Back in Ked’s lab, Felix ignored Ked, Art, Eni and Rewdan who were still in the early stages of assembling the Soul Forge and instead made his way to Fin, who was waiting for him.

As he approached, Fin nodded, “Ready for our mentorship?”

“I am. I was hoping we could focus today on figuring out a more efficient way for me to regenerate my Mana.”

“Isn’t that the whole point of the Mana Accelerator?”

“It is. Unless you happen to be a lot further along than I thought, that isn’t going to help me anytime soon.”

Fin nodded in understanding, “In that case, as we’ve discussed, the only real viable option is having multiple Mana collection rituals, enchantments or otherwise.”

“Is there a better solution to keeping myself mobile other than simply setting it up and letting it run when I need Mana?”

He shrugged, “Not really. Not at the levels of regeneration you’d be looking for.”

Felix grumbled a little even though he had been expecting that to be the case, “In that case, I was wondering… would it be possible to push my collection devices into the Aether directly?”

Fin immediately shook his head, “No. Nothing more than temporarily. You’ve been traveling through the Aether recently, have you not?”

He nodded.

“You haven’t tried to stay there though, have you?”

“No. Haven’t had any reason to try I guess.”

“Good. I’m surprised this wasn’t explained to you by whoever taught you to travel in this way. If you wanted to step into the Ambient Anima, what would the risks be?”

“Losing myself in time and space. You need a tether or an anchor point to let you return to the right… spot.”

Fin nodded, “Right. The Aether is the same in that sense, however… there’s another risk to consider. Traveling into the Ambient Anima is not a huge risk because a realm entirely of Anima is ordered. It is made of memories and experiences. It enjoys structure and so it actively attempts to keep things whole.”

Felix winced as he saw where Fin was going.

“Aether on the other hand, is the opposite. It is chaos incarnate. Traveling into the Aether for any extended period of time is… Imagine The Aether itself is a fast acting universal solvent. Spending any significant time there, will dissolve anything ans break it down completely, into Mana.”

“In that case…” Felix cocked his head, “Couldn’t you use that attribute for fission?”

“How would you possibly collect the resultant Mana. You’d have to travel hundreds of kilometers into The Aether-not that space is a meaningful form of measurement but… far. Far enough that you can’t simply hold some rock in The Aether at the edge of your absurd Mana Control range, even if we multiplied it a hundred fold. Using any physical tether would dissolve as well. Even Anima and Soulful materials are prone to disintegrating.”

“So even if I manged to create some super material with a very strong Soul, it would essentially need to be so far away from me that I couldn’t tether to it. What about connecting to it spatially?”

He shrugged, “With your Mana Control, who knows. Theoretically though, The Aether can break down Matter into Mana… just imagine what it would do to a spell or ritual as sensitive as a spatial one.”

“I… Yeah… So I would literally need to get to the point where my Mana Control was strong enough to rip the constituent Mana out of Matter itself before I could consider that?”

“More or less. You could simply not go very far into the Aether, remain close to the Material… plane. The issue is that you wouldn’t be restoring your Mana significantly faster than simply remaining here. So, what would be the point?”

Felix half sighed half groaned, “So basically, I make a whole bunch of collection constructs, send them out then have them return to me to drain them at some point…”

He shrugged, “Yeah. That’s the best I can do for you right now. Hopefully the Mana Accelerator lets us figure out a way to fix that though.”

“Yeah. How are things coming along by the way, I haven’t heard from or seen you in a while and last I heard, you were looking for enough land.”

Fin smiled, “Would you like to see?”

“Sure.”

Fin nodded then walked forwards, on the air so his height matched Felix’s, then turned and somehow opened a portal directly in front of him without making any move whatsoever to do so. Felix noted it was a TFP portal though and stepped through to follow his professor and mentor.

On the other side, Felix had been expecting to see some kind of large barren planet. Instead, he saw a large planet that had once been barren. To call it barren any longer would be incorrect as tens of thousands of people had built up a semi-permanent camp of solid framed tents. Most of them were big enough to be comfortable homes but one of them in the middle was big enough to house all of the buildings Felix had ever seen on Eramith-except for the arena-multiple times over.

Mouth slightly agape, Felix followed Fin into the camp, past a number of workers, then into the massive center tent. Inside, there was a massive metal box with two open sides, a large square pipe that was ever slightly curved along one side. A small section of what would one day become a massive circle.

Felix stared up at it as the workers spent the two of them no mind, “How… Who are all these people?”

“Workers I hired.”

“How much do they know about what we’re trying to do?”

“Little to nothing and they’re all bound by System contracts anyways.”

He nodded in satisfaction, “This is way more than I was expecting.”

“We’re still ramping up production but our initial timeline says that we’ll be finished before the end of the epoch.”

“Really? That’s…” Felix frowned, “How much is all of this going to cost?”

Fin waved him off, “Don’t worry about that. My research budget more than covers it.”

Either his research budget is massive or… maybe all professors at Eramith have huge budgets? I expected us to need to find sponsors or something.

“I guess I’ll leave this to you then.”

Fin nodded, “Unless there’s anything else, I believe we were going to focus on your Mana Regeneration for today.”

Felix nodded, “Sure. So, I told you about the Mana Engine I had created some time ago, I’m thinking I make a bunch more of those then embed them into some constructs.”

“Would you be willing to show me this design?”

Felix offered his hand to Fin then pulled him into his Soul Garden where he constructed a blown up representation of the Mana Engine in front of him.

They spent hours and hours of Soul Garden time analyzing, simulating and iterating on Felix’s original Mana Engine design until it was completely unrecognizable from where he had started. Much of that change had to do with his understanding that Mana did not necessarily abide by the laws of space as it was not Matter or Energy at all, something he hadn’t known the last time.

By the end of it, once they were both satisfied with what they ended up with, the both of them decided they were done for the day, despite it only having been less than an hour of real world time. At that point, Felix left the planet, after making sure to record its teleportation coordinates just in case, and began constructing the Mana Engine in his dorm room.

As much as he would never really be alone with all his Residents in his head and Grim’s body in his Soul Space, he wanted to minimize distractions as much as possible. After that, he began putting together simple construct bodies who’s sole purpose was to contain the Mana Engines and generate Mana for him.

After that, he manually constructed relay nodes for Mark. In reality what that amounted to was a perfect copy of Mark that was connected to Mark with a much stronger connection than the Residents had to their puppets.

Felix connected the two through the Anima as strongly as he could. He also used a variant of the same machine he had used to expand Mark’s capabilities in Edras’ recruitment to essentially entangle the two together. Finally, he constructed the most complex designs he and his Mind Residents had ever created which used Spatially Attuned Mana to transmit a signal from one space to another.

It was complex not just in that it was sending a signal across space but in the fact that it was essentially intrinsically connecting two computers, across spaces, effectively making them one whole. Theoretically, the two didn’t have to be in the same universe for it to work. Testing that was nearly impossible without Felix leaving the universe and he would go into The Abyss soon enough but for the time being, he relied on his Soul Space, Kryptos Repository and Pocket Home in which he purposefully tried to block the signal.

Once the complicated part of the process was complete, Felix created a simple body to house the new extension of Mark along with a pool of Anima. His goal was that he could move the Resident’s bodies temporarily into the pool of Anima and have them run off of the Mark clone if he were to have overlooked something or if The Realms of Annihilation blocked the signal more thoroughly.

For the time being, he copied the Souls and Minds of the Residents in puppets as accurately as he could and placed them into the pool in a dormant state. From then on, Mark would make sure the Residents in both the pool and within Felix were synced as accurately as possible then if the connection broke, they would put the ones inside Felix to sleep temporarily.

With all of that complete, Felix opened his Pocket Home and completely filled his Mana Pool from the old Mana Engine inside before replacing it with one of his new and improved ones. The best part of doing so in Felix’s eyes, was how much smaller the new one was while also being more efficient.

As soon as it was running though, he noticed the Aether density in his Pocket Home drop dramatically as the new engine was more efficient at draining it and keeping it drained. It wasn’t a huge deal for him at the moment because he was funneling most of the Mana back into the rainbow ocean, much of which was then sucked up into the tree.

Looking at it, Felix was a little disappointed that the tree was still rather small and young looking. It was a tree but its trunk was small, its bark was soft if he avoided the crystals and it wasn’t particularly bushy. Despite that, it had already consumed tens of millions of Mana every day it had been in his Pocket Home.

He still held out hope that it would produce full, usable crystals one day or have another grand purpose but for the time being, he was at least satisfied with the tiny crystal shards that amounted to little more than sand, even if he had to manually process it.

There was nothing left for him to do there so he left his Pocket Home and Aether Tunneled back to the arena, completely ignored the fight within and flew straight through the entrance to The Abyss. He didn’t need to head into the Record Room at all because he already had a Resident in there just over an hour ago and he had them take a look at all the rooms, not the just ones they were up against themselves.

