outwards and as soon as it did, the Spell latched onto its flesh and crystallized it in white and azure, forming a massive glacier around it.
The Dragon’s body began careening downwards into the ground as Felix used an Aether Tunnel, also prepared before he activated the Amulet, to move himself beneath it. The massive falling glacier began to glow red, then orange, then yellow as Felix gripped the Staff of Arcane Wisdom before him, spell spheres appearing around him in a spiral.
He then dropped himself a hundred meters with a Propulsion Spell where concentric rings of different spell spheres appeared, each one a few meters before the last, forming a cup facing upwards.
The winged glacier finally glowed a blinding white before exploding into a thousand shards and a ball of mist containing The Dragon.
Surrounding himself in a series of Spell Shields, Felix flew down and away, making sure the Dragon would keep heading downwards if it wanted to follow him.
The first spiral of spell spheres was perfectly placed so The Dragon didn’t have a choice but to get entangled in the Spell Net that sprung out of the spheres. Thin cylindrical tubes of spell work connected the spheres together and completely encompassed the sphere of mist as soon as it appeared.
The Dragon spun and slammed its wings outwards, dispersing the mist and sending icicles shooting out in every direction, smashing against the Spell Shield surrounding Felix.
The Spell Net squeezed down on The Dragon as its weight pulled it downwards, into the concentric ring cup of spell spheres. As it fell into them, each sphere formed an Arcane Blade connected to the next. The entire circular Arcane Blade, once formed spun around before collapsing inwards into The Dragon.
The rings sawed into The Dragon’s flesh as it struggled against the Spell Net.
Then, it pulled its wings inwards to surround its body and curled up into a ball, not in defense though. Felix knew it well enough to know what was coming and to fly as far away as he could.
The ball that was The Dragon quickly expanded as it took a quick breath then began glowing a bright white.
A moment later, a sphere of flame exploded out of The Dragon, obliterating Felix’s spells and shooting outwards at impossible speeds.
Felix, despite being over a hundred kilometers away, turned to face the oncoming wall of flame as it approached him then Blinked towards it, past it. Inside, the air was superheated but his Mana Scales bristled as they absorbed the excess energy in the air and protected him from the heat.
The ground beneath them though, was gone. The sea of magma that had developed over the course of their fights was split, revealing more stone multiple kilometers below the previous surface. That too melted and was blown away as the effects of The Dragon’s ridiculous ability actively terraformed the planet beneath them.
As soon as Felix appeared, The Dragon shot itself towards him, only flying a tiny distance to build speed before launching another explosion of meteorites from the stone it had swallowed before their fight.
Initially, the meteorites were more like a spray of magma as its breath melted them instantly. Over time, The Dragon had learned to preserve the stone or somehow found more resilient stone as now, they were actual stones covered in flame and magma giving them far more penetrative power against Felix’s Shields.
He was forced to Blink behind The Dragon to avoid them and it knew that, flipping its body over its head and launching itself towards him in an instant.
Holding his Staff before him, it began to glow blue as the arcane lines peeking through its surface multiplied and grew. Finally, they shot out of the Staff and formed a massive lance of arcane lines that shot forward to meet The Dragon as Felix flew off to the side and towards The Dragon at a diagonal.
The Dragon used its wings flapping in opposite directions to quickly spin as the lance exploded, the first stage at the back propelling the rest of it forwards and slightly redirecting it to follow The Dragon.
The Dragon flapped its wings towards the lance and pushed itself back and towards Felix, reaching out and snapping at him, crushing him in its teeth. Felix, on the other side of The Dragon, smiled as he finally managed to fool The Dragon with one of his illusions by adding a huge amount of Anima to it.
He couldn’t do that more than once as he didn’t have time to prepare any more Illusory Souls but, he was happy with how he had used it.
The lance still followed The Dragon, another two phases having been activated to redirect it before the lance split into 6 separate lances that all spiraled towards The Dragon, redirecting themselves one final time to each target a different soft spot.
The Arcane Lances dug into The Dragon’s body at 6 different places, 2 in its wing joint, one in its arm pit, two in its neck and one in its eye. Then, they all exploded into a shower of Arcane Blades within its body.
The Dragon roared out in pain.
That roar turned into fire breath that poured out of every hole Felix had just drilled in its body, engulfing itself in flame as it tracked Felix’s flight with its breath.
He flew as fast as he could and prepared a Spell before finally Blinking at the last minute below The Dragon, swinging his Staff of Arcane Wisdom over his head with two hands, releasing an Arcane Blade from the end of it.
The Blade shot upwards as Felix flew downwards to avoid the ball of flame that was building up around The Dragon.
