Passing through the barrier of The Realms wasn’t like passing through a bubble at all. Felix was somewhat distracted by what had happened as he passed through it but it immediately grabbed his attention and he focused every sense he had. This time, he didn’t move through the Aether, Ambient Anima or space, he moved from one space to another. Not a true sub space, a whole separate universe with its own space-time.
He expected that, considering the nonsensical time dilation where there was seemingly no relation between the time of The Realms and the real world. Melody had said people leave no less than 1 minute and no more than 1 hour from when they entered. Felix had no idea how that worked even with his knowledge of space but he did know enough that he was almost certain it had to be its own universe.
Passing through it though was not what he expected at all. The first thing that happened was that he felt a strong force pulling on him from every direction. It wasn’t painful but it was a weird feeling as the matter of his body was disassociated from his original space and essentially left orphaned in the void. Without an anchor or way to get back, he would effectively be lost.
As soon as that happened, the passage of time for him, the matter in his body, his brain and so on were no longer tied to anything. Up until that point in his memory, he had never experienced a no time place. Now though, he knew what that meant and how much he had been relying on that. His body and brain were suddenly jumping forwards then remaining completely still as they tried to move but didn’t have a concept of when or how.
That only lasted for a few moments as he then felt his entire body being pulled once again and this time, he was entangled with a new space, attached and pulled into its space-time.
Then, it was over and Felix was left standing in the middle of a small grassy field just a few meters away from a packed dirt road.
Okay, definitely need to figure that out. Rhonan clearly did considering he was fighting outside of time.
Communication with other Mark nodes is impossible, communication relies on time. We’ve detached the puppeteer souls and put them in stasis.
Yeah, that makes sense. I didn’t even consider the lack of synchronized time. What about Melody, Peace and Cob’s nodes?
Those are actually blocked. Mark can signal the nodes outside but it’s all a jumbled mess. The others in here are completely hidden from him, he can’t even detect them.
Okay. Mark, we’ll look into time independent communication later. How long until we need to attach new nodes to the network?
Mark responded immediately, 486 days with a standard deviation of 14 days.
Okay, we have everything to do that so we should be fine. Felix pulled Nova from his Soul Space now that he had landed and tossed her to the side where she floated in the air next to him, still asleep.
Felix quickly surveyed his surroundings and checked in on everything he had planned to. First, he couldn’t see any bubble or edge to The Realm but he fully planned on checking for one soon. The Aether and Ambient Anima were just like they were in the outer realm, dense, active and structured in way he had never experienced anywhere else.
Lastly, there was The Soul Vault. He quickly poked it physically and spiritually but it didn’t give in the slightest. Then, he spent a brief moment examining it before he was interrupted.
Realm 1
Welcome to The Realms.
(1/?) Explore the realm
That was delayed.
Just a short distance down the dirt road, he could see a fairly large looking city with a wall around the outside hosting guards and enchantments. He figured that was where he was supposed to head but this was his first realm and as far as he could tell, there was no time limit so instead, he flew off in a random direction to find the edge of the realm.
It took him just a few minutes to find the edge which was more like the edge of his Pocket Home than the edge of the World Event on Trenus.
On the way back towards the city he had seen, he also killed a small herd of grazing animals and consumed their bodies and Souls so he could find out how real they were. As soon as he did though, there was no doubt in his mind they were as real as any other person. They’re bodies were biologically similar and their Souls were denser, more aligned, more will full and more complex than what he expected.
He hadn’t seen enough that he could say definitively they had stronger Souls, especially since he had never seen a Quomoussow ever outside of that realm. What he really needed was to examine sapient’s Souls but he wasn’t going to just slaughter any sapients just yet.
For the first Realm, he had already decided to participate and play the game to the best of his abilities. He would do everything it wanted him to do, the way it wanted him to do it. Then, he would be able to evaluate what kind of rewards he got and whether or not it was worth it in the future.
From what he had been told, he could have just wiped out the city but he wasn’t exactly sure how that made any sense.
Approaching the city, Felix maintained his Persona so he could explore the city then, if he had to, he could come back in his real body if he accidentally missed some specific custom or traditional greeting. He didn’t want to approach as a nearly naked barbarian though so, he used his Class Innate, Reaper’s Mantle to provide a cloak and exsanguinated himself at various locations to provide himself a full set of crimson plate armor.
Walking up to the gate, there was already a long line of people waiting to get in. Most of them were farmers, traders and normal citizens but scattered amongst them were more than a few armored warriors and robed casters which meant he didn’t look entirely out of place.
Though he had to wait in line for over an hour to finally get in, Felix had no issues walking into the city. The guards simply asked if he was immigrating or visiting and when he said visiting, they let him in without issue. Those that said immigrating, had to provide papers and those with goods, provided permits and had their goods inspected which was why the line had moved so slowly.
Inside the city wall, Felix stepped along a cobblestone road and looked around at a city that was like a spritzed up medieval city. The buildings were solid and made of evenly cut bricks, the roads and alleys were clean and maintained and in general, the overall hygiene was very good. There was no persistent smell of shit and death like he expected of a medieval city. It reminded him very much of the ruins he had turned into Tripeak-Valley, especially when he laid his eyes upon the large stone castle that lay in the center of the city.
In the line up outside of the city, Felix had spotted just a few sapients that looked like adventurers making him feel a little more comfortable in his full blood plate and cloak of shadow. Inside the city though, he didn’t worry about standing out at all as he passed by multiple squads of armored soldiers scurrying around along with hundreds of adventurers on every street.
The only way he could differentiate them, was the fact that the soldiers wore mostly consistent armor emblazoned with the flag of the city and painted in their colors. The adventurers, had more varied equipment.
“Oi! You! Big man in the red armor!”
Felix frowned and looked over at the source of the voice calling out to, he assumed, him.
[C - Epic] Androlir Hammerchest (Lvl 1019)
A real dwarf? Felix stared at the short and burly man with a massive bushy beard hauling a massive pile of crates into his shop.
“If ye help me haul all this into me smithy ’fore some bald chinned thief comes round, I’ll sharpen yer weapon fer free.”
The only other dwarf I’ve ever even heard of was Brannock, part of The Hand that had fought Erolan…
“Oi, urry up er git. Yer muscles just fer show?”