The first thing he did was test the relay connection and was happy to find it worked as well as he could have hoped. After that, he looked around at his surroundings and got to work.

Adaline had made it through 45 floors and was still pushing which put them just 18 floors behind Zeraxes and 19 behind Romar, from the last time Felix had checked. She had managed to catch up to them somewhat but much of that was due to them knowing the floors from watching Zeraxes, Romar and Il Doras. While Adaline had remained in The Abyss the entire time, Felix had been relaying information to Nova who was helping where she could, whether or not Adaline noticed. It wasn’t much but finding a key within an enemy and showing that to her, at least pointed her in the right direction.

Even with her ability to scan a large part of the floors, the mechanisms for opening doors were getting more complex, almost as if The Abyss itself was pushing back against her ability. Sometimes the switches were disguised, sometimes they were puzzles and worst of all for Adaline, was when the keys were inside of enemies.

As expansive and wide reaching as her scanning ability was, from what Felix had seen through the excited experiences Nova sent him and the screens in the arena, her attacks were not. She seemed to have mostly moved to some kind of spatial based attacks and although Felix didn’t understood exactly how her attacks worked, he at least understood how expensive it would have to be.

That fact seemed to be supported by her almost entirely relying on laser beam like attacks with only the occasional, small explosion here and there. The only time he had seen a larger spatial based attack was when he had supplied billions of Mana to kill the Giant.

When she had to kill millions of enemies to find the keys within them, her precise attacks struggled, no matter how many of them she managed to line up. Even when she set up massive Spells that reached outwards and killed thousands at once, she was slower than Romar who simply toasted everything around him while flying faster than even Felix could sustain. She couldn’t keep up with Zeraxes who flashed around the battlefield, flashy Lightning obliterating his surroundings.

Even if she managed to match their speed or even gain some ground on some floors, she was falling behind on others and so ultimately, they were falling behind once again.

Felix’s hope, was to supplement her abilities and fill in where she was struggling by helping her slaughter as many enemies as possible, as fast as possible.

Reviewing what the current room was in his mind, Felix couldn’t help but feel a little giddy when he realized the lush and verdant landscape around him of sparse trees and colorful flowers, was completely infested with Hydras.

[C - Legendary] Baby Hydra (Lvl 1416)

While their levels were much lower than the one had previously fought, Felix found they were curiously, only marginally weaker. They were physically smaller but nearly just as fast and definitely just as hard to kill as they were capable of healing themselves even faster, likely due to their size alone.

There were no floating lights in the sky to follow but Felix could feel Nova’s location and could communicate with her and so he coordinated his own search based on that.

Finally meeting once they used their keys on the door together, Adaline just looked at him and lightly grunted before moving on to the next floor.

They continued like that, with no real change in their dynamic, for two more floor groups until Peace joined them and slightly sped up how quickly they managed to clear the floors. At that point, Melody finally joined in as well and slightly slowed down their progress as she used Erevos to fly from party member to party member, pestering them as if she were an interviewer.

Whether or not it benefited them, Felix didn’t really care and he mostly just found it annoying, especially since she seemed to focus on him and Adaline for the most part. She interviewed Peace and Nova in between to ease the tension and put on a show, something she seemed to be quite proficient at. While Felix didn’t hear Adaline’s interviews himself, he got some of them from his Residents who were watching from the outside.

She didn’t answer much and tried her best to avoid all the questions but Melody was Melody and she knew exactly how to best to get her talking. Peace answered completely honestly for the most part but given the questions she was asking him, it didn’t seem like it was ever an issue for him.

Felix, was more similar to Adaline and mostly avoided questions or answered them more curtly than Melody would have liked, but he was far more willing to give exciting answers to the crowd especially when they satisfied Melody and got rid of her faster.

Flying along next to him in Erevos, the only reason she could keep up, Melody leaned over the side of the vehicle, “Felix, many have been wondering, how did you beat my brother exactly?”

“Easily.”

She widened her eyes in surprise, playing it up for the camera, “Easily you say, Tanryel is still considered to be one of the best Caster’s Duelists outside of the professional league, one of the up and coming. Are you saying you’re better than he is?”

“Seems that way.”

She smiled wide, “I’m loving the confidence. If you had to point to one specific ability of yours that allowed you to win, what would it be?”

“Nothing in specific. As I said, it wasn’t very difficult.”

“Well, I’m sure many of those watching are eager to see how you fare against some of the other opponents. Taking a look at the registrations for the tournament, you aren’t signed up for a single event at all though, why is that?”

“Not interested.”

“That’s unfortunate. Hopefully something changes your mind before it’s too late. As for the tournament, your party is currently falling behind the top teams. How do you see yourself placing in The Abyss?”

“Well, I was hoping to win but one of my party members keeps insisting on bothering the rest of us instead of parti-”

“OKAY! I think that’s enough folks. Let’s go see how the others are doing.” Melody raced off and vanished through a series of trees as Felix smirked.

Once she was gone, he turned his attention back to himself and activated his Aura once more, without his Reaper’s Aura Skill. He had been practicing with it as much as he could in The Abyss comparing the Skill to doing it manually and making sure he didn’t need the Skill. The results however, were frankly disappointing. His Aura managed to put the giant snake creatures he was fighting on edge but it didn’t seem to hinder them in any noticeable way.

He had previously used the Aura from his Soul Ring to throw people off, activating it for just a moment to surprise them in the middle of an attack or movement to try and trip them up. That didn’t seem to work anymore, at least not against the creatures he was fighting.

Zeraxes would probably still have trouble not flinching but he wasn’t Felix’s target and far too weak Spiritually for Felix to use as a gauge.

Ideally, he wanted to reach the same level he had seen from Rhonan, where he could completely suppress everyone in a room at will, and beyond. For the time being though, he worked on increasing the strength and range as much as he could. He was gaining proficiency in the skill so he knew he was doing something right but as with most of his other Reaper’s Skills, he realized he wasn’t sure he wanted to keep following it.

Now that he could do what Reaper’s Aura was teaching him without the Skill, he just had to practice until he upgraded the skill to Reaper’s Presence.

The issue, was that the Skill focused on areas he cared less about like disguising his Aura and masking it. He knew that was useful but it wasn’t what he wanted to focus on.

With the other skills, like Reaper’s Movement, Instinct, and Body, he had already started to deviate from the Skills.

All that meant to him, was that he was getting closer to dropping the Class as a whole.

After grinding their way through a number of floor groups together, Melody eventually left to do more networking, Adaline finally went to sleep and Peace went to work on affinizing his pile of metal in the hopes it would become a set of robes.

Felix, with his new constructs, didn’t need to leave theoretically ever. He communicated with the outside world through his new relay node as needed, even going so far as having his mentorship with Fin remotely. For the most part the mentorship was Fin providing his expertise and broad knowledge of what others knew and had tried anyways so it didn’t change much for them doing it remotely.

The hardest part was finding a spot to practice without getting distracted by some random creatures but even then, he could pretty efficiently clear an area for himself and use his constructs to regenerate his Mana.

So, he stood still in the middle of a bloodless massacre, thanks to his Blood Ring, and began practicing his Mana Control as 16 balls larger than his chest rolled out in every direction. They were coated in Demitium and used that to absorb energy from incoming attacks then funneled it into propelling themselves further. They could also fly using the Mana they collected but, they avoided it all costs.

Once they were full, they would simply return and he would manually drain them.

The trick, was that they didn’t have batteries in them at all which ironically let them hold much more Mana than if they did. The new Mana Engines he had created which were inside each of them simply gathered the Mana and that was it. They didn’t try to contain it at all. There was an equilibrium point where the Mana leaking out would equal the Mana being sucked in by the engines and that was the maximum amount they could contain.

For each of his constructs, that point was around 100 million Mana each. While he could have created his own batteries, this system was actually more robust because there were less points of failure for him to worry about.

He wasn’t sure if that was exactly true because he hadn’t tested both designs but over the course of a few dekads, he ended up sending out his constructs over a hundred times. He had to perform maintenance and minor repairs a couple dozen times and had to completely recreate one of them twice when a particularly nasty clawed invertebrate chewed through them. That was still far less than he was expecting and the time gained where he didn’t have to wait around regenerating his Mana was well worth it.

In the arena, there were mostly only preliminary events, nothing major like one on one combat, group combat, point capture, Caster’s Dueling or anything like that. The Abyss itself was still in the preliminary phases and wasn’t particularly interesting for most as Zeraxes, Romar, Il Doras and all the other top teams didn’t even appear on the screens very often at all. It would still take a few dekads for them to begin struggling at which point, Melody claimed they would dominate the screen time, partially because at that point most other teams will have either quit or died off.

