Getting the Sphinx’s Vault as a reward was almost as massive a reward as the Prime Title he had gotten. It gave him more storage for Mind Residents because his Pocket Home was already starting to get rather full. Now, he could happily use the Giant and Sphinx corpses as he saw fit because he had more than enough room to move them from realm to realm. Before, he had been worried he would have to carve them up to save space.
Even though he hadn’t reached the limit of how much he could stretch his Pocket Home just yet, he knew he was getting close. It was slowly growing more difficult to stretch the sub-space every time he did and he was almost at the point where stretching it any further made him feel like it would break.
[D - Mythic] Pocket Home
[Empty]
This orb contains a limited size pocket dimension within. Once filled, the user may channel mana into the orb then touch it to a surface to open a portal to the contents. Once inside, simply repeat the process to open a portal back to the location you originally left from. When inside, the portal will not exist in the outside world. This pocket dimension is completely isolated from the outside universe. Once filled, the pocket dimension will need to be manually emptied and filled to replace the contents. If the object within the space grows, it is possible for the pocket dimension to be pierced and collapse. The orb will glow red when the bounds of the pocket dimension are being pushed.
Note: To initially fill the pocket dimension, simply channel mana into the orb and press it against the object you wish to move.
The orb itself wasn’t red yet, but Felix was expecting it to glow red any day now.
He had been holding out hope that the Soul Vault could fill that need for him but every time he fiddled with it, which was less and less often every realm, he came to the same conclusion. He didn’t have the key and he wasn’t strong enough to just break into it. Whether or not he would ever be strong enough, he wasn’t sure but he really didn’t want to have to resort to using a Curse for fear of damaging its contents. He was hoping he could preserve as many of the contents as possible, even if he cared more about the puzzle of opening it more than he did the treasure inside.
Every time he held the grey cube with intricate and flowing lines embossed onto its surface and poked it, it responded. It wasn’t that it was impossible for him to get into, it wasn’t a big vault with a thick door he couldn’t punch through. It was more like a machine made of Anima that responded to his actions.
Felix’s senses led him to picture it as a series of shifting geometric shapes. They weren’t like hexagons or triangles though, they were more like geometric puzzle pieces or tiles that all fit together. As he poked it with tendrils, the plates shifted and responded, more appearing from within it to prevent him from moving any further.
He had tried to break a plate but even if he could break one, which he wasn’t convinced he could, there was no way to isolate one plate. Each plate was always supported by an array of others making it so he either had to break all of them, or none of them.
On top of that, he had no idea what he was supposed to do about the mechanisms inside the vault. Assuming he became strong enough to just smash through the plates, would that damage the universe or sub space contained within it? Was it based on Spatial expansion instead and would the contents explode back out of it?
His inability to make any progress, discover anything new and lack of answers led him to put the Soul Vault on the back-burner for the time being.
Now that he had the Sphinx’s Vault, he was much less worried about getting into the Soul Vault any time soon.
He spent some time in the next realm, a resource based scenario about rare plants that grew in very specific conditions, organizing his various Spatial Storages. Luckily, he had a number of Mind Resident controlled Constructs and puppets to help him.
He completely removed the warehouse from his Pocket Home, moving everything that was left inside of it, into the Sphinx’s Vault which became his new storage space for materials and constructs. In his Pocket Home, he removed the warehouse building and expanded his tower to better fit his needs and the expanded sub-space around it.
Without the warehouse, his Pocket Home became somewhat serene and dream like. The tower was the same flat sided, octagonal tower made of a grey stone with marble strips on the corners that had first appeared behind the castle in Tripeak-Valley.
Now though, the stone was obviously flatter and denser, made of a higher grade material along with the marble that had a more intricate structure. It was also more than four times as wide at 250 meters and proportionally taller giving him an absurd amount of space within it.
It rose from the back side of the mostly circular island bordered entirely by cliff faces on every side that gave way to a multicolored rainbow sea that was thick and opaque due to the crystal shards and Mana suffusing it.
By far the most fantastical part of the sub-space, was the tree in the middle of the island. It now looked like a proper tree, though Felix suspected it still had some growing to do. It was tall enough now that he could not only walk under it freely, but he couldn’t actually reach the leaves without leaving the ground.