Felix nodded and walked over, grabbing a crate in one arm then using the other to stack more crates on top of that. He didn’t use his Matter Control or any Spells to hover the crates in though he did use a subtle Force Spell to help make the crates lighter for the dwarf.
Once Felix started helping, they managed to move almost a hundred crates into the large smithy that was now, quite cramped, in a matter of minutes.
The dwarf, relieved to have the crates off the main road, where many of them had begun to fall off the pile and further from his shop, stretched his back as he groaned, “Thanks.”
Felix nodded, “No problem.”
The dwarf held out his hand, “Ye’ant me to sharpen yer weapon?”
Felix shook his head, “No need.”
The dwarf grunted then reached behind his counter and pulled out a small pouch and handed it to Felix, “Ere, ye were more elp an I spected.”
Gold coins? Really? Not credits… Does that mean… no System?
Felix shook his head and held up his hand, “How bout instead, you answer some questions of mine?”
The dwarf shrugged and tossed the pouch onto the table then walked over to one of the crates, “All do my best but I need to get moving on this order fore the King seizes my smithy.”
“Start there, I take it the order is to supply the army? Is there a war?”
“Ai. The Asgaris to the north are running low on food er since the trade pact fell through.”
“What trade pact?”
He furrowed his brow and looked up from the ingots he was unpacking, “Ere in the bloody mountain are you from?”
“Far.”
The dwarf squinted at him for a few moments then grunted, “Ye want the entire istory of the continent, you gotta elp me unpack these crates.”
Felix nodded and began helping as Androlir began to heat up the forge, “There’s Asgarin to the north. City built yond the icy mountains. Cold and dreadful. Harbath is to the east, Krannar to the south west. The mountain range makes it difficult to move from any of those countries, to any other cept, ight here, the kingdom of Redan.”
The dwarven blacksmith walked over and grabbed a couple of ingots and tossed them into the forge then kept stoking it, “Asgarin’s got scholar’s ’nd metal. Harbath’s got fish ’nd fruit. Krannar’s got livestock ’nd wood. Redan’s right in the middle of em all.”
The dwarf seemed happy with the temperature because he began tossing in ingots by the dozen until the forge was packed in tight, “Trade pact had Redan buy and resell from and to all the other countries. We also guard and maintain the roads and whatnot.”
“What happened?”
“Harbath used their ships to sail around and attack Krannar’s crops then cut off the food to try and starve us out. Now we don’t have enough food to eat which means we definitely don’t have enough to supply Androlir. They have no other option but to migrate south and what better place to settle than the captured ruins of a kingdom.”
That seems… silly.
Sounds like a naive interpretation of political affairs.
Probably.
Boom.
Felix looked over at the forge and Androlir who was crouched down to avoid the spew of molten metal from the forge.
“Son of a…” Androlir got to his feet and hopped around the puddles of molten metal on the floor over to the forge where he began to clean it out.
“What was that?”
“Damn ingots are defective.”
“All of them?” Felix looked over at over a hundred crates piled up in the smithy.
“Nah, just enough to be annoying.”
“How many?”
“One in every… ten or twelve or so?”
Felix reached over towards the pile of ingots and ran his hand along the top of them, reaching out with his Matter and Mana Senses. As he suspected, he found small enchantments embedded within a few of the ingots designed to explode when heated.
Picking them out of the pile, Felix began placing them aside, “Let me guess, these defective ingots started appearing a few years ago?”
“Ai. 4 years er so. They weren’t so bad at first, un in every hundred or more.”
“Not enough to be a real issue and require any kind of infrastructure to deal with. Then they became progressively more common as soon as you got used to them?”
“Ai. The King’s Mages ave been pulling as many as they can but they’re overworked and miss too many of them. It was only in the last year or so that they became so common that they make it hard for me to work.”
“You get your ingots from Asgarin?”
“Ai.” The dwarf walked over and examined one of the ingots Felix had put aside, frowning at it, “Are ye sure-”
“Yes.”
“I…” He grunted and carefully returned the potentially exploding ingot to the pile then retrieved a few from the pile Felix had sorted through and carried them over to the forge.
This seems… I guess it’s the first floor. This isn’t that complicated. Either Harbath is acting on their own or they found a way to sail to Asgarin. They’ve been trading directly for some time and Asgarin’s been planning this for a while. They’ve undermined the metal their trading, using exploding ingots to distract from the fact that they’ve softened the metal through enchantments and mixed in a number of other, less robust materials.
Grabbing one of the exploding ingots, Felix sucked out the Mana and used his Matter Control to shape it into a rod. Then, he used it to engrave a series of enchantments into the wand. It was efficient enough to not need anything more than the Ambient Mana, especially given how dense the Aether was in The Realms.
It took him less than a minute to finish the wand which he then tossed to a wary and confused Androlir. He scrambled to either catch or avoid the rod, he couldn’t seem to decide which until it finally landed in his arms and he relaxed when it didn’t explode.
“Point it at an ingot. I’m gonna go talk to the King about the other ingots.”
Androlir looked at the pile he had thought was safe and frowned, “The other ingots? Why?”
I wonder if there’s some block on their intelligence or ingenuity because it’s the first floor. A normal C or even D grade should have figured this out by now.
Ducking through the door to the smithy, Felix stepped out into the street and approached the castle in the center of the city.
Felix hadn’t expected to be in the first Realm for over 3 years. He had wanted to fully engage with the floor and complete the quest to the fullest but his quest screen had never gotten any more descriptive. So, he did what he thought would be most appreciated and began helping not just the kingdom of Redan but the entire continent.
Firstly, Asgarin had been preparing for war and he had to thwart that which, he managed to do without a single drop of blood. Then, Redan was too reliant on trade and not self sufficient enough so he helped them setup farms which, they had seemingly never thought of though he suspected that was due to restrictions of the realm.
After that, he helped establish new alliances between the countries as well as new infrastructure, after usurping a few problematic authoritarian governments and replacing them with less problematic authoritarian governments.
The fact that time passed weirdly in the Realm comforted him a little bit but at the same time, he wasn’t sure if it made a difference to the Endless Hunger outside their universe which, wasn’t attached to any time.
For the time being though, he was more than ready to move on to the next realm, especially considering how many he had to get through. He definitely thought that even if he had infinite time, there was no way he was fully engaging with every scenario unless he got some kind of ridiculous loot.
Luckily, he was about to find out what that reward could be as he stood in the throne room before The King of Redan.