Unsurprisingly, Zerathus declared Zeraxes as his champion, the one he would be sponsoring as the “chosen one” from the prophecy. Tau Cygnus quickly followed, declaring his son Romar as his champion. A number of other Gods without decent candidates of their own joined in, some of which were more surprising than others.

Even though Romar was dating Uphi, her father, the giant god Utazz declaring his support for Romar was quite the upset but according to Melody, Uphi had been crumbling under the pressure up until that point.

As for others, The Holy Mother declared Il Doras, to no one’s surprise. Sha’Alin Zadik the Shadow God, Sal-Khi the War God, MoonBranch the Druid God and Ramoriel the Justice God all declared their Domain wielding followers as their champions.

Thraverick the Forge God remained neutral for profit sake, according to Melody along with Radleus Idridor the Merchant God Ayred didn’t like.

As for standouts, Kjarne still had yet to declare anyone which caused quite a bit of speculation. Rhonan hadn’t declared anyone but that wasn’t a surprise at all. Other than a stupid rumor that Arthur was his long lost son, there wasn’t really anyone for him to declare. Felix also knew there was no chance he would declare anyone as he wanted to keep things as even as possible. If anything, he would probably start secretly sponsoring the weaker looking members of Felix’s generation to keep things competitive.

In Felix’s estimation of the political meaning behind the God’s actions, which Melody agreed with, the stronger Gods felt it was possible for them to sponsor someone to become the chosen ones almost entirely by themselves. Whether or not their candidate was the best, didn’t matter. As long as they were remotely competitive, they were arrogant enough to assume they could pull it off.

The weaker gods were then left to decide between the already declared champions, essentially forced to choose which one they wanted to support. That decision was dependent on who they thought they could help the most and who they thought would be the most favorable towards them.

The Champion declaration as a whole were mostly just annoying to Felix. The parading of the candidate, the advertisements, the fans and everything else was mildly irritating when they got in his way or were particularly loud, the odd times he left The Abyss, but it didn’t affect him that much.

The annoying part, was that the gap between where he and his party was in The Abyss compared to the top teams, just kept widening. The sponsorships just seemed like excuses to Felix for the Gods to pour their wealth into one individual. Romar and Zeraxes got access to some artifacts but for the most part, it was elite trainers that made the difference.

Not just A grade Elites either, but Zeraxes was personally trained by multiple Gods to the point where his Aura was starting to visibly affect the creatures he was fighting on his floors.

The others, like Il Doras, ended up with items. The Drakene Paladin specifically got a whole new set of Armor that looked like a set of ancient looking runic plates. Felix didn’t pay much attention to it largely because he couldn’t judge them for himself but the crowd seemed to immediately recognize it.

The artifacts, training and equipment they got made it that much harder for Felix to directly compete.

When he was clearing the 300th floor, Zeraxes and Romar were neck and neck on the 370th. When he was on the 320th, they were clearing the low 400s and fast approaching the point where the enemies would reach the B grade. At that point, Felix had a Resident post up in the Records Room so he could pay very close attention to them and for every floor he cleared, they cleared one too.

Considering how much bigger and harder the floors became, he very quickly realized he didn’t stand a chance without some kind of major increase in power.

Unfortunately, his best hope at the moment was to just keep pushing until he got close to level 2000 and could finally head into The Realms. He could have gone early but he wanted the best chance.

The only other somewhat notable change for Felix, was that Adaline was growing mildly less irritated by his presence every time he saw her. She still clearly had something against him but Felix only cared that whatever it was, didn’t hinder their progress through The Abyss.

On the outside, Ked, Rewdan, Eni and Art were making massive progress. Though they didn’t help that much, a number of the Adepts who were in the lab that epoch also decided to drop their personal projects for the time being to help. Still, most of the work was done by the Professor, Spirits and Felix’s Construct Construction Constructs.

Heading back into the arena one day, after putting in place the 7th node in Mark’s network out in the real world and the 19th overall, Felix managed to avoid the crowd of people eager to meet any of the participants they could. He avoided the sponsors, looking to harass participants into using whatever it was they were selling, and inevitably advertise it to the world in the process. He even managed to avoid the other participants, as the ones who were far behind were begging the better teams for advice.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t avoid a God as he was cut off suddenly in his flight down the hall by a beautiful woman with overwhelming confidence and grace. Moving as fast as he was and cutting him off as suddenly as she did, he almost ran into her but just barely managed to stop himself.

[SS - Mythic] Kotia (Lvl 5823)

Felix had no delusions that he had accidentally ran into her and knew full well she had stopped him on purpose so he didn’t bother feigning regret and apologizing.

“You were looking for me?”

She huffed slightly then tightened her composure even further, “I was. Please, follow me.”

Felix sighed but didn’t argue with her as she glided through the halls and he flew along behind her.

As they flew into one of the large ring hallway around the outside of the arena, she slowed slightly and looked over at him, “Aren’t you curious where I’m taking you?”

He shrugged, “Yeah.”

She just looked at him blankly for a moment then cocked her head, “Are you attracted to me?”

“No.” Felix responded instantly, slightly surprised by the question.

She frowned, “Why not?”

“I… You’re not my type.”

The Goddess looked completely taken aback, “I’m everyone’s type. I’m the Goddess of Beauty.”

Felix just cocked a brow.

“I…” She shook her head, huffed, then flew ahead.

Felix followed her all the way up to the top level of the halls outside the arena, the God’s level, and finally over to a God’s booth.

As he stepped inside, what he saw was much different from the layout of Kjarne’s booth from Melody’s memory. The entire booth looked to be a single room with a long table at the center. On one end of the table, sat a massive man with a bushy brown beard and a matching mane of hair that was tied up cleanly.

Rhonan (Lvl 18975)

Sitting in the many seats on either side of the table, there was Romar and Uphi, Zeraxes, Il Doras and a few other champions, though definitely not all of them. Not even half of them. There were also others who weren’t champions, curiously enough.

Fyrden and Melody also sat at the table along with Mera and her familiar, Okotama.

Leaning against the wall behind Romar, was Nyrrasil and on the other side, Elrena.

Everyone noticed him enter, though most only barely glanced over at him. Zeraxes was trying to make himself seem more important, Romar smiled and nodded then turned back to his girlfriened, Mera was trying to avoid suspicion so she only looked at him for a bare minimum amount of time. Fyrden waved politely in stark contrast to Melody, who had been seated beside him until she leapt out of her chair and scurried over to him.

“Felix.”

He leaned in upon hearing her angered whisper, “Yes?”

She immediately looked back at the rest of the group then groaned through gritted teeth, “We’ll talk after.”

He nodded then followed her over to the table where he stood a few meters away from it and looked over at Rhonan, “You summoned me?”

By Felix’s estimation, there was no one else who could order Kotia around, especially getting her to do something as mundane as fetch him. Not if she was arrogant as she seemed.

He nodded as he swallowed, the only one in the room eating, “Heard you were back.”

“I intended on heading back in as soon as I could, but then I was summoned.”

Rhonan grunted then took another bite of his food. Zeraxes, who had been trying to hide the fact that he was watching Rhonan, then laughed, just a moment later than would be natural, “I for one, am very impressed with just how far and how fast you’ve managed to push yourselves in The Abyss. It’s nice seeing a team of supports and a Reaper’s Child doing so well.”

A team of supports?

Romar rolled his eyes, which was almost impossible to see given his form, and a few of the others hid smirks.

Zeraxes continued after a moment, emboldened by the various smirks in the room, “Have you all decided which champions you intend on supporting? I know at least I would be more than hap-”

Felix flashed his Aura for just a moment, more than enough to cause Zeraxes to flinch, and choke on his own tongue a little, “I’m sorry, you were saying something?”

Melody sighed longingly, “If only we had someone on our team who had gotten even nearly as far as you had in The Realms. I mean floor 1640, that’s quite impressive.”

He choked again, just a moment before collecting himself, Melody knowing exactly where to poke.

Romar, apparently not at all in agreement with Zeraxes’ treatment of them nodded along, “I seem to recall someone reaching floor 1804. Now, if you could have gotten them on your team… Who was that again?”

Melody rubbed her chin, as if she didn’t know.

Zeraxes clenched his jaw, as he noticed he had lost the crowd and quickly pushed himself to his feet, “Right, well. I’ve got floors to clear.”

Then, he was gone in a burst of Lightning.

No one spoke for a couple of moments then Romar shook his head and looked at Melody and Felix, “Seriously, he’s an ass. Don’t listen to him.”

Uphi nodded emphatically and Melody sighed, “Thanks.”

Seeing as Zeraxes left and broken the social seal on the room, Melody also rose to her feet and walked over to join Felix, who had kept one foot in the direction of the door. He briefly glanced over at Mera who was happily whispering to Okotama next to her as the two of them drank from tiny cups and had their own personal tea party.