The leaves themselves looked mostly normal, until inspected closely. They were each made of a dark green crystal with facets and cracks forming the veins and structure of the leaf. They were intricate enough to not be completely transparent and the light from above scattered through them, making them each appear as though they were glowing.
Growing from the branches, embedded within the bark, like sap leaking out of the tree, were Attunement Crystals of every color and Attunement. They each reflected the light around and occasionally fell from the tree, littering the ground beneath it. They didn’t just collect on the ground though, instead they seemed to be seeds of some kind because all around the base of the tree, were multicolored flowers, ferns and grasses.
As pretty as it may have been though, what really mattered was how much room Felix had in his tower. His workshop floor was expanded, both literally wider in area and he connected the floors above and below it making the entire set of floors into one massive workshop. That wasn’t the only one though because there was a lot he, and his Mind Residents, had to work on.
The biggest work shops were for Constructs and Enchanting where Felix spent most of his time. He also fashioned Alchemical workshops, Botanist’s labs, Biological labs, Forges and everything else he had needed within the realms so far. He had mostly been relying on making necessary tools on the spot but very soon that wasn’t going to be enough so he was preparing ahead of time.
Now that he had more room, he could bring more bodies with him which meant more Mind Residents controlling puppets around him. Some of them were temporary, using corpses from the realm to fit in. Others, were permanent. Remaining in his Pocket Home to work in the labs as needed.
With the Sphinx’s Vault, he had more of both.
He was still a little disappointed in how little he was managing to progress his own power, even if all the Mind Residents contributed and benefited him.
Felix trained to have more instinct casts, but he hadn’t upgraded his Spells much so the effect was minimal. He manually modified his own body a number of times but he had long since reached a point where further modifications were more about trade-offs than obvious benefits. For the most part, modifications weren’t worth it because he was sacrificing the synergy that had come from his last evolution. Now, all the modifications he made were minor tweaks and optimizations.
His Mana Control was getting better, but it was hard to tell unless he directly measured it the way Fin did because otherwise, it didn’t have any effect on the things he was doing. He had also pushed most of his Skills to either Expert or Skilled but it felt a bit pointless to him to push for Master proficiency if he was planning on getting rid of a lot of them anyways.
Even the ones he would keep, he wasn’t sure if there was any point in keeping them on his Status Screen. If he dropped the Mental World Skill, it wasn’t like everything he had created would disappear.
He had gotten much faster at Spatial Translocation and Aether Tunnels but only managed to reduce both to cast times of minutes which wasn’t enough to use in combat.
The one thing he had managed to noticeably progress was his Aura but even with that, he felt a bit lost. He could keep making it stronger and bigger which was just a slow grind but he felt like he was missing something. As strong as it was, it felt hollow to him, purposeless.
Felix, being who he was, needed to be doing something though so he instead focused on creating better constructs and automating the process as much as possible. Outside the Realms they were already working on the construct factory but he needed something to do while he waited for inspiration to progress everything else. So, he tested individual components of the factory. Iterating and experimenting with his Mind Residents.
He had to remember he was progressing, it was just slow.
Every once in a while though, something happened that caused him to realize how much progress he had made.
On the 683rd floor, Felix found himself in a massive city on the coast of a continent. It wasn’t the biggest city on the continent in terms of population but it was the largest economically. The city had always been a trade city, with ships sailing in and out of the port every day.
At the time Felix had been placed in the realm, the city was ruled by a trading company, the Coastal Trade Association, which had once been a number of individual companies that had since merged and retained the name.
The issue was that now that it was a single company, instead of multiple, they were essentially oppressing the other trade companies through tariffs, scheduling, applications and other bureaucracy. Then, when the smaller trade companies would inevitably suffer, they would buy the company and acquire all of their assets.
It was the result of unchecked capitalism allowed to get reach the point where they became the government.
The scenario was vastly more complex than the early realms Felix had had to deal with. His and his Mind Residents assessment of the best outcome was that they needed to slowly whittle down the CTA economically, replace corrupt individuals and implement institutions that could keep the government in check in the future.