“Felix. You have helped not just this kingdom, but this continent achieve heights I couldn’t even have dreamed of. Not only are we more well equipped but you have helped us forge alliances and taught each and every one of us. I cannot speak for everyone but you have inspired me to be a better ruler,” He looked over at his daughter who was standing next to his throne, “a better father,” He looked back at Felix, “A better person.”
The king stood and stepped down the small set of stairs to the stage that held his throne, “The day the Hero Knight Arthur, died, I thought us doomed. You have lifted me and this kingdom, from the darkest of times.”
He walked forwards until he was just a few meters from Felix, “I will never be able to rule this nation with the honor and intellect you have displayed over the last couple of years. So, it is my honor, to offer you the kingdom of Redan.”
Felix couldn’t help but let his eyes dart to the King’s daughter given what the King was offering. Her face was frozen, eyes wide and reddening by the second.
“I appreciate the offer but I must decline. I wish to travel the rest of the world and visit lands beyond the ocean and I firmly believe, despite your confidence in my abilities, there is another more suited to lead this kingdom than I.” Felix turned his head to the king’s daughter and the king looked back at her almost as if he hadn’t realized she was there.
Looking at her, his face shifted, like he hadn’t really considered the idea ever before but the more he thought about it, the more he agreed.
As part of Felix engaging with the scenario to the best of his ability, he had forged alliances and built out farms and supply routes to ensure the future of the kingdom. He had also trained and taught the king’s daughter, Ellamine, preparing her to succeed her father and making sure she didn’t completely ruin the kingdom in doing so.
Then, he subtly began implanting the idea of women being competent rulers into the king’s mind by engineering scenarios where female soldiers were forced into commanding positions, helped them purchase land and so on. Finally, he made sure the kind was aware of his daughter’s accomplishments and knowledge, though never directly through himself.
He was sure the king wouldn’t notice as no one on the first floor seemed remotely capable but he was betting the floors would become less easy the further he delved and so he was treating it like practice.
“I think…” The king nodded to himself then turned back to Felix, “Your wisdom humbles me once again.” The king actually bowed, causing about half the packed room to gasp.
When he rose, he nodded mostly to himself then walked back over to the throne, “In that case.” He sat down, “Allow me to offer you something to aid you in your travels across the world.”
[B - Special] Boots of the Whispering Wind
[Soulful][Spirit]
Step through the wind itself, silencing your steps and moving without resistance across any terrain, with haste.
The boots were short and made of a light blue and grey leather and despite the effect being essentially useless to him, it was one of the most exciting items he had seen in a long time. As far as he could tell, there was no enchantment on the boots and instead, the effect was entirely created through the Anima embedded within them.
“In addition to this, I hereby pronounce Felix Kade, The Guardian of Posterity”
One of the nobles from the side of the room stepped forwards, seeming almost reluctant to do so, “Sire, but you can’t. As much as I appreciate everything this man has done for us, this title is reserved for nobles.”
The king smiled, “In that case, I hereby grant Felix Kade a patch of land within my own garden, making him not just a noble, but a royal noble.”
“But sire, he is not of noble birth.”
The King frowned at the man, his frustration leaking out onto his face.
Another of the nobles stepped forwards, “Sire, if I may. If Felix were to be named a knight, he has already accomplished the necessary feats to overcome the limit of his unknown bloodline.”
The King smiled once again, “An excellent idea Andrasoth. I hereby pronounce Felix Kade, The Knight of Hope, Royal Noble of the Garden and Guardian of Posterity.”
Congratulations!
You have received 3 new titles.
The Knight of Hope, Royal Noble of the Garden, Guardian of Posterity
No descriptions of the titles… interesting.
Felix took a knee respectfully and as he stood, everyone in the room except for the king this time, bowed to him. Even the princess bowed her head in his direction.
With his new boots in hand, he walked out of the throne room and headed back to Androlir’s smithy to pick up his familiar.
Being where he was, Felix generally avoided using his speed, strength, flight or magic to not surprise people too much and so he fit in a little easier. Only moving at the pace of normal C grades though made it quite easy for Ellamine to catch up to him.
“Felix! Wait!”
He turned and pretended he was somewhat surprised to see her then waited for her to catch up.
“Are you really leaving? Now?”
He nodded, “I’ve spent quite some time here. There’s much of this world still out there for me to explore.”
“Take me with you.”
“You know I can’t do that. Your kingdom needs you.”
“My father can keep the kingdom. I want to go with you.”
He smiled warmly and put on the best act he could, “I cannot stop you if you decide to leave but you would be failing your people. You know that. Your father is a good man and a good king. You will be a great queen. Can you really leave when you know how much you could help each every Redanian?”
She sulked a little, “Stay. You don’t have to marry me if you don’t want to- I mean you could if you… you’d have to you know, court me… at least a little bu-”
“One day, I will return.” Felix placed his hand on her shoulder, “I think I would very much like to settle down in a place like this.” He looked wistfully off into the distance, “But for now, the undiscovered wonders of the world are calling to me.”
She opened her mouth to speak but before she could, Felix activated his Spatial Translocation spell and vanished. He really didn’t mind completely lying to her but he didn’t want to waste any more time than necessary.
Hurrying through the streets, moving faster than he ever had in the Realm while others could see him, Felix made his way to the smithy. A massive building that took up an entire block on the main road of the city. Despite that, it wasn’t a pretty building. It was industrial and functional. Stepping inside, the interior was much of the same with forges and ingots everywhere, a few weapons and suits of armor strewn about but none of them ready for sale.
It was a forge for a blacksmith to make things with not a single other use-case taken into account in its design.
Walking over to the back corner of the shop, Felix found Androlir and Nova exactly where he expected them to be, at the single largest forge in the shop. It completed dwarfed the other forges both in size and in the amount of heat it was producing and subsequently dumping into the room.
Noticing him approach, Nova meowed then hopped out of the forge and shook herself off, spraying molten metal and heat in every direction before leaping over and landing on Felix’s shoulder with only a slight warmth to her.
“Are ye sure ye have to go lad?”
“Yes. There’s a whole world out there to discover.”
He solemnly nodded as he finished whatever he was doing with the forge and turned to nod at him, “Well, if you’re ever back in Redan, make sure you come see ol’ Androlir, yeah?”
“Of course.”