“Well, that was fun. Glad I came.” Felix nodded, waved then turned and walked out of the room.

I get Rhonan is trying to build some kind of connection, in the hopes we all become friends and one day fight together but… fuck that.

“Felix.”

He didn’t even turn his head as Melody flew to catch up, “What?”

“When did you meet Rhonan?”

“What do you mean?”

“He knew you. He had already met you. Not to mention both Nyrrasil and Kotia, who know you better than I thought.”

Felix sighed, “You remember that massive door we found in Osgard?”

She frowned in confusion, “There were a lot.”

“You know which one.”

She huffed, “Fine. Yes. What about it?”

“I went back. On the second to last day, I got through it.”

She leaned in, her eyes widened in complete shock, “You what? What was on the other side?”

Felix gestured backwards with his head, “Rhonan, Kotia, Elrena, Nyrrasil.”

“What happened? What were they doing? Were they just standing in the hall?”

“No, of course not. Rhonan was injured, he was eating. Elrena was watching over him. Nyrrasil and Kotia were fighting, providing entertainment.”

“Wait, he was injured? Was it…”

Felix nodded, “Hunger Curse, embedded within his Soul. He seemed pretty hopeless at that point, like he’d accepted things. Seems fine now though.”

“Yeah, he… Now…” She shook her head, “Wait, stop distracting me. How did you get through the door?”

“Uh… Spatial stuff…” Noticing she was completely unsatisfied by that answer, he added, “a spell.”

“Felix. Why didn’t you bring me? Or even just tell me?”

He didn’t even really think about it and just shrugged.

“You still don’t trust me.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

He sighed then seriously considered her statement for a moment before responding. While the Spell was experimental and he wasn’t even sure at the time if it would work, he could have found a way. Even if he didn’t, he could have told her right afterwards but, he didn’t.

Felix offered a slightly apologetic look, “I guess I don’t. Not fully.”

She looked at him for a moment, her face showcasing her disappointment as she slowly nodded in resignation.

Uncharacteristically, she was so completely distracted she didn’t notice the party of five walking towards them. Felix’s novice reading of their intentions, which relied heavily on their body language, was that they fully intended on walking through them.

Felix had no interest in proving them wrong by remaining completely unmoving due to his massive stats as it was a waste of time so instead, he grabbed Melody’s arm and pulled her aside and out of the way.

[B - Legendary] Istra (Lvl 2106)

[B - Epic] Aossas (Lvl 2183)

[B - Divine] Rosluk (Lvl 2141)

[B - Legendary] Mimon (Lvl 2087)

[B - Exotic] Engelom (Lvl 2129)

They puffed their chests out a little more as he did, as if they had won the game of chicken they had been playing but not one of them looked back as they continued walking towards Rhonan’s booth.

Felix furrowed his brow as he watched them pass, “I recognize them…”

Melody groaned.

“Weren’t they the team that was pretty far behind, like a few hundred floors, then they suddenly started sky rocketing through just a couple dekads ago? Now they’re just three groups behind us, right?”

She shook her head in disapproval, not contradiction, “Yes. That’s exactly who they are.”

“How’d that happen? Were they pretending?”

She quickly shook her head then gestured towards the halls and dragged Felix back to their room, which he hadn’t used at all. He immediately noticed all 4 beds looked used though so at least someone was making use of it.

“So, what’s up with that team and why’d you need to drag me here?”

“They made a deal with Akaroth. That’s why they suddenly got really strong and started racing through the floors.”

“A deal? Like… For their Souls?”

She nodded, “Yeah. The only deals Akaroth really makes.”

“When is their Soul due?”

She shrugged, “Not as soon as you’d hope. They probably also believe they can pay off the debt before it comes to that point by collecting up enough Souls.”

“How does he just give them power?”

“It depends on the person. Some people he gives artifacts, items, equipment. Others he gives them pets, guards. Some people he just tells them secrets, teaches them a Spell, gives them a Class, Profession, teaches them a Skill. He’s very good at knowing exactly what will help you most.”

“So Adali-”

She shook her head and interrupted him, “Not my place to say.”

He nodded, “Alright. I’m heading back in. I take it you’ve got a bakery to run and sponsors to shmooze?”

She looked conflicted for a moment before finally sighing, “No. I’m coming.”

Felix nodded, not exactly happy she would be interrogating him throughout but it didn’t affect him enough to push back.

As they headed into The Abyss, picking up where he had left off on the 355th, Felix was surprised however when Melody didn’t just follow him around on Erevos. Instead, she finally seemed to be participating. She didn’t venture off too far from him but she wasn’t just following him around and supporting him either.

Instead, she flew around, barely tapping at the instrument Felix was wary of and grouping the enemies together for him. She enraged them and pulled them towards him, making them much easier for him to hit with a large Spell but she was also reading them.

As she grouped enemies and subtly manipulated their actions around him, she identified which ones were hiding keys, somehow and pointed them out. Once Felix had collected the key, she repelled the enemies, causing them to scurry away and they moved on to a new section.

Even when the keys weren’t inside of the creatures they were fighting, she somehow read their minds and managed to locate buildings, altars, puzzles, switches or anything else that stood out.

With her help, Felix was clearing floor groups in 5 hours instead of the nearly 10 it would have taken him for a normal 5 floor group. The 10 floor groups were infinitely more annoying when they began to appear because the floors within them were allowed to grow even bigger. To counteract that though, each key, switch or puzzle they found pointed them in the rough direction of the others.

Without that, it would have taken multiple days. In fact, Felix was pretty sure that was the intention because if you weren’t using a one of a kind Sky Slicer or flying at absurd speeds, it would have taken days to travel from one to the other. Thinking back to even the strongest people in his integration, even if they had become much stronger, each floor group would have been a massive venture.

That fact made it a little odd to him that the whole thing only lasted 200 to 400 days, each one in the past falling randomly within that range.

It either meant it was meant for elites, which didn’t make sense considering how quickly and effortlessly he tore through the floors, less on the later floors but still relatively safely or, it was meant to last longer. There was no way for him to really know why though so he just kept that fact in the back of his mind.

Unfortunately, he was hoping he would be able to figure something out but The Abyss felt to Felix at least, like it was half finished. Nothing inside of it varied much, the loot was disappointing and felt generic, like they were place holders. While the creatures were getting closer to Ancient creatures, their Souls were stronger, he still hadn’t found anything truly Ancient and weird, like the Ashound.

It was the same thing, over and over, every floor. The creatures were stronger and harder to kill. Felix and Melody both recognized many of the creatures from stories and bestiaries as creatures that were more prevalent in the early integrations. They were still just boring though. It was still massive floors of the exact same environment with hordes of creatures. There was simply nothing else to it.

At least, that was Felix’s impression. The further back they went, the more agitated Melody seemed. When he asked her why though, she just waved him off.

“I don’t even really know what it is myself. It’s just… this… feeling like… I don’t know how to describe it. Dread? Not for any particular reason it just… exists.”

Reaching out himself, Felix tried his best but his Anima Senses just weren’t even close to Melody’s and he felt nothing.

The boss on the 380th floor was annoyingly tough.

[C - Legendary] Oroju (Lvl 1794)

A massive gorilla like creature that leapt around the battlefield and took a thorough beating before even slowing down in the slightest. It was incredibly strong but paid for that in speed. For the most part, Felix just flew around and rained spells down upon it. The hardest thing about the fight was avoiding the massive boulders it ripped out of the ground and threw at him.

It seemed to have sacrificed all its mental stats though so its Perception was so bad, it often missed all on its own and had trouble most of the time just following Felix around the battlefield.

Melody helped somewhat, or she tried to, there wasn’t really anything for her to do though.

So, after nearly 500 Blade Spells at 300k Mana each, the creature finally roared one last time before dying. Felix absorbed the body and Soul, which was a lot of Anima he was more than happy to harvest. Then, loot appeared, a chest that didn’t exist a few moments before in the direction of the exit.

Opening it, Felix disappointingly threw the Bracers of Oroju which artificially increased Strength through a series of complex enchantments, into his Kryptos Repository along with the various materials and other mundane items.

They didn’t even discuss splitting them because they were so disappointing, to them. Felix would end up handing them off to either Melody or one of his Residents that had become a merchant. In the rare situations where the loot was valuable, they handed it off to Ayred but, that only happened when it was some rare material that no longer existed or was harder to find now than it had been in the past.

Even the levels were disappointing. He had entered on floor 355 at level 1845 and left on floor 380, at 1850. He was still fighting abysmally low level enemies, he knew that. Still, knowing he was pushing for level 2000 to reach The Realms, the slow leveling began to irritate him. It was still the best source of levels around though so, there was nothing to really be done.