It wasn’t enough though as it flapped its wings and launched the flame in every direction. Felix surrounded himself in a sequence of Spell Shields but as soon as the first shattered, he activated The Amulet instead of a Blink, due to the time the rest of the Shields bought him.
He had only used three Blinks so he only needed to wait 9 minutes to be completely sure, as The Amulet didn’t seem to affect how detached his atoms were, before heading back in. Even then though, he already knew The Dragon would be completely healed because he had seen it use flames to heal itself before.
“How close were you this time?”
“Closer.” Felix snapped back at Kerix.
Kerix sighed, “By my estimation you’ve go-”
“Less than an hour left. I know.”
“He was closer this time.” Grim said from his massive armored form, sitting on the throne like chair built especially for him.
“I feel he closer on 405.” Arysha responded from her lounge chair on the sandy beach.
“Definitely.” Another Resident nodded from his hammock stretched across two of the trees.
Kerix finally sighed, “If I thought you could do it in the next day or so, I’d wait and let you keep going…”
Felix growled as he flew in circled through the completely reformed 2001st realm.
His Residents had slowly begun to migrate from the Rokrunor facility, to the 2001st realm. Not all of them, but many of them wanted to wait and watch. As such, the desolate and barren realm was slowly replaced, in large part by Nova, to accommodate everyone.
Instead of a hard and unforgiving ground, they had replaced it with a white cobble stone separating parks and beaches and patches of snow. Instead of a permanent fog above, The Residents had come up with and cast a ritual all on their own to shape and influence the weather in the area.
From his nest of pillows beneath one of the larger trees they had relocated into the realm, Kerix shook his head, “Sorry kid.”
Felix didn’t respond as he was already lost in his own mind, fighting a simulation of The Dragon.
Then, he jumped back in.
Just under a minute later, he popped back out in front of the bubble and Grim nodded again, “Even closer this time.”
“By closer you mean…” Kerix asked.
“He got maybe 10% of its health this time.”
Kerix hummed in acknowledgment as Felix flew around in circles.
A half hour later, he went back in.
Then, almost 2 whole minutes passed before he reappeared.
“Not quite as close that time.”
Kerix looked over at Grim who’s head fell to the side a little, “He didn’t even draw blood this time.”
“So what, one more try?” Kerix said solemnly, like he wanted to let Felix keep going but couldn’t.
“Only if I have to wait this long between them.” Felix snapped back before immediately diving back into the realm.
Kerix looked worriedly at Grim who just shook his head, “He’s only Blinking once or twice at most to maximize how many more tries he has. It’s leaving him with less openings though so he’s barely hitting it back.”
The Titan sighed as he stood up and approached the bubble where Felix would appear any moment. When he did, Kerix began, “Felix. Come on.”
His jaw clenched, Felix slapped the Iridescent Bubble and disappeared for all of a few seconds.
“You got closer than anyone to killing-”
Felix disappeared again, this time using the Amulet. He reappeared about 20 seconds later.
“-that thing since it appeared.”
He vanished again. Kerix knew he wasn’t over the time limit but he was minutes from it. Realistically he could keep going another dozen times or so before running out of time but given how quickly he was backing out, there was no chance he was going to be able to kill it in time, even if he managed to accumulate damage between fights.
Kerix waited a couple minutes then reached his hand out, laying it on Felix’s shoulder just as he appeared.
Felix looked at him angrily, jaw clenched as if he were going to go back in again then he sighed, all the tension releasing from his face.
Leaping upwards with his own legs, Felix shot up into the air, leaving the Staff floating on the ground in front of Kerix. Grim, The Residents and Kerix all looked up and watched as Felix’s body pierced a cloud with enough speed to disperse it, before he roared outwards.
Having gotten so familiar with Spells and moving everything he could to an Instinct Cast, Felix often cast Spells without even necessarily thinking about it consciously. As he roared, screaming in anger and defeat, Mana poured into a Spell empowering his roar and causing his voice to echo outwards.
At the same time, in his anger, a burst of Force that looked like a shockwave from an explosion appeared, completely clearing the clouds in the weather ritual’s influence. The shockwave, along with the roar, shook Kerix’s and all the Resident’s bodies then it kept going, clearing the fog in every direction for hundreds of kilometers.
Blinking back to the ground and grabbing his Staff, Felix didn’t even notice the trees he had snapped, the cobblestone he had cracked or the people he had knocked over. He just activated the furthest realm on his Amulet of the Realms, vanishing.
A few moments passed as everyone in the 2001st began getting to their feet and cleaning up before Felix reappeared for just an instant before leaving again. No one was surprised, everyone knew he was reordering his Amulet to keep the 2001st within the most recent 16. Once he had traveled 15 realms, he would appear again, reordering the 2001st realm to be the second rune, then he would keep going.