Felix could sense Androlir watching him leave with a lot more emotion than he felt himself in doing so.
From the smithy, he traveled down the road towards the wall but just a block from the wall, he turned down a side street and slipped into a non descript building that could have been someone’s house or an abandoned shop. The inside, reflected its outward appearance perfectly with a thick layer of dust settled on every surface and creating a mist in the air.
Over in a corner, where two legs of a table had long since broken off littering the floor in clutter, Felix stepped right into the pile of clutter and fell completely through it. It wasn’t an illusion, that would have been far more complicated. Instead, the area was phased out of space briefly so he could pass through.
Underneath the building, he fell hundreds of meters into the ground then followed a branching tunnel off towards the largest room at the end. There, he found dozens of individuals all wearing some amount of plate armor. Some of them had removed their helms so they could speak. Others, had removed their breastplates and gauntlets so they could handle their cards easier.
Walking across the large room, Felix collected his things and placed them into his Soul Space. He collected books, machines, armor and weapon prototypes, clothing, ritual diagrams and everything else he had been working on.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
No one stopped or questioned him at all. By the time he had everything collected, no one was really paying any attention to him anymore.
He left the room, walked back down the hall but didn’t get more than a dozen meters before he was stopped.
[B - Epic] Fiona (Lvl 2103)
She stood in the middle of the hall, without any plate armor, and blocked his path.
“You didn’t really think you could just leave without saying goodbye, did you?”
“You seem so busy nowadays, I wasn’t sure you’d notice.” He teased.
Her mouth opened in response but nothing came out then, she closed her mouth and looked almost embarrassed.
Felix felt a pang of longing for Melody’s quick wit, “You’ve got a lot going on as the new head of The Order.”
She nodded, “Yeah… I do. I still could have spent more time… I could be more attentive.”
He placed his hand on her shoulder, “You worry too much. I chose you for a reason.”
“I know.” She hung her head.
He directed her back into her open office and closed the door behind him.
She slumped down into the chair behind her desk and groaned, “How am I supposed to manage an entire secret order without you?”
“You already are. I haven’t really done anything in the last epoch.”
“Yeah I- I mean… you were still here. And what about when Medaric almost outed us to try and justify his murder in front of the king, you stepped i-”
“Fiona. You’re twice as strong, knowledgeable and capable as you were when I first met you and that was when I chose you for this role.”
She opened her mouth then closed it again.
“You may not deal with things the same way I would but that’s okay. You have your own way of dealing with things and I trust you.”
She nodded, “When you founded The Crimson Knights… did you feel just as lost I do now?”
He nodded, “Of course.” Lying instantly, “I knew what I wanted done and had a goal in mind but I didn’t know how to make people work together. How to make sure they stayed hidden and remained honorable. How to ensure their cause was just.”
In reality, it was a trivial plan to execute. It was one his Mind Residents had come up with and another one of the ways he was trying to leave the realm a better place than when he entered. It was one of the ways he was trying to get the best possible grade in the realm, not that he was being graded but that was how he was treating it.
As part of that goal, there was just one last thing he had to do.
Stepping towards her desk, Felix produced a longsword in his hand from his Soul Space. It had a simple shape with a long straight blade, a simple cross guard and a basic leather handle. It was perfectly balanced and the blade was covered in an intricate enchantment so fine and dense, it looked like it was part of the metal itself.
“Is that…”
She rose from her seat in a trance as she walked around the desk and approached him, her widened eyes never leaving the blade.
“It’s yours.”
“I-” She stammered.
He reached out and lifted her hand to hold the blade then let go of it himself and stepped back.
“But this… this is…”
Felix only heard her voice with his Perception from halfway up the vertical shaft back into the building above.
It wasn’t a very special sword in the sense that it was one of the worst enchanted items Felix had made since arriving but that made sense considering it was the first one. It was a very special sword in the sense that it was one of the most significant weapons to the people of Redan. It was the sword he had wielded as Arthur, the founder of The Order and the original Crimson Knight.
He had improved it since the day he had had Nova create it for him and had since modified it to live up to the legends and rumors that had spread, adding new abilities and enchantments along the way.
Now, there wasn’t much more iterating he could do without recreating the entire thing because he had reached the limit of the material without imbuing a significant amount of Anima into it. He had little attachment to the sword and knew he was giving it away though so he didn’t bother.
Back in the city, he headed through the outer wall and walked down the dirt road, gradually increasing his speed back to his normal levels until he arrived at a completely out of place, roadside inn.
Stepping inside, he ignored the front desk and headed directly to a specific room, the Crimson Knights sitting around the door remaining where they were. They didn’t stop him as they would anyone else as he stepped inside towards the iridescent bubble floating in the air.
Without hesitation, he stepped forwards and touched the bubble, instantly vanishing from the room and the first realm.
The next was a much shorter venture, even though he continued to fully engage with the floor scenario. It was a combat focused floor and all he really had to do was help a small village deal with a local herd of Dire Wolves. On average, the village was around level 1900 and the Dire Wolves were around level 2200 but they just saw the wolves as a threat they couldn’t overcome.
Not because of the levels though, Felix had quickly realized on the last floor, that the people inside The Realms, didn’t know anything about The System. It didn’t give them a Class or Profession or Skills. They couldn’t identify creatures or items and they simply increased in strength the normal way, through training.
They weren’t as useless as Earth humans though, they seemed to still gain stats as they trained but their strength wasn’t tied to how many monsters they had killed at all.
If they just had better skills, they would be considered some of the strongest people in the multiverse for their levels. Not nearly Romar or Zeraxes level but stronger than Shade’s Wrath or any of the other more impressive adventurers in the guild.
The skills they did have, were entirely based around either enchantments or effects they could create and direct with their Souls. It was rare and Felix only saw a couple simple strike abilities but they were definitely something akin to skills.
With the village, he helped them train. Not to increase the level The System displayed to him when he identified them but to teach them how to protect themselves.
He taught them strategy, which somehow broke through their mental block, taught them how to use basic weapons and helped them build palisades. He provided them with material and blueprints so they could bolster their homes and continue to grow in the future, beyond the problem of the wolves.
Then, he fought with them. Helping them kill the wolves and making sure none of them were gravely injured or died.
In total, it only took him a 60 days, much less than the first floor had taken him but he still managed to collect two titles and a village heirloom, a Soulful Cooking Pan.