In order to do that, they had to very carefully maneuver things.
That led to Felix walking through the city streets in full formal wear with a pompous posture. He didn’t just act like he had somewhere to be, he actually did as the president of a Trade Company in the area he had an appointment. His walk though, was specifically planned so that he could walk amongst a very specific crowd.
As he did, he had hundreds of Mage Hands appearing and disappearing all around him, none of them visible, casually picking the pockets of very specific individuals. In some cases, he didn’t steal anything physical and simply used his Mage Hand to take a copy of some information through a mold. In others, he simply removed a few coins, just enough to make it so his victim didn’t have enough for where they were going.
It was a small thing but that frustration would build and then he and his Mind Residents would leverage it so they made very specific decisions.
Mage Hand is definitely one of my favorite skills I’ve developed.
You’re very quickly approaching the necessary level of proficiency with them.
Yes, but I’m not there yet. I need more practice and more varied practice.
You’ll definitely be there by the time you reach floor 2000.
Likely. The issue is, will it be worth it then? I have a lot more work to do figuring out Concepts, Convictions and improving my Mana Control and focus.
True. Well, you have plenty of time.
Quite a bit richer in knowledge and slightly richer in his wallet, Felix finished his walk through the highest echelon of the city and arrived at the most important building, The Trade Hall.
The building had once been the largest casino in the city and to this day, still held multiple rooms for hosting private card games or confidential meetings, due to the enchantments in the room to prevent cheating. Other than the occasional private card game though, the rest of the building had been transformed into a hub of bureaucracy.
He had been invited to a very specific meeting and because of that, he simply walked right past the front desk, even though they definitely would have preferred he announce his arrival. He knew they had security watching him though, he picked out multiple people who were admittedly excellent at hiding their actions physically, but with less than adequate control over their Auras and Souls.
No one stopped him though so it didn’t really matter. There was no reason to sneak his way into this meeting in particular.
Slowly walking up many flights of stairs, specifically to play up the arrogance of the character he was playing, Felix made his way towards the highest room in the building. A circular room surrounded by a mosaic glass dome that allowed those inside to look out over their city as they discussed the best ways to exploit anyone and everything for profit.
Ascending the circular stairs into the room, Felix arrived almost a half hour earlier than his meeting was supposed to start but he was the last one there.
He took his seat at the table, the only one left empty for him and as he did, the longest standing member of the CTA, a tall man with a large white beard and scars across his face, stood. He looked every bit the part of a pirate who shifted from sailing the seas to plundering the citizens of a city.
“Welcome, fellow members of the Coastal Trade Association,” He even retained a rather pirate like accent as he spoke, “to a special meeting for us to formally introduce our newest member.”
The man gestured towards Felix who stood with a bow, holding his jacket as he did so. He simply half nodded half bowed to the group then sat back down.
“Given this is the second formal meeting this dekad, most of us have already dealt with our own matters so, we’ll start with you, Mr. Throne.” The once pirate continued, “I’m sure there are many alliances, trades and deals you’ve been waiting until just this moment to propose. So please.”
Felix smiled again and stood, “Thank you Tharnes. There is in fact, only one matter I would like to bring forward to the association.”
Most of the association’s 23 other members were disinterested but a few of them perked up hearing he only had a single matter to discuss.
“As an official member of the Coastal Trade Association, as my first act, I am hereby calling a vote, to remove Tharnes.”
The large pirate slammed his hands on the table and jumped to his feet, “You’ve got some balls coming in here like that.” He smiled, “Well, you are permitted to call one vote per 10 epochs. To officially oust me though,” He looked around the room confidently, “You’d need a majority of the council’s votes, and there are currently 3,099,909 votes in play.”
He calmly sat back down, “All in favor of removing me, please raise your hands.”
Despite his threatening tone of voice, 16 people raised their hands almost immediately, completely shocking Tharnes, “I…”
A woman across from Felix stood, “Tharnes votes are hereby split amongst the 11 members with the least votes.”
The next newest member, other than Felix stood, a male named Flame who was teetering the line between boy and man, “I would like to call a vote, with my shiny new votes, to remove Galireed.”
The woman who had declared Tharnes’ votes split nodded, “All those in favor?”