On the other hand, his Profession was pushing dangerously close to the next grade and he’d been avoiding touching anything directly for the past few dekads so he didn’t push it much further than 1974.

As they left, walking through the corridor beneath the arena, both Felix and Melody immediately noticed the crowd was uncharacteristically silent.

They hurried along to see what was happening and took the quickest path into the arena itself.

Standing amongst the stands that were completely full around them, the two of them looked up and saw, for the first time since it had opened, Zeraxes and Romar on the screens in the arena.

As soon as they did, Melody quietly gasped.

Felix leaned over, “What’s the big deal?”

“They’re on floor 435.” Melody answered, as if that meant anything to Felix.

“Only?”

She quickly shook her head, “They’re fighting the boss on 435. It’s the first B grade enemy in The Abyss.”

“How do you know that?”

“While the layout isn’t identical for everyone, this is more a structural thing. It’s the exact same, every time The Abyss appears. Floor 410 is the start of the longest group to date, by far. It’s not much different than any other floor group. It’s red and fiery…”

Having seen the floor from the Resident watching in the Records Room, Felix nodded, “Looks like hell.”

“Ye- Like what?”

“Don’t worry about it. Ask me another time.”

She nodded, “It’s when the enemies get particularly annoying. It’s usually when things become a real challenge for most. Most of the times The Abyss has appeared, people haven’t gotten much further than floor 450 or so. I think the record was 525 but… that was one time.”

“I take it this, floor 435, is when we reach actually Ancient enemies? Pre integration enemies?”

She nodded, “Yeah. This is the breaking point.”

Looking at the screen, Felix’s eyes darted between Romar, Zeraxes and Il Doras’s screens. Il Doras was still a few floors behind but he looked to be struggling just as much as the other two, with a normal floor.

[B - Ancient] Thakrogan (Lvl 2004)

The boss was a a massive winged humanoid with three sets of horns all pointing in different directions, wings, claws and no facial features other than a fang toothed maw. It’s flesh wasn’t red though, instead it was almost entirely white, reddened only by the environment surrounding it.

It was an abomination of a creature and judging from how easily it was handling Romar and his ridiculous Strength, it had stats to match its physical appearance.

Just as Felix and Melody started watching, Thakrogan snatched Romar out of the air completely oblivious to his superheated form, then slammed him into the ground as if he were trying to see how high he would bounce. Being essentially a walking star though, Romar exploded outwards in a wave of Fire that sent his entire party, including the massive Uphi, flying back or running away if they were fast enough.

After the explosion, Romar was noticeably dimmer as much of the heat he had built up was lost.

Zeraxes on the other hand, was having a much easier time as a localized Storm Cloud roiled above the Demon’s head, flashes of light pulsing through it as the energy within built up.

Lightning Bolts, crashed down into ground all around the Demon as Zeraxes flashed from one end of the cloud to the other, throwing a Lightning Bolt every time he appeared. Where Romar’s body and its super-heated and energized combat state didn’t seem to bother Thakrogan, the Lightning Bolts Zeraxes was throwing definitely had an effect. Each and every one had it seizing and yelling out.

Contrary to every other enemy Felix had seen in the entirety of The Abyss, this one didn’t seem mindless. As it yelled, it actually yelled its own name quite often.

Recovering from his downed state in his own fight, Romar pushed himself up, off the ground and into the air then exploded. This time, the wave of Fire pouring out of him soaked the landscape for kilometers in every direction. The environment had already been fiery and hell like but now it looked like it was the inside of a volcano or like they were fighting on patches of stone that floated across the surface of a star.

With his Domain active, Romar exploded Fire behind him and launched himself into Thakrogan, grabbing hold of his shoulder and driving a massive spear of pure flame right through it.

“THAKROGAN!”

The Demon yelled out then spun its body, launching Romar off to the side. In doing so, it exposed its back and Uphi leapt forwards, driving her warpicks into its upper back then pulling on them. The Demon immediately jumped backwards to try and squash her as the rest of their party used the opening to attack its exposed stomach.

In Zeraxes fight, he also activated his Domain but Thakrogan seemed mad and somehow, was pushing through the minor paralysis and pain of Zeraxes Lightning Strikes.

As the Demon leapt forwards and slammed down into the ground, just barely missing Zeraxes, the rest of his party peppered the Demon to try and distract it but it didn’t work. The Demon was smart enough that it knew what the crowd and everyone else did, that Zeraxes was the real star of the show and the rest of his party were just there to support and help him.

Seeing the Demon racing towards him once more, Zeraxes gritted his teeth in rage then took his Divine Bolt and drove it into his own chest.

The pain drove him to his knees as his eyes exploded in beams of light for a moment or two. Then, Lightning began to race along his body until he was completely coated, not even an inch of his skin showing through. Finally, the Lightning expanded outwards into a large humanoid being of pure Lightning that was honestly harder to look at than Romar.

He stepped forwards and met the Demon’s charge, his Lightning Avatar even larger than the Demon, wrestled with it. He grabbed hold and punched, each strike overflowing with power and exploded in a burst of Lightning that arced out into the ground around them.

Melody gaped at the scene, “When did he Master an Avatar Skill?”

“Avatar? Is that a Skill line?”

She nodded, “A rare one because they’re… hard to control. Not rare like Domains which are impressive to use but, rare in that most people don’t bother with them because they take too long to become useful.”

“I know Peace doesn’t actually use The System, but that’s basically what he did in Group Combat last epoch, no?”

She nodded, “Yeah. Kind of. Just surprised is all. Zeraxes is a hard worker and all that but… not quite as adventurous or ambitious as Romar. Up until now he’s pretty much just followed the exact plan his father laid out for him.”

“Is this the first time he’s deviated?”

She shrugged, “First time I know of. I guess… I guess it makes sense considering the prophecy and all that. I mean, if- when they beat this floor…”

Felix stared at her from the side and waited.

She looked at him, a little confused he didn’t already know what she was going to say, “They’re going to get massive gifts.”

His mouth opened a little in realization, “Oh. After this, they’ve proven themselves and people just want to see how far they can go. Now that it’s actually hard-”

“Yeah. Now they get the real shit so they can prove they’re the one the prophecy is talking about.”

“Compared to previous years, are they doing particularly well?”

She tilted her head a little, “Very well but, they definitely are not the fastest. By this time in the past, 150 days into The Abyss or so… It’s not perfectly comparable because the floors are shuffled around but… I think there was someone at 475 almost two hundred integrations ago? I don’t totally remember where everyone was on what day though.”

He nodded, “In terms of ‘real shit’, how big are we talking? Echo big?”

She nodded, “If they have em, yes. Up until now, Gods that have Echos usually keep them a secret so they can pull them out when they need to. If they don’t have one themselves, their father’s will be looking to make a deal with someone to get one. If the one they have isn’t a good fit, they’ll look to trade it.”

Felix sighed, “How soon after they win?”

“Not right away… probably but… not long after. At this point, the groups will start to take a really long time. Like multiple dekads each. So, the sooner they get them…”

Watching Romar’s fight with that in mind, Felix watched Romar leap into the air and raised both his hands up to either side of himself as thousands of spears made of pure Fire began to appear around him. Thakrogan saw him and roared, “Thakrogan. Thakrogan!”

Like it was taunting him.

Then, Romar smirked, “Judgement of the Stars.”

The spears began to launch themselves at Thakrogan one by one, each one either ramming itself through its body or burrowing a massive hole into the ground. As they accelerated, more and more spears firing every second, the ones that had already hit began to explode.

First, Thakrogan’s arm vanished as three spears exploded and left behind a blackened mess of glowing embers. Then, his foot as a spear in the ground next to him obliterated the ground.

Thakrogan’s body was slowly torn apart, piece by piece as he roared into the air one last time before his head popped.

Zeraxes, still wrestling with his Avatar, suddenly pushed the Demon back then reverted to his normal form.

Teleporting away to gain space, he leapt into the air, a trail of Lightning along his path. High up in the sky, the screen’s view zoomed out, he raised his Divine Bolt into the sky as it began drawing energy seemingly from the atmosphere. It grew brighter and brighter as the Demon yelled from the ground, then leapt into the air to chase him.

His party knew better and were all spreading out, running far away as Zeraxes smirked, “Storm God’s Wrath.”

With both hands, he threw his Divine Bolt straight down creating a massive pillar of bright blue light that completely encased the Demon.

When it finally vanished, so had the Demon.

“Why did both of them say their skill names?”

She gestured around herself, “Audience. Many of them won’t recognize the Skills but giving them names makes it easier for viewers to get excited and talk about them.”

Felix sighed at the idiotic reasoning and waited as both Romar and Zeraxes opened their respective chests, both revealing the top half of Thakrogan’s skull that formed a helm.