Nucleus, I take it these titles are working?
Yes, definitely. For now, just keep collecting them. The more you get, the closer you’ll be to getting a custom Class and the clearer the next steps will become.
Felix nodded and touched the iridescent bubble that had appeared and moved on to the next realm.
That was a resource realm, a realm where he had to find a way to gather a specific resource. Even though it was just the third realm, Felix leaned on his Mind Residents to try and maximize his rewards. He continued to lean on them in the fourth realm about a local herd of animals, the fifth realm about a minor dispute between the blacksmiths and the restaurants of a town, the sixth realm in an ancient ruin filled with puzzles.
After that he led an army into a new land, outlining and executing a strategic plan he had rigorously tested and simulated. Then there was a wide spread disease he completely fell back on his Mind Residents for because as much as he was familiar with his own body, healing people and creating drugs was completely outside of his personal knowledge. Then he taught some kids to read, arranged trade deals and finally helped a professor at a magical college with his thesis on methods of layering enchantment to minimize interference and maximize efficiency and efficacy.
Then, he was back to a political scenario, 12 realms later.
Out of the at least 2000 he was planning on completing, 12 realms was barely anything. It was however, a very noticeably different realm from the first realm.
The average level was higher, slightly but the average person was still only level 1350 or so with some of the elites as high as 2400. They were just estimates based on their bodies and skills but they were still a decent measure, especially when used in measuring average overall strength of the realm residents. That part wasn’t that noticeable though because even the highest level residents of the thirteenth realm were much weaker than Felix.
The noticeable part, was the lightening of the mental block he had noticed on the first floor. They were still obviously hindered but noticeably less so. The political issue he had to deal with was more complicated and people were more aware, sharper.
It made it harder for him to just do whatever he wanted but not enough that he struggled with the scenario. It wasn’t even enough to make it particularly challenging, but it was enough to make it more fun. In fact, Felix would have found the whole thing quite entertaining, if it didn’t take so long for events he set in motion to play out.
If he were smarter, more politically oriented or even just more in tune with people, like Melody, he knew he could have finished the floors, especially the political ones, much faster.
He didn’t totally mind how long it was taking though because he was able to train uninterrupted for quite some time.
In the first epoch of the first floor, he had already shifted all of his most common Spells into instinct casts. After that, he began developing new Spells which was a long and slow process. At the same time, he got back into enchanting now that he had more time and began rapidly progressing on that front. Then, he explored rituals and wards which he hadn’t spent nearly as much time with.
All of that gave him knowledge and experience that he applied back to his Spells. It helped but it still wasn’t enough for him to achieve what he really wanted which seemed almost out of reach.
The fact that he had so much time made him more willing to explore other avenues and fields in the meantime.
His time wasn’t infinite though. In the 44th realm, he had waited before doing anything in the hopes of getting more information but he quickly realized that was wrong. If he waited too long, the scenario still played out before him. The army would still engage and fight the other army. If he waited, he wouldn’t be able to do or change anything and he wasn’t even sure how he would then get to the next realm.
On all the previous realms, he had done something towards the scenario of the realm and a bubble had appeared. It then remained where it was until he used it.
If he simply did nothing and the city he was supposed to help was wiped out, he wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t be stuck forever in the realms.
Upon realizing that, he began to wonder if that was how The Realms had actually gotten their name. If participants weren’t actually being annihilated, but they were instead stuck in a realm indefinitely because they had failed. If that was the case, it made it much scarier moving on to the next realm because even if he was confident he wasn’t going to die, he had to be certain he could do enough for the exit to appear at all.
Laying still on the hard and flat stone altar below him, Felix leaned his head back and breathed in euphorically, or at least made it seem like he was. He also made his body tremble and sweat a little, like he was slightly nervous but determined to see things through.
Standing above him, a man in dark blue robes held a large knife pointed over Felix’s heart.
“Are you ready, to be reborn?”
“I’m ready.” Felix said with conviction.
The man stretched upwards, then sunk the dagger into Felix’s chest with all the force he could muster, “We will see you soon, brother.”
Felix manually stopped the heart on the left side of his chest and paled his skin, pulling his circulatory system further from his flesh and making it impossible to find.
As he feigned his death, the man who had supposedly killed him removed the dagger from his heart then checked his pulse multiple times to verify he was dead. Once he was certain, he backed up a step from the altar and knelt in prayer along with all the acolytes around the outside of the room.
A few seconds passed. Then a few minutes passed. Felix began to wonder if anything was going to happen when suddenly, he felt a new presence approach.
A being unlike the others in the room. A being with no warm blood. A being without flesh or organs at all. A being far more powerful than every other person in the room.
Felix waited patiently, dead, as the being approached the body, “You have done well, Cornelius. This one is strong.”
“Thank you master.”
Reaching down, master laid a bony hand on Felix’s chest, right over his fatal wound and began reaching inwards for his Soul.
Felix let him reach inwards, inching further and further until finally, he opened his eyes and grasped the being’s spine directly.
[B - Legendary] Nascent Lich (Lvl 2712)
“Gotcha.”
The Lich’s eye sockets didn’t move, but Felix could feel his utter shock that Felix was still alive as he manually healed the wound in his chest and reactivated his main heart, shifting his circulatory system back into place.
“You’re alive!?”
The Lich began preparing a Spell but Felix immediately cut him off, “Stop, I don’t want to kill you.”
“That would be quite the feat sin-”
Opening the Aether Tunnel next to him, Felix reached through and grasped the small glass cube containing a bright crystal and pulled it out, holding it before the Lich.
“MY-” He reached forwards and snatched at the phylactery but Felix was expecting that and he avoided the Lich’s grasp.
He opened his Kryptos Repository then dropped it inside, “Now, can we talk?”
“Foolish mortal, I will simply kill you an-”
“That pocket I just placed it in, is one of a trillion pockets. Only I know the correct sequence of runes to get to it. You know, considering all the necromancy you’ve done, that a memory as detailed as this would be lost if you killed me.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not. You might as well just hear me out though.”
The Lich physically relaxed his body as his Aura grew tenser, due to his emotional state, “Mortal arrogance…” He mumbled.
“This religion you’ve been creating, you need to stop.”