Felix raised his hand and happily collected his votes.
There was no anxiety as to whether or not people would vote his way. They had made sure they had more than enough votes to chain together votes and excise the corruption. Felix was the last member because as much as he was decent enough in social situations, he wasn’t the best actor by any means. He was the least capable of selling his role and making himself seem trustworthy. So, all his residents on the Association had joined well before him.
They built trust and cemented their positions as Felix’s group all together slowly whittled down individual trade empires. Capturing ships, bribing sailors, robbing warehouses and plundering wallets. Even if Tharnes wanted to resist or fight back, which he definitley did, he couldn’t do anything more than start a physical fight.
His empire was almost completely in Felix and his Mind Resident’s control.
By the end of it, over the course of half an epoch, there were only 18 members left on the association. 10 of them were Felix’s Mind Residents that had implanted themselves and the rest, were the only members they could trust who weren’t so corrupt they had to be removed. They were also open to the idea of a governing body separate from the trade association.
Unfortunately that was only the first step, or the first domino rather. After that, they had to deal with the blowback from Tharnes and the others, even if they had minimized their influence. They helped put in place a governing body and ensured they had power and nothing like the CTA would happen again. They also made sure the CTA remained along with a few other organizations that all formed a balance and kept each-other in check.
Congratulations!
You have received 3 new titles.
Trade of the Governing, Herald of the Institutions, Dictator of the Future
Congratulations!
You have earned a Prime Title.
Piratical Economics
These titles keep getting weirder. Oh well, I’m just glad all that work wasn’t for nothing. How many residents did we have in play this time?
417 participating as of now.
Felix nodded, Well, I think it’s time to head out. Can you round up the Residents? I’ll set up the Sphinx’s Vault south west of the city.
Before you head there, Flame wants to talk.
Where is he?
Back in the CTA building.
Alright. I’ll head there now.
Felix found Flame sitting at the large table in the middle of the glass dome from which they had taken down the government. He was alone this time and seemed to be using the table as his own personal desk.
“Grim mentioned you wanted to talk?”
Flame steeled his expression, “I’m not going with you.”
Felix cocked his head, “You want to stay here?”
He nodded, “I know you don’t know what will happen to me and that I may be st-”
“Sure.” Felix shrugged, “We’ll need to implant a brain and I’ll need to shore up your Soul. You aren’t getting the full Mera but you know that. I assume you’re fine with the body you have then?”
His eyes were wide in surprise at how easy it was to convince him, “Yeah. Thanks.”
“Alright. Let’s get started then, I want to get to the next realm as soon as possible.”
It took Felix a few more hours than he would have liked but it didn’t end up affecting him at all as he still had to wait for some of his Residents to return from all over the city. They had planned it so none of them were on any voyages at sea but the city was still vast.
Standing just outside the Sphinx’s vault as his Mind Residents poured in, Grim spoke directly to Felix in his mind.
What do you think will happen to him?
Not a clue. I assume these realms must stick around, it would be too expensive to harvest then recreate them for each scenario… I think.
This whole thing is pretty expensive. Each scenario is its own realm? Each one is unique to each participant?
Yeah… Well, unfortunately we’ll probably never know since we won’t be able to contact him once we move on.
Probably not…
Though he could have completed the realms himself and likely gotten 3 titles on each one, possibly even a few Prime Titles, Felix relied heavily on his Mind Residents to maximize the rewards. It helped that he could essentially fully trust them because he had Mark literally auditing their thoughts and their Souls were stuck inside of him. On top of that, with the exploding population in his Mental World due to the massive influx of Anima from the Realms, he was able to carefully pick the best Mind Residents for the specific job at hand.
He entirely used corpses he or Nova created and avoided using sapients from the realms unless he absolutely had to. He didn’t care about killing Realm Residents and possessing their corpses, he was just worried it would be seen as cheating or frowned upon in the realms.
All the Prime TItles he’d gotten, the unclear quests from The System and the goals of each scenario he encountered all fell under traditional morals. It was about the good of the population, helping individuals and putting people in better situations than they had been previously. It was honestly, a little surprising to Felix.