The both of them raised them into the air and the crowd roared as their party’s rejoined them.

Looking back over at Il Doras, Felix saw he was still at least a floor away from fighting Thakrogan himself so he turned away from the screens and began to leave the arena.

Melody skipped along beside him, “Did you know, that statistically you’ve spent the most time out of anyone this iteration in The Abyss so far?”

Felix frowned, “That can’t be true.”

“What do you mean? You don’t sleep or eat or rest… at all. How could it not be true? You can check in the Records Room if you still don’t believe me.”

“Alright. Say I do, what’s your point?”

She shrugged, “Nothing really, just that that’s what most of the God’s are paying attention to.”

“What?”

“Most of the talk around you from what I’ve seen has been about that.”

“Why does that matter that much? Why wouldn’t they be more interested in my Mana Pool or something?”

“Because, Zeraxes has a massive Mana Pool, not as big but still, that isn’t as uncommon as not needing to rest at all. Even some of the Gods need to sleep and almost all of them need to eat.”

“I need to eat too if I want to heal myself.”

“Not really though.”

“I guess not, it would just take forever.” Reaching down, Felix took hold of his left arm, “Speaking of which…” Pulling, he tore the arm free then activated his Blood Ring, storing the cells for later, just in case.

Her face contorted in disgust, “Gross. You couldn’t have waited till I made it to our room?”

He shrugged, “Could have.”

“Okay, jeez.” She backed off a few steps mockingly then waved, “See ya.”

He nodded then opened an Aether Tunnel to Ked’s lab as he consumed raw meat he had stored in his Soul Space for just such occasions.

From the day Zeraxes and Romar beat Thakrogan, and later Il Doras, it took Felix 26 days to finally reach the 410th floor with his party. He was in The Abyss almost constantly followed by Peace, who still hadn’t attuned the Asphellum then Melody and Adaline, who each had side projects of their own they were working on on top of needing to sleep.

In that time, Felix had gained just 7 levels in his Class, about a fifth of the Mana Accelerator was physically finished, half of The Construct Forge and thankfully just a couple of Profession levels.

Romar and Zeraxes had both taken a bit of time off after the boss, parading themselves before fans, sponsors and Gods in the hopes that they would support them as the champion. They had each cleared up to floor 470 or so but those massive gifts still hadn’t appeared yet. Melody’s theory was that their parent’s were either still working on making deals to get them or they had a larger plan in mind as to the timing.

All that mattered to Felix at the moment though, was getting through Thakrogan.

His entire party, including Nova, stood with him and entered The Abyss together, on the 410th floor.

As soon as they landed in the middle of the fiery hellscape they had all been expecting, a horde of demons leapt at them from every direction.

[C - Ancient] Minor Fiend (Lvl 1895)

It took them a few minutes to clear through the initial onslaught of a few hundred and after that, though the demons were ceaseless, they managed to actually move from their initial position.

“Well that was fun.” Melody smirked as she skipped along between them.

Peace smiled, “This one is switches, right?”

Felix nodded, “Yeah. This one and the next two, then its protect the flag for five, keys for four, trivial puzzles for eight, keys for the last four.”

Melody smiled and turned her head dramatically, “Adaline?”

She nodded then began preparing her Spell to locate the switches. As this was the first time she had cast it anywhere near him, Felix paid very close attention to what she was doing and how. First, she pulled out a bullet from a spatial storage and opened a portal in her other hand. She tossed the bullet through the portal and instead of being moved to another portal, it came out the other side.

Except, what came out the other side, wasn’t exactly what she had thrown in. On the other side, she caught the very same bullet except now, it was the size of a basket ball.

That… makes a lot of sense. That’s how her enchantments are so precise.

She peeled back a few layers of the bullet and grumbled about the environment for a few minutes while making small adjustments here and there. Once she was done, she placed it back through the portal and on the other side, she had a normal sized bullet once again.

Finally, she placed the bullet in her white revolver and pointed it straight up into the air. She didn’t fire though, instead, she hesitated. After a few moments of silent deliberation, in which Felix thought something was wrong, she gritted her teeth and offered the revolver to Felix, “You fire it.”

“You want…” He stopped himself in realiztion, “Mana?”

She nodded and he carefully gripped her weapon before stretching his hand above himself and pointing it upwards. As he did, he examined the revolver with his every sense. It wasn’t by any means the most complicated item he had ever seen. It barely had any enchantments on it at all. The material structure wasn’t overly complex either, it just used expensive materials to direct Mana into the bullets. That was discounting the spatially expanded chamber.

Instead, the item starkly contrasted Adaline’s strengths, and effectively complemented them. The most impressive part of the revolver, was how much Anima she had stuffed into it and how energetic and obsessed the Anima was. It was right on the verge of being a Curse, something between Desire and Creation along with something else. The whole thing seemed like an item that was pushed right to the edge of being stable.

“Do I push Mana into it or will it pull from me?”

“Push. Don’t use more than a billion.”

He nodded then pumped a billion Mana into the revolver, marveling at how easily it channeled that into a tiny bullet. As soon as it was full, he straightened his arm as best he could then pulled the trigger.

The very same light show Felix had seen a number of times played out in the sky above them, except this time, it was so much bigger. On some floors, especially the first one with the smog, his vision into the distance was limited. On the hellscape he found himself on, there were no obstructions. The sky was a perfectly clear, dull grey color.

Felix handed her revolver back to her as she used the black one to kill off a few Demon’s scrambling towards them.

For hundreds of kilometers in every direction, the network of lights grew. It took a few minutes, multiple times longer than any other time she had cast it before.

Once it was finally done, there were 11 lights floating in the sky, which was more than a little annoying. They already knew there were 16 switches on the floor which meant 5 were outside of the area they scanned.

Adaline immediately flew off in one direction and Melody used Erevos to follow and assist her because she could still kill the Demons the fastest. Felix could kill them, but it took an annoying number of spells or a lot of Mana.

Though they weren’t necessarily going to be fighting alongside each-other, Peace and Felix flew off in the same direction so they could help each-other if needed, Nova following Felix.

As they flew, Felix turned to Peace and admired his brand new robes. They were both Navy and Black, shifting colors as if they were alive as they fluttered in the wind, “You finally affinized the Asphellum?”

He groaned in response, “Yes. Your stupid Spirit man told me it would take 30 days. I thought that was long. Do you know how long it actually took me?”

Felix snickered, “Considering it’s been about 175 days since then…”

He rolled his eyes, “6 times as long.”

“Considering you didn’t give up, I take it it was worth it?”

Peace’s smile widened dramatically, “Oh yeah it was. You see this thing? Not only does it look awesome, but watch this.”

The robes, wrapped around Peace’s body shifted from robes, to plate armor, into a suit then finally into a spiky ball, like he had transformed into a puffer fish.

“That’s way more control than I was expecting.” Felix marveled at the robes.

Peace smirked, “I’m still figuring out the whole, merge it with my body thing, like I can do it but, it’s rough. Anyways, yeah this stuff is awesome.”

Definitely going to consider that for my robes.

The two of them ended up just working together as soon as they saw the first switch and realized it was completely overrun with Demons. There was an obviously denser pack surrounding it from all sides that had to be cleared out before they could activate the switch.

Together, they blasted through the horde, Felix focusing on Lightning and Cold Spells because of how ineffective Romar’s Fire and physical damage had seemed on Thakrogan.

The amount of Mana Felix had to blow through just to wipe out a single horde boggled his mind as it took him 5 Lightning Bolts with over 2 million Mana each, to kill just one Minor Fiend. As soon as he realized that, he switched from Lightning Bolts which were efficient but single target, to massive Blizzards of Cold and Force.

Peace joined in, transforming into a giant Water and Ice serpent that circled through the horde and swallowed Minor Fiends whole.

The instant they were done with the horde, Felix released his Mana Regeneration Spheres and had them fly around instead of rolling. It was less efficient as they used up more Mana that way but he was worried about the Fiends damaging or destroying them and he hadn’t noticed any flying demons on the lower floors when Romar and Zeraxes had gone through.

As his Mana Collection Constructs flew around, Felix let Nova and Peace cover for him as they traveled to the next switch.

It took his party just under a day to clear the first floor. They already knew the floors got bigger and took longer as they descended further but luckily, this floor group didn’t expand as dramatically or as quickly as some of the others had.

The switches were annoying but they were just the introduction. After that, there were these altars they had to activate. Once they did, they began charging and as they charged, the Demons all around them ravenously tried to stop them. The time for each altar varied but they were incredibly exhausting and Felix didn’t have enough Mana to handle even a single one on his own. It eventually got so bad, that they had to stay as a single group on the last two protect-the-point floors.

After that, they were back to keys except now, they were locked away inside structures that were durable enough to be annoying to destroy. That meant they had to delve into each one, map and clear them out, in order to find the final room containing the key.