“Let me guess… I killed one of your f-”
“Shut up and listen. You’re going about this all wrong. You’ve angered multiple cities by kidnapping, killing and changing their citizens. As we speak, King Notor is meeting with Emperor Endregar and Matriarch Adenna to form a coalition to hunt you down. Do you know how long it’s b-”
“Impossible, Notor is and Adenna are mortal enemies ever since the divorce and Endregar has been trying to invade their territories every over month for the last three centuries.”
“You’ve managed to steal hundreds of people from each city and if you targeted randomly, it might not be an issue.” Felix gestured around him, “Instead, you went for the strongest bodies.”
“Of course, they make for the strongest followers.”
“You’re not wrong. They also bring the most unwanted attention.”
The Lich had somewhat relaxed over the course of the conversation, “You said I was going about this all wrong?”
“I did. You’re thinking about this all backwards. Instead of killing people and bringing them back to make them follow you, what if you simply brought back people who died and didn’t force them to follow you.”
“What would be the point? I bring them back to empower them, to make them stronger so they can serve m-”
“If you bring back a loved one, the entire family will dedicate their lives to you completely. If it’s their choice, the rulers can’t do anything about it.”
“This would take too lo-”
“How much time do you think you have until someone stops you? The way you’re going, you’ll only encounter more resistance every day. My way, you grow exponentially until all three cities fall to ruin because all their citizens have immigrated to the land where they can be immortal. Where they will never die. Where their parents will never die. Their spouses, children and friends.”
“I need them to die close to me, to be within…”
Felix just cocked a brow as he knew the mental block the realms had on the Lich had been broken. He waited and the Lich’s Intelligence began to kick in, “They would be forced to remain near me. I simply need to tell them the truth…”
“Exactly. I don’t know if you’re doing all this because you want to rule over people or because you’re lonely or because you hate the monarchs and it doesn’t really matter.”
The Lich slowly nodded, “The people of Mobessa see me as a monster. How do I change the views of an entire continent?”
“I’ll help you and in turn, you’ll help me.”
The Lich cocked his head, about the extent of his ability to express his emotions, “What do you want me to help you with?”
“We’re going to save the people of Mobessa.”
And you’re going to teach me everything you know about Souls and Magic.
The 211th realm was one Felix had expected to spend multiple epochs in because he didn’t see any other way to put the Lich in charge as the ruler of the entire continent peacefully. It was the best option in his mind, if a little out the box at first.
The scenario had started as a cult kidnapping citizens from a city then them returning, changed and significantly more powerful. From there, he learned it wasn’t just one city. He also learned that the citizens of all the cities were fairly miserable, although not much more miserable than any other medieval city with poor hygiene and dirty streets.
Once he figured out what was going on with the cult, the best solution became obvious. Especially once he had one of his Mind Residents infiltrate the cult by possessing one of the acolytes. The Lich, though misguided, wasn’t mean or abusive to his followers and seemed to overall be the best choice of ruler.
Luckily, relying heavily on his Mind Residents, Felix was able to slowly migrate people from each of the three cities into the Lich’s new city. He had to engineer a few famines and plagues but he made sure they were minor and only increased discomfort, not kill anyone.
At the end of just a single epoch, the exit to the Realm appeared and Felix was gifted the Lich’s cloak from when he had been alive. It was a Soulful item that moved to protect him, using the concept of hardness as it did. That wasn’t the most exciting reward for Felix though.
Congratulations!
You have received 3 new titles.
Guardian Angel, Herald of the Fallen, Protector of the Undead
Congratulations!
You have earned a Prime Title.
Wisdom of Undeath
A Prime Title? Grim, Nucleus?
No idea. Grim mentally shrugged.
Nucleus responded excitedly, I don’t know much but I know that helped a lot towards your custom Class.
When you say a lot…
If you manage to get just a few more of those, I can almost guarantee you’d get the Class.
What if I can get many more?
You’d get to create a phenomenal Class. Be careful though, the Prime Titles seem to be affecting the Class more than anything else.
What do you mean?
If you evolved now, you would probably be offered at least two Necromantic Classes and probably be offered multiple Lich races.
Oh shit, so I need to get Prime Titles that fit what I want the Class to look like?
Yeah.
Or…
Grim chuckled mentally, You get so many that it doesn’t matter.
Exactly.
Yes… The Nucleus hesitated, It’s risky though. Even if you have 100 Prime Titles, having just 4 or 5 that are undeath based will influence things a lot.
They’re also going to be harder to obtain as the realms become more difficult. Felix thought about it for a moment or two then smirked, Fuck it. I go for it on every floor. We’ll figure it out as we go. Nucleus, keep me up to date as things change. If you could let me know where my Custom Class is leaning, that would be great.
Will do. Unrelated but… I’m going to need a few more nodes in the next dekad.
What are you at now? 800?
1284 actually.
I think we need to find a way to make better nodes. First things first though, Nova, you finished with those crystals?
Meow!
Perfect. Is the new stencil finished?
Yes. Arysha replied.
Alright. Any changes to the designs?
Not since you last saw them. Much arguing. Nothing significant.
Alright. Well, hopefully I won’t need any of this by the time I leave these Realms so, should be good enough for now.
Felix sat down in the massive room the Lich had insisted on in its castle and began preparing all the crystals Nova had created using the stencil. He could have prepared them without the stencil and if he were preparing normal crystals, it would be better if he did.
These crystals were completely perfect though. Flawless in every way and he had even reached 100% efficiency which wasn’t entirely due to Mark. Mark had done everything he could calculating configurations but at a certain point, he was limited by the crystals from the tree.
Luckily, it had grown just as Felix had and began producing larger crystals.
At that point, there was no art in feeling out the crystal so instead, the more precise he was, the better. The stencil allowed him to be very precise in location, force and timing. More accurate than he could ever be without it, even with his Mind Residents measuring the timing in his Soul Garden through the dilation it provided.
Once all the crystals were prepared, Felix moved them over towards his Mana Core one by one. Then, he placed hundreds of crystals into precisely calculated locations forming three concentric spheres around his Mana Core, replacing the old inefficient crystals.
Then, the hardest step, he began forming pathways between all of the various crystals, each one with carefully calculated lengths and routes out of solid and dense Anima, which was relatively abundant in the Realms. Even with as little killing as he was doing, he had more than enough for just about any minor project he wanted. That abundance was also fueling his Mental World and allowing it to rapidly expand both in population and size.