He was certain most people didn’t think about it at all but to him, there was no reason for the realms to follow traditional moral values. In the multiverse, The System and all the sapients in it seemed to do their own thing. There was no reward for helping people and often it was more beneficial to just kill and rob someone than it was to help them.
For whatever reason though, the realms seemed to heavily favor helping people and being morally upstanding.
So, it was with great annoyance and only through a massive amount of frustration and complete lack of other options that Felix beheaded the small frostmyre man in front of him with a Blade Spell.
Grumbling, he bent down and immediately cast Mold Corpse, guiding the process with his own Matter Control and modifying the body as necessary. He completely skipped most of his normal modifications though, leaving the brain in tact and only repairing the wounds to the best of his ability.
Once he had, he took the man’s Soul that he had been holding on to and carefully placed it back into the body, adding some more permanent bindings to make sure it stayed in place. Then, he took a Mind Resident’s Soul, bolstered it with additional Anima and his will, then placed it into the body, right next to the, now less dead, man’s Core Soul.
Standing back up, he observed passively with his Anima Senses as the Mind Resident Felix had implanted fought with the man’s Core Soul for control of the body and Soul. It wasn’t a long fight. In fact, it was over before Felix had even finished his part, considering how much stronger he made his Mind Resident’s Soul.
Instead of putting him out of his misery though, they tormented the man. Trapping his Core Soul within himself, completely out of control. It was one of the worst forms of torture and Felix even felt a little bad for the man. Unfortunately, it was necessary to retain access to his memories.
Felix had learned, through a fair bit of trial and error, that memories from the brain alone weren’t enough. He knew the Soul contained experiences and the mind more factual information. What he didn’t realize was that simply recalling information, required the original Soul because that was how the memory was interpreted.
Without it, he effectively had a storage medium he couldn’t connect to anything, like a flash drive with an unknown connector.
With a Mind Resident possessing and controlling the original Soul though, he, Mark and therefore his entire Mental World could have access to those memories.
Felix used his Matter Control to lift the body to its feet then nodded in their direction, “You good?”
They nodded, “I’ve been practicing.” Then, they shimmied their shoulders, dropped into a hunch, and began speaking with a low and bored tone, “Shaaaaaaaall weeee?”
Felix smirked, “Uncanny.”
Opening the door of the small apartment Felix had managed to lead the man into, the both of them left and headed back to the competition hall.
They split off a few blocks away so they didn’t appear to be moving together and Felix entered through the contestants entrance into a massive smoldering room. It was warm but not nearly as hot as it should have been thanks entirely to the large ritual at the center of the room that was sucking air in and ejecting it out through the ceiling.
Back to his large black forge, Felix continued the process of slowly molding his slag of metal into usable shape. At least, he pretended to. In reality, his unique forge with a large blue scar on it was doing all the work.
He wasn’t sure he’d win. He didn’t even hope to win. He was there just in case.
His Mind Residents, 4 of them, all around him were the real candidates for winning. Thankfully, Felix already knew the Realms gave him the titles even if he wasn’t the one doing the work, something about being the contestant in the realm or something.
The residents were all competing against the others there, but also themselves. If it became obvious that they weren’t going to win or it was looking too close, Felix would step in and have Nova shape him a perfect weapon. He didn’t want to have to resort to cheating though and luckily, it didn’t seem like he would have to.
There was just the one judge that realized what he was doing and noticed him talking with his Mind Residents. Now that he had access to his memories from Mark, Felix knew he hadn’t completely put things together, that would have been a miracle, but he wasn’t far off. He had known there was some association and he had connected Felix to three of his Mind Residents.
He had been careful and cunning, observing and giving nothing away until he had uncovered everything. Which was impressive and admirable in one sense but it had also allowed Felix to realize he knew and deal with him before it became an issue.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Now, he just had to wait and his Mind Resident possessing the judge would simply vote for the Mind Resident who was the closest to winning.
While he would have certainly preferred not to have to kill the judge and possess their body, now that he was doing it, he was more than happy to find out how much The Realms cared.
He was pretty sure he’d get a Prime Title considering all the other set up work he had done to create the competition, build excitement and with the rewards being split amongst charity for the military and the winning smith. He also made sure the winning smith would have to walk through their creation with the others, sharing the knowledge.