Some of them even had mini bosses guarding the keys in the form of normal Fiends.

Felix actually preferred those dungeons like areas because he could space out his slaughter and regenerate his Mana in between. They also provided a decent spot for Adaline, Nova and Melody to rest while Felix and Peace guarded them with relative ease.

The puzzles would have been annoying, if they didn’t already have a decent idea of how to solve each one from watching Romar and Zeraxes. It definitely didn’t seem like that was the intention though which Felix noted as something to think about later.

For the most part, they were basic logic puzzles or questions about Fiends and the environment they were in. They were all definitely doable and even without having watched the previous runs, Felix could have solved them nearly instantly with his Mind Residents. That wasn’t the case for everyone but even then, Felix couldn’t help but feel like they were place holders for something else.

By the time they got to the last four floors, the key floors with keys hidden inside enemies, they had spent over 24 consecutive days in The Abyss. Romar and Zeraxes had taken half that amount of time to get to the same place.

The last four floors were the longest, but they weren’t as annoying as they could have been and Felix’s exhausted and drained party took solace in that fact. The keys weren’t just in any random enemies, like they had been on previous floors. Instead, they were located in Mini Bosses scattered all over the floor. In addition, unlike previous floors, there was a kind of structure to the floors and from the landscape alone, they could locate the Greater Fiends.

Each one had a camp of sorts in a valley or on a mountain, they had territories that the Minor Fiends kept to for the most part.

The party didn’t dare split up, even Adaline traveling with them because even though they were sleeping and eating provisions, many of them were still mentally and emotionally drained. Felix was doing all right but he knew he wasn’t the norm and even just feeling Nova’s emotions, he knew what everyone else was experiencing.

Unfortunately, they needed all of them for each floor, the first two with keys inside enemies taking almost two days then three and finally, the last floor before Thakrogan taking them an arduous five and a half days to finally get through.

“Holy. Shit. This. Suuuuuuuccccckksss.” Melody flopped onto her back just outside the door to the final floor.

Peace stretched and groaned as he did so, out of habit more than anything now that he was a Spirit, “We made it. Just one lousy boss to bonk and we can all go home.”

Adaline grunted as she fervently inscribed into bullets, having run out almost halfway through the floor group.

“I don’t even know if I care enough about winning this stupid thing to do another fucking floor after this.” Melody screamed cathartically, “Not to mention this…” She shivered, “Dread… Doom… Inevitability… It’s… I’ve never felt Anima like this, let alone just… ambient…”

Felix once again reached out, for what felt like the thousandth time but felt nothing himself, “I think it’s finally time we hit The Realms after this.”

Melody perked up into a sitting position, “Aren’t you worried you’ll gain too many levels fighting Thakrogan?”

Felix sighed as he looked at his status screen.

Name: Felix Kade (The True Wizard) FREE 0 Innate: Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard) STR 7,704 Class: [C - Ancient] Reaper (Lvl 1,948) DEX 14,054 Race: [C - Ancient] Wanderer (Lvl 1,962) AGI 14,404 Profession: [C - Ancient] Lifebinder (Lvl 1,976) PER 5,217 Health: 76,128,210 / 76,128,210 VIT 7,612 Mana: 2B / 2B + 6B / 6B INT 17,936 Resistance: 98.53% END 6,689

It was something he, Grim and Mark along with a number of Mind Residents had been thinking about for a while. They had done all the calculations they could on the subject to determine whether or not he should even participate in the fight.

“It should be fine.” Felix answered, “Judging from how many levels Zeraxes, Romar, Il Doras and their party’s got from the fight… At most I should get 40 to 45 levels.”

She snickered, “You know as well as I do how complicated experience calculations are. You’re really going to bet on that?”

He sighed, “It should be fine.”

She shrugged indicating it was entirely up to him.

“Even if I wasn’t willing to risk it, I can’t just leave it all up to Adaline and Peace.”

She scoffed, “Excuse me. Are you doubting my value?”

Felix shrugged, “I mean… You’re definitely not useless…”

She opened her mouth, mockingly gaping.

“All I’m saying… is you could definitely be more useful…”

Her expression immediately hardened, “I’m not using the instrument’s abilities.”

Felix was baiting her, as he had a few times before and he expected her answer. He wasn’t focused on listening to her words though and he once again tried to feel out her Soul, now that she was exhausted and drained.

He didn’t get much more than he got every other time but he did feel an underlying feeling of fear and disgust towards the instrument. She hated whatever it was, whatever it did and she feared it and what it could do. She saw it as something completely disgusting and she didn’t think she could completely control it.

“Well, we’ve got a few hours until my constructs come back and my Mana is full, are you all going to be ready by then?”

Peace nodded and Melody grunted while Adaline, didn’t respond but seemed to move just a little faster in her inscribing.

While they waited, Felix began working on using Reaper’s Aura. Shifting and transforming it using the skill, controlling its range and strength and effect as much as he could.

He had already been using it as much as he could because it supplemented his other skills and gave him something to do when he ran out of Mana.

Ding You have upgraded the Class skill: [Legendary] Reaper’s Aura (Skilled XXII) => Class: [Ancient] Reaper’s Presence (Proficient I)

General: [Reaper’s Presence (Ancient) Control the Presence of the Reaper. Presence is more than just the effect and power of an Aura. This skill focuses on gaining complete control over the wielder’s aura. Both altering the Perception of the user from other’s eyes, controlling the range, effect and strength of the aura as well as enabling multiple other abilities using it. The effect and abilities of the Presence is entirely dependent on the Soul and intent of the user. Some Presence Abilities may be impossible for a certain user to wield. Strength of the abilities is highly dependent on the strength of the user’s Soul and their ability to wield that strength, their will power. This skill incurs a cost in terms of exhausted will power.]

Finally.

He took a few minutes to test it out then sighed, Just as useless as I thought. Alright, looks like I’m ready to drop this Class. You gotten anything new from the sub-System Chunk about a custom Class?

The Nucleus seemed almost reluctant to respond, Nothing specific or really… useful. I think it lacks information.

What kind of information. How much. Give me options.

Well… Mostly populace information. Information about what people want, think about, do, that kind of thing. We could have Mark pump everything he knows into it…

You’re hesitating, just say it.

The Nucleus rushed through its words, What if I integrate it into myself and I become The System for your Mental World?

Felix nodded slowly, I’ve thought about that. I’m open to it. First things first, integrate the chunk then we’ll see, make sure it doesn’t alter you.

Yeah… so… I already did.

You… Of course you did. Mark, Grim, have you assessed Nucleus, did anything notable change?

Grim answered immediately as he was already listening in, Yes and no. With as many relay nodes as Mark has, we can probably set it up so everything going in and out of the Nucleus is filtered and approved. At least for a while.

How many Mark Nodes do we need to dedicate to that?

To have comfortable headroom, 3.

Huh. Okay. Let’s do it. I should probably move Nucleus into orbit, right?

Yeah, the connection will be too slow otherwise.

Felix nodded then quickly moved the Nucleus from his Soul Space, into his Core Soular System where it became another object in orbit around his Core Soul.

His constructs returned an hour later at which point he drained and stowed them then walked over to the entrance and inserted the last key, opening the entrance to the final floor.

The rest of his party rose to their feet, not quickly or with much energy, but more recharged than they had been and they all stepped through onto the final floor.

“THAKROGAN!”

[B - Ancient] Thakrogan (Lvl 2004)

The large Demon they had all been expecting stood there waiting for them as it roared its name and slammed its fists into the ground. As soon as they saw it, a sense of being on edge washed over all of them and Felix immediately recognized it as an Aura, of a sort.

It was obvious to Felix that the Aura wasn’t actually intentional or controlled, it was more like its Presence. It was a natural Aura the creature exuded that it didn’t have any control over. The effect, was minor but enough to just slightly affect them and throw them off, at least Adaline who had a weaker Soul compared to the rest of them.

No words were shared as they all immediately sprung into action.

Judging from the Fiends, Peace immediately transformed into another Water and Ice serpent but this time, he rushed forwards and wrapped himself around Thakrogan to try and restrict its movements. At the same time, Felix and Nova rushed to either side of it to flank it and began blasting it with the most annoying attacks they could think of.

That meant Felix focused on hitting it with Lightning Bolts in and around its eyes, Sonic Bombs in its ears and Force Blasts to turn its head and help trip it. Nova used similar Spells intermixed with physical attacks as it mounted Thakrogan, clawing and biting at its vulnerable spots.

Adaline wasted no time in firing off hundreds of Spells from her Black Revolver, using the White one for self mobility, utility and support. She almost entirely focused on Spatial Spells which amounted to Blue Laser Beams from every direction. As they hit, they instantly bore tiny holes right through its body and into the ground on the either side, her precision far too high for her to ever hit Peace, Nova or Felix.