Once everything was connected and inspected thousands of times by his Mind Residents and himself, Felix sat down and pulled a trickle of Mana through a dozen different crystals, producing a nuanced Fire Attunement.
It was natural and precise. Instead of just Fire it was Light, Heat, Oxygen, Fire, Force all tuned and carefully combined to create something that he found quite beautiful. Even without the Concept of Fire, this Fire seemed more real to him than his old Spells, even though he knew that was ridiculous. It was something about its complexity and the relative simplicity of his old Fire that made his old Fire seem fake in comparison.
Overall, the 211th realm was by far the most rewarding for Felix. Not only had he learned about and earned a Prime Title, but he had also massively improved his Mana Core and upgraded his Imbue Creation and evolved his Mold Corpse skills both to Legendary with the Lich’s help. His Replicate Construct Skill had also gained multiple tiers of proficiency from the knowledge he had gained and applied to it.
Happy with the results, Felix didn’t bother bidding the Lich farewell and simply touched the iridescent bubble to move on to the next realm.
Hunched over in rags that barely covered his groin and did nothing to keep the sand out, Felix continued walking along with thousands of others through the desert. On the horizon, he saw their destination, a rocky plateau that towered over the dunes of the desert, a royal perch.
The heat used to bother him but having as much control over his body as he had these days, he could regulate his internal body temperature easily within normal temperature ranges. Where he was, his regulation couldn’t ever be enough because even if his body could produce no heat, he would be too warm. Luckily, he simply placed a Spell within his body at multiple locations and kept them supplied with Cold Mana, allowing his blood to distribute the temperature throughout.
The people around him, his traveling companions, weren’t faring nearly as well. They were faring better than he would have without the Spell, they had grown up in the desert after all. Still, no amount of adaptation could save them from the desert sun.
Hopefully, they could fix that. It was that hope that moved their feet to take each and every next step. The hope that they could be free, done with the desert sun.
First, they had to greet the gatekeeper though.
Felix knew based on the pattern of the realms that this was a combat realm. He knew there would be a fight and if he avoided it, it would be hard and result in a lesser reward. The rest of the people traveling with him, an entire city in fact, had hoped they could avoid a fight.
Over the past few dekads, Felix had slowly convinced them that not only was it not possible to avoid a fight, but he gave them hope that it was possible they could win.
The combat realms were the hardest in Felix’s opinion. The goal was unclear, even the very first one had been hard to figure out. They were deceptively simple, combat meant fight. Usually that meant kill a thing or some things. In reality though, just flying over to the enemy and wiping them out only netted him minor rewards for the floor.
Training the people to fight and staying out of it offered better rewards, but only slightly. The middle ground, fighting with them and helping them also wasn’t the goal. His best guess by the 578th realm, was that he didn’t have to teach them to fight, but he had to find a synergy between him and the residents of the realm. On top of that, he realized around the low 100s, there was always a harder fight to be had.
He wasn’t sure what it had been with the Dire Wolves on the second floor but on the 578th, the city could have fought a swarm of scorpions led by a queen to escape through a small crevasse in the cliffs around the desert. He had managed to convince them though that even if they did escape from there, the Lord of the Desert would inevitably hunt them down. Either sending swarms of desert creatures after them or even worse, chasing them down herself.
“Can you believe we are doing this?” The man walking next to Felix leaned over and whispered hoarsely.
“We don’t have any other choice.”
“I know.” He coughed then lifted the cloth scraps he had wrapped around his face to protect his mouth from the sand, “Do you think we’ll survive?”
“Some of us will.” Felix intentionally looked over at a group of younger realm residents, “Those that do will live a better life than us.”
He nodded, “We fight for them.”
“We fight for us.” Felix corrected him, “We fight for our future. We fight because we shouldn’t have to.”
The man progressively grew taller as Felix spoke, his posture improving as his resolve was bolstered.
A few others around them had heard Felix, which was his intention and they nodded along.
“Here.” Felix offered the man his Adventurous Flask.
His eyes widened dramatically, “Where did you hide this? How did you keep this out of the offerings?”
“I buried it in the sand a long time ago. We only just passed over the same dune a few days ago.”
The man didn’t question the nonsense explanation and greedily drank from the flask. Then, he slapped it to the chest of the man next to him who excitedly randomized the contents then gulped down whatever it was. The next man in the chain did the same, promptly gagging up whatever it was immediately which caused a number of them to laugh at him.
They rotated the flask around the group for a few hours, quenching everyone’s thirst as best they could and raising their morales.
Finally, after two dekads of traveling through the desert, they arrived at the edge of the cliff face. Looking up to the top of the cliff, sat a massive creature with the body of a lion, large feathered wings and the face of a sapient. The face wasn’t humanoid at all though, it was a distinctly alien face of sharp protruding bones, multi-faceted eyes and a jaw that opened in two directions. To top it all off, she wore a crown atop her head that flowed back and formed the semblance of a mane on her shoulders.
[A - Ancient] Sphinx (Lvl 3021)
Her booming voice echoed out, actually rather pleasant sounding despite her face, “Welcome children of the desert. You have come to provide me with your offerings. Present them to me now.”
Though everyone saw Felix as just a random slave, part of their group, he had managed to manipulate things so he was one of the first to provide his offering. The second in fact.
The person before him approached and knelt down, reaching their hands above their head and presenting a slightly damaged scimitar that still held much of its enchantment. The Sphinx looked down from her perch far up in the sky and caused the scimitar to slowly float up from the slave’s hand, disappearing over the cliff.
Then, the slave scurried away and Felix stepped forwards. Except, he didn’t. Instead, he tripped on his first step, intentionally. Falling all the way onto his face. Then, he slowly picked himself back up, making it seem like he struggled desperately to do so. Then he stepped forwards a few times before tripping again, this time causing his foot to slip out to the side.
The sphinx was growing annoyed and by the third time he tripped, when he made it seem like he could no longer get back up, she arrogantly rose up to her feet and leapt off the cliff.
The slaves all scattered, to avoid being landed on.
“It seems you are too weak to continue as one of my scavengers. No matter, you will make up for this failing and provide me with a less than satisfactory snack.” She said as she reached towards him with her paw.
There was no plan to attack. There was no signal and no set up. At least, nothing anyone but Felix and his Mind Residents knew about. Even then, the most concrete part of their plan was to get the sphinx to the ground and using her arrogance seemed the obvious choice. Felix was the strongest so he was most likely to live after acting as bait.