The Realms seemed to appreciate that kind of thing. At least, it seemed that way. Felix was beginning to confuse himself a bit the way he kept personifying the Realms in his head.
The question was whether or not he would get a Prime Title as a smith, or as the person that had set it up.
With no more judges to murder, Felix patiently waited for the rest of the scenario to play itself out. One of his Mind Residents won with a very impressive alloy that was nearly impossible to create. Felix attended the showcase of how they did it, even though he already knew, and was still impressed by the sheer skill and precision required to create the alloy.
The Mind Resident had to be extraordinarily careful with contaminates in the metals they started with, the size and shape and most importantly, the temperature. The fact that Felix himself with his growing Matter Control could have done the same thing trivially or handed it to his familiar, didn’t detract at all from his appreciation.
Congratulations!
You have received 2 new titles.
Forged Philanthropist, Educationist
Congratulations!
You have earned a Prime Title.
Forge Heart
Stupid Prime TItles and their completely unclear name. It doesn’t even have a description. There’s no way to know if that was for winning the competition or creating the competition considering it’s literally called Forge Heart. That’s a coincidence… right?
Maybe. We didn’t choose the name for the competition. That was the city. Grim shrugged mentally.
Yeah… Huh.
After dealing with a rather annoying logistical plumbing issue for a city embedded within a volcano in the 1038th realm, Felix reached out to touch the iridescent bubble but stopped himself short.
He realized he felt the next realm without being there. He knew that’s how people knew about The Dragon but up to that point, he hadn’t felt the realms himself. Now though, he got a slight feeling from his Anima Senses that the next realm was abandoned. He felt like there had once been sapients but no longer. He got nothing more than that though no matter how hard he tried.
Possibly if he had been Melody, he could have known more but it didn’t really matter. There was no way he wasn’t moving the next realm. Though, in the future it might let him prepare himself better.
Appearing in the middle of a dark blue room with angular glowing lines adorning every visible surface though, Felix didn’t need to prepare anything. The first thing he did was open The Sphinx’s Vault which grew to barely a tenth of its normal size due to the size of the room. It didn’t seem to matter though because the entrance was more than big enough at that size for his Mind Residents to move through.
Then, he began exploring.
Felix didn’t expect to spend nearly 8 epochs in the ruins. He would have scoffed at the idea before he had arrived. As it was though, there was so much to do.
The ruins themselves were a machine, or rather a massive ritual or enchantment. While it didn’t have any specific overarching purpose, individual rooms and areas could work together to accomplish specific tasks. At the same time, all the different components communicated with each-other.
Even before arriving, due to the pattern of the realms, Felix knew it would be a puzzle realm. Some kind of logical puzzle he had to solve.
This one in particular though was much more fascinating than solving some mathematical proof or choosing the right material for a bridge. It was complex and applicable.
Along with his Mind Residents, Felix had solved the realm on the first day. The puzzle was simply getting into a specific room which acted as a vault and contained a number of items. He had even gotten two Prime Titles, which he didn’t even know was possible in a single realm.
However, whether intentionally or not, the realm included everything. To solve the puzzle and open the vault room, Felix hadn’t even needed a tenth of a percent of the ruins. As it was, after 8 epochs, they hadn’t found the edge of the realm. The ruins just kept going.
It didn’t seem like they were intended to spend too much time there though because food was scarce. Luckily Nova and Felix’s Matter Control helped them deal with that issue until they had set up various farms. It was a little annoying without any source organic material in the ruins but it wasn’t difficult.
As complicated and vast as the ruins were, Felix had gotten bored of mapping out the functions of every individual room on the third day because it just really wasn’t difficult.
He had worked on Enchantments, Spells and even began exploring specific weaves so he could make his own robes soon. None of that was difficult either.
What was difficult, and took Felix nearly the entirety of the 8 epochs though, was wrapping his head around higher dimensional fractals.
He hadn’t even started using three dimensional Spells before entering the ruins and still generally avoided them due to their exponential complexity. Jumping straight into four and higher dimensional Spells and throwing in fractals along with Living or Shifting Spell forms was extraordinarily difficult.