Finally Melody flew around and supported them wherever she was needed. Sometimes she buffed Felix’s speed for a moment or Peace’s strength. Sometimes she switched to distracting and confusing Thakrogan’s senses or helping counter its Aura.

As much as they planned and structured the fight, it didn’t go quite like they were hoping, which was exactly what they expected. As soon as Adaline blasted holes through its body, they almost instantly healed. Even though Nova and Peace were effectively limiting its movement, it was still breathing streams of Fire at Felix. His Mana Skin managed to mitigate a lot of it but he was still being burned, his flesh charred.

Luckily, he had extra cells stored in his Blood Ring and so he instantly healed himself as soon as he was injured.

Their plan was to simply wear it down until it finally died but it became obvious that wasn’t going to work when Peace backed off and Adaline severed its entire left half with a Spell of spinning lasers, then it immediately regenerated it. With Peace backed off of its entire left half, it had enough freedom of movement to tear Nova free and toss her aside then reach out and snatch Felix’s leg from the air.

“Tha. Kro. Gan!”

Felix immediately cast an Instinct Blade Spell at his own leg and removed it before Thakrogan could smash him into the ground. As he careened towards it, Felix regenerated his leg with his Blood Ring then caught himself just before he hit.

This is why I filled The Blood Ring.

Felix flew a little further away for a few moments while Peace wrapped himself back around the Demon before diving back in to distract it.

A few moments later though, it managed to grab Felix once again, his arm this time. Severing it with an Instinct Blade Spell, Felix looked back and noticed Peace was struggling. Not only was the Demon stronger than any of them by a large margin, but Peace was exhausted and it managed to slip partially free.

“Sorry!” Peace gargled out as he wrapped himself back around the arm it had freed.

That happened again and again, with less time between each occurrence until Peace was so exhausted and drained, he had to revert and back off.

“THAKROGAN!”

Nova couldn’t hold it on her own and without a distraction, it could have done real damage to her so Felix mentally told her to back off as he flew around it like a fly. As with the Hydra, he did his best to overcome the difference in their speed by predicting Thakrogan’s moves before he made them.

Thakrogran was more Intelligent and aware though and so it was harder to predict.

Whenever he did get caught, by a blast of Fire breath or by its claws, he did his best to mitigate and minimize the damage before healing himself with the Blood RIng.

It was a losing battle though considering how often Felix was taking damage because he couldn’t heal himself forever. Although, his Mana Skin was helping tremendously and blocked easily four fifths of the damage he would have been taking, if not more. It was just so much damage at once, his Mana Skin was being completely overwhelmed.

Melody did her best to buff Felix and distract it but it wasn’t enough.

Even with Felix’s monstrous base stats, buffed both by his Mana Channels which were pumping as much Mana as fast as they could and his Reaper’s Movement, Body and Instinct pushed to their limit, it wasn’t enough to overcome the Demon’s stats. He was just happy it didn’t seem to have any other weird abilities from being an Ancient creature, like the Ashound had.

To buy himself some time, he began completely focusing on Instinct Casting Force Blasts to move himself and its limbs as much as possible.

Then, Adaline yelled out from somewhere way off behind him, “Felix, here!”

He knocked its hand aside with an Instinct Force Blast and spun his head to look, immediately understanding what was happening. Turning back to Thakrogan, he began swerving and annoying it as much as possible while everyone else backed off. He slowly made his way in the direction Adaline had indicated as he funneled almost all the Mana he had left into preparing a single Spell. Everything he didn’t need for that Spell, went into keeping its attention on him, even if that meant taking damage and healing it back afterwards.

Once he was close enough, Felix almost chuckled at the massive mine she had planted in the ground and the fact that they were all at least a kilometer away by that point. He led it ever closer until it was nearly on top of it but Felix refused to leave anything to chance so, he cast two spells at the very same instant. One Instinct Force Blast to activate the mine and the other, the Spell he had spent the majority of his Mana preparing.

From a few kilometers away, Felix instantly spun around and saw the same general explosion they had used to take down the Giant except this one, was much bigger and used much less Mana. It left nothing behind.

Ding You have slain [B - Ancient] Thakrogan (Lvl 2004)

Ding You have gained 38 levels in [C - Ancient] Reaper (1948 => 1986)

Phew.

Melody appeared next to him, having been the closest to his destination, “The fact that you can just vanish and appear somewhere else like that is nuts by the way. Have I ever told you that?”

“I call it Translocation. Yes. Many times in Osgard.” He turned to Melody, his joy that the fight was finally over leaking through into a smirk on his face.

Adaline and Peace flew over and joined them as Melody nodded, “That’s one way to kill something. Not as flashy as a Judgement Skill.”

“Like Romar’s Judgement of the Stars? Is that a Skill line like Domain and Strike?”

Peace nodded, “It’s a line off finishers. Big finishers.”

“We did it!” Melody jumped up and down, unable to contain herself while the rest of them mostly just watched.

“You doubted us?” Felix cocked a brow.

“Well, it was pretty impressive killing that thing with just four of us.” Peace smirked, “Including Nova.”

Melody immediately stopped jumping and smacked Peace, “Not you too.”

He chuckled as they all flew over to the chest and opened it.

[B - Ancient] Crown of the Arch Fiend

[Ancient][Dark][Demonic][Soulful][Spirit]

A helm fashioned from the skull of Thakrogan, the Arch Fiend, Ruler of the Fiends. It contains a portion of his endless rage and imbues the wearer with the ability to gain massive Strength at the cost of going into an uncontrollable rage. It additionally emits the same Aura Thakrogan once did when he was alive.

“I see the tags are just as useless as always. Thanks System.” Peace snorted.

This thing is… subtly weird. Its fashioned from Thakrogran’s body and Soul but, Zeraxes, Romar and Il Doras all got the same thing. Even The System can’t replicate a Soul, how do these things exist? How is The Abyss recreating the enemy and this over and over again? Also, I can feel this uncontrollable rage thing is like an infection on the wearer’s Soul. It’s so different from most System equipment.

Peace was mildly interested in trying the Crown so they all agreed to give it to him, Felix only agreeing because he trusted Peace’s Soul strength and senses.

With the two doorways open in front of them, not one of them moved on to the next floor as they all walked out in a line back into the arena.

As much as they weren’t the favorites, Felix was expecting cheering and applause. They were still amongst the fastest and they had dedicated fans that annoyed him constantly. On top of that, their personal fanbase had been growing ever since Adaline popped out of The Realms and started cruising through floors.

The raucous applause he heard though as he stepped back into the arena was far more than he was expecting. Looking up at the crowd through the glass ceiling of the tunnel though, he realized no one was actually looking at them. A few moments later, he heard a massive boom echo out from the arena as the entire ground shook.

The others in his party all looked around, except Nova who was asleep on Felix’s shoulder and could care less, to see if the others knew what was happening.

Seeing as they were all confused, they sped up and rushed out of the arena and into the stands where they saw two individuals were fighting each-other in the arena.

One of them, looked to be made of metal. His entire body made up of tiny strips of metal that interlocked to form a complete, humanoid body. As they rose from the ground where there was a crater behind them, they began glowing as the interlocked plates shifted open and bright rays of yellow-white starlight poured out from the gaps.

[B - Ancient] Romar (Lvl 2402)

The other individual was recognizably Zeraxes who now wore a set of brilliant blue, sleeveless robes that hung down to his ankles. It otherwise seemed rather non descript.

[B - Divine] Zeraxes (Lvl 2326)

Leaping off the ground, Romar snatched Zeraxes out of the air and threw him downwards, blasting him with a beam of Fire before he even hit the ground.

“Looks like they got their Echos.” Melody said in a rather dejected tone.

Felix groaned, “You know what they do?”

Melody shrugged.

“I do.” Peace pointed towards Romar, “That thing was meant to be a prison. It’s supposed to reflect all the Energy you put out back into you. It was supposed to be inescapable torture. Mirror Cell.”

Which, for a Star, effectively just multiplies its energy. Great.

He moved his arm and pointed at Zeraxes, “Those robes are inexplicably connected to a number of other robes in other universes. It regenerates his Mana from those universes, not to mention the fact that it’s a 50 billion Mana battery. Transcendent River.”

That’s… I wonder how hard that would be to steal…

Felix scoffed, “I get the first name I guess but, how are you supposed to know they’re robes with a name like ‘Transcendent River’?”

He chuckled, “I wondered the exact same thing when I read about it in The Reaper’s Archive.”

“Alright. I think its time I find a way to get stronger myself.” He turned to Melody and Peace, “You guys coming?”

They both nodded and all three of them headed straight to The Realms of Annihilation, while Adaline, headed off to sleep.