It only took a few minutes for The Residents, along with Kerix and Nova, to move themselves into a combination of Felix’s Pocket Home, the Sphinx’s Vault and the Soul Vault.
Once they had, the next time Felix appeared, he shut and collected all of them before activating his Amulet and returning to the 2498th realm in the Rokrunor facility. There, he opened just his Pocket Home, letting Grim, Nova and Kerix out. Everyone else remained inside so they didn’t slow him down.
They had appeared on the floor his Residents had used previously and Felix’s three companions waited on the floor, surrounding the large hole in the middle, as he flew down towards The Oblivion Orb.
Angrily and without caution, Felix’s arm shot out as if he were punching the orb, grabbing it with an open hand, unharmed, before shoving it in his Soul Space.
Then, he opened an Aether Tunnel and stepped through, his three companions jumping down and following behind him.
“Where is it?” Felix asked without turning.
Kerix already knew the question was directed at him, “Middle of Azura. Straight up.”
Felix stepped forwards, walking past the line leading into the Iridescent Bubble and right to the front. There, instead of people walking freely in and out of the 2499th, Felix saw a group of four guards.
“Halt.” One of them held up their hand to stop Felix as the others turned and craned their necks to see what was happening.
Felix didn’t stop.
“Azura is now under the control of Mortalbane. Even if you lived there previously, all-”
Felix didn’t even hear the man. Whatever he was saying didn’t matter. He kept moving.
Then, all the guards and everyone near the front of the line were suddenly sent flying outwards as a tunnel of spell work connected Felix to the Iridescent Bubble.
He and his companions stepped through to the next realm as the guards and some of those waiting in line slammed down on and tried to break through the tunnel to no avail.
On the other side, Azura was recognizable but completely different. There were no more crowds wandering the streets and pouring in and out of the bubble they had past through. Many of the buildings were still damaged, some of them a pile of rubble, others missing just corners or sporting holes in their walls.
Felix didn’t register any of it as he flew through the streets in, nearly, a perfectly straight line towards the center of the city.
He didn’t make it all the way though as when he past by The House of Promises, someone recognized him.
“Felix?” He heard a feminine voice call out from the top of the pyramid where there was a Spirit Fight happening.
He looked over mostly in surprise at recognizing the voice as Rel flew over, with a series of explosions, towards him.
Felix slowed and created a Disc of Force beneath him and his companions, marked by arcane lines and spell work. She landed on the edge of it and stepped towards him, “Where have you been?”
“Out.” He responded coldly, still annoyed from having failed to kill The Dragon within his timeline.
Rel frowned and looked at Grim then Kerix, taking a step back when she saw him, “You- you’re with Kerix?”
“He was teaching me some things.”
She nodded slowly, her gaze falling thoughtfully downwards, “Well, now that you’re here… With Kerix even…” She lifted her head quickly and spoke fast and excitedly, “Look, I know all this was probably your fault- I mean, I don’t blame you- we- me and Aela and Kether get this wasn’t planned but Varex… Just that if the heists hadn’t… If we hadn’t…”
Rel shook her head and took another step forwards, “But now, we could take back the city. We can stop Mortalbane and Ano from doing whatever they want.” She spoke quickly and excitedly, “We’ll need to find people to help but I know the Ryko family was left untouched and I know ther-”
“No.” Felix said before turning back towards the center of the city.
Rel’s face, hopeful and excited, fell as any vestiges of faith she had in Felix were shattered, “This wasn’t just a terrible accident, was it? Varex is right, you could have stopped all this. Maybe you even did it all on purpose? Knowingly? You just don’t care.”
She looked over at Kerix, hesitant for a moment to continue but then quickly found her resolve, “You weren’t out their learning and training so you could come back and help, you don’t care about any of us-” She gestured around her. “Any of this.”
“I know you’re a challenger and all that but do you care about anyone or do you just do whatever you want, wherever you go, destroying everything you touch?” She finished.
Felix sighed and deactivated the Force Disc they were standing on causing Rel to fall as the rest of them followed Felix towards the center of the city.
“I hope you’re happy when you finally get rid of everyone that’s ever cared about you!” Rel yelled out as she caught herself and flew back towards the House of Promises.
Too harsh? Felix asked Grim, keeping true to their agreement.
Yes but, there’s nothing we can do here now. Or… it’s not worth it. We’ll just do things differently in the future.
The way the Realms were trying to teach me to?
Yeah.
Felix hummed in acknowledgement then flew right into the Iridescent Bubble above the city, without a moment’s hesitation.