He had enough Mind Residents disguised and scattered throughout the slaves to start a movement and provide the crowd with momentum so before the sphinx could touch him with her claws, they sprung into action.
Hundreds of explosions sounded out around the sphinx as the remote mines they had planted went off, scattering sand in every direction and completely obscuring the sphinx.
“Aargh! What is this?”
The sand was more helpful in a fight for the sphinx than it was for them, both because she could control sand somewhat and because simply flailing around blindly as a massive sphinx without hitting any allies was easier without allies. It did however, buy them some time which, they had ultimately decided was worth it considering she had an infinite amount of sand at her disposal anyways.
As the sand obscured her vision, Felix’s Mind Residents quickly disseminated weapons and armor to the slaves around them. They were specifically located throughout the crowd for this and each one of them had special senses so they could see through the sand.
Before the sphinx made any real moves, Felix was already darting between her legs for the second part of their plan, at least the current branch of it.
Finally, the sand began to swirl before it was pushed away by the sphinx’s control revealing thousands of armed slaves racing towards her.
“INSOLENT!”
She smashed her paw in one direction, sending sand and slaves flying in every direction. Simultaneously, the slaves on her other side leapt towards her, driving their spears, scimitars and picks into her massive body. She roared out and shook her body to get rid of them slightly shifting her feet in the sand.
From behind, some of his Mind Residents funneled all the Mana they had into a massive cannon with a ballista arrow in it and fired it into her backside. It sank in a meter then the barbs opened and the Mind Residents began anchoring the chain as best they could.
The goal wasn’t to hold it down, there was nothing significant to anchor it to.
As the sphinx pulled and resisted against it though, it shimmied and planted its feet to get the right footing which was exactly what they were hoping for.
The Spells were already prepared and everyone was already in position so they immediately cast everything. From all around the sphinx, a dozen jets of flame began to roast her feet, or rather the sand around her feet while simultaneously, Felix maintained a dozen streams of his own.
Not only did he target her feet but he also targeted all the sand beneath her, melting and fusing all of it together.
She roared, either in pain or in realization of what they were doing. As she did, clearly distracted by their actions, the slaves all screamed in response and charged her. They slashed and stabbed at her, leapt and climbed her and caused as much damage as they could.
Even though the glass wasn’t solid, it still slowed her movements drastically so even as she ripped her front paw free, they had more than enough time to dodge and avoid her attack.
As she responded to the pests on her back, Felix and the Residents switched to Cold Spells to quickly chill the glass and hopefully solidify it.
Noticing her other paws being frozen in place, she roared once again and the sand that hadn’t turned to glass exploded upwards and began to swirl up into a storm.
From beneath her stomach, Felix began unleashing a torrent of Spells into her underside. Now that they were all instinct casts, Felix cast hundreds of Spells simultaneously, making certain he cycled through various elements to minimize the time Mana spend Attuning itself when his cores refilled themselves.
She tried to attack him but with just one paw, her best hope was to use the sand and that wasn’t particularly effective when Felix could trivially surround himself in a Force Bubble Spell.
She was annoyingly durable though and even with his improved Spells from his nuanced Attunements, he didn’t seem to be affecting her much with each Spell. The damage was adding up, but slowly.
If The Dragon is 1000 levels up on this thing, I need to massively improve my everything even more than I already have.
Felix heard yelling, barely over the sound of the storm around him, and through his Mind Residents he knew the slaves were remounting their attack. Now that the sphinx’s legs were restrained, they had free reign to do as much damage as they could through the storm.
“YOU SERVE ME! I AM THE LORD OF THE SAND! BOW! ARGH! STOP THAT!”
No one listened as they continued to whittle their way through her thick hide.
“Please, no more. I- ARGH! It hurts- I don’t want- I- ARGH! I DON’T WANT TO DIE!”
Huh… I think that’s the first monster I’ve fought that’s begged for their life.
No. Grim responded, On floor 173 there was that forest of Tree monsters.
Oh right, I forgot because I didn’t understand them at the time.
Ding You have slain [A - Ancient] Sphinx (Lvl 3021)
Well, should get a couple normal titles at least. That definitely wasn’t-
Congratulations!
You have received 3 new titles.
Freedom of the Sand, Tyrant Disposal, Sphinx Vanquisher
3? I’ll take it. Although they do keep getting less… title like.
With the sphinx dead, the sand quickly began to settle and without a kill notification from a System, the slaves only then began to realize they had succeeded. Many of them were still stabbing and slashing at the corpse, their faces filled with rage right up until they could see again, at which point many of them began to cry, despite the scarcity of water.
As the slaves cheered and hugged each-other, Felix and his Mind Residents got to work searching the body and the surroundings as discreetly as they could.
Eventually one of them found a small square based pyramid on a chain and could immediately tell it was important. They brought it over to Felix who began tinkering with the item until, he accidentally activated it. Doing so, the pyramid grew quickly until it was a massive structure that weirdly, wasn’t pyramid shaped at all. It had instead morphed into a massive temple like structure easily big enough for the massive sphinx to walk into and roam around.
There were large openings where the walls should have been all around it and through the pillars, Felix saw the contents of the offerings the slaves had donated over the epochs.
The slaves, seeing this, quickly began to hurry inside and equip themselves with various treasures they had uncovered from the desert and sacrificed to the sphinx.
Damn it. What a stupid activation mechanism. Orientation detected by Anima is inaccurate and prone to accidental activations.
Felix sighed as he watched the pile of treasures rapidly shrink.
At least I got this amulet which, is honestly better than anything contained in it.
Once almost all of the treasure from within the amulet were gone, the slaves began to group up and discuss their next steps.
Congratulations!
You have earned a Prime Title.
Benevolence of the Sand
Forget whatever I just said. I totally intended on giving all that back. Yup. Definitely.
Felix waited for the slaves to finally leave at which point he and his Mind Residents moved the sphinx’s body into the amulet along with the giant corpse from his Pocket Home. The sphinx corpse was pretty beat up but with his recent skill evolution from Mold Corpse to Corpse Art, there was a lot he could do with it.
Then, the Mind Residents all gathered up in the large temple and Felix returned it to an amulet. He then touched the Iridescent bubble floating at the top of the cliff where the sphinx had sat and moved into the next realm.