Even after 8 epochs, Felix wasn’t sure he could wrap his mind around it. He had even tried removing his brain from the equation entirely and using just his Soul but it felt impossible. He could do the math and simulate the geometry but actually understanding and visualizing everything, felt impossible.
Luckily, he didn’t need to. Eventually he should, otherwise he could end up in a very dangerous situation but for the time being, it wasn’t necessary. He was hoping that he could come back for the understanding later.
They had already tested everything and used the math and simulations he could do, to repurpose the ruins themselves. Now, it was a massive machine for building computers.
Felix stood outside the completely spherical chamber with glass windows they had created, with Nova’s help, alongside Arysha’s puppet.
“The batteries are all full?”
She nodded, “We have 100 times the capacity we calculate we need, considering what happen time before.”
“Good call. Is everything else ready?”
“Yes. We have confirm everything and Mark Diagnostic Drones are all in place to monitor.”
“How much bigger is this going to be?”
“Only twice the radius but nearly 10,000 times the density.”
Felix snorted and glanced over at her, “This is your last chance to tell me this is stupid and we should start smaller.”
She shrugged, “If you die here, we all die. This risk is acceptable. The reward is too much to ignore.”
“Alright. I’ll start preparing my Spatial Translocation, Mark will coordinate the timing.”
“We begin?” She seemed almost hesitant.
“We begin.” Felix confirmed.
Neither of them had to push a button or pull a lever. Mark was controlling everything now and his Mind Residents were placed strategically to spring into action where they were needed. As soon as Felix finished speaking, Mana and Anima began to course through the ruins from every direction.
Felix had, throughout the realms, increased the size of his Mana Core. They were mostly gradual changes but they added up and on the 1039th floor, he had a Mana Core of 12.5 Billion total Mana, including the Attuned Cores. He considered that to be a lot of Mana. Judging from his conversation with Fin, everyone would consider that a lot of Mana.
All around him, an order of magnitude more Mana coursed through the ruins and into the room in front of him along with Anima which, he couldn’t measure but was equally as frightening in quantity.
In the center of the room, Felix was reminded of the Spell Bomb Arysha had used to wipe out her own city back in the Integration Event, Bastorus One.
The Mana and Anima was slowly woven into what looked like a spell but was really a computer. It started as a pea sized ball made of channels without distinct shape or form. Slowly, it grew as lines of Mana coalesced from every direction, like laser beams, on the center of the room. The Mana poured into the computer as it grew, carefully forming a shape in the middle of the room.
Unlike the Spell Bomb though, this wasn’t inherently unstable right from the get go. Instead, it was carefully woven together and calculated, down to tiny fractions of Mana points.
It was, thankfully, an uneventful process. They had already done the very same thing for Mark already and created a node that was equivalent to roughly 1,000 of their previous Mark nodes. Then, they created more. Each time, the process became smoother and smoother. Now, their failure rate was near 0 which was the only reason they were finally pushing to replace Felix’s brain.
While they definitely should have slowly increased the size of the computers they were creating and worked up to the size they wanted for Felix’s brain-Felix knew that-he also didn’t want to spend forever in the ruins.
8 epochs was already far longer than he had wanted to be there.
The walls though were already set up to handle massive amounts of Mana and direct it with ease so, there was no way he was wasting this opportunity. The only downside was, there was no way he could bring the ruins with him, without somehow taking the entire realm. The only other option was to remain there, slowly iterating on the computers, replacing the brains of all his Mind Residents over the course of hundreds of epochs.
Even that though, might not have been possible. They were running low on Anima considering how the ruins were completely barren. Keeping the new computers stable required a massive force of will and Mana Control. They managed to get around the issue somewhat with Mark by carefully inscribing Anima spells into the housing they used for him. They could likely have done the same for the Mind Resident puppets but it was expensive.
The size of the computer for Felix’s brain though, required exponentially more force of will and Mana Control. There was no good way to calculate if Felix could actually handle this computer but he had pushed everyone to make the computer as big as they thought he could handle then double that and just trust that he would find a way.
He had a couple of thoughts on how he was going to handle the computer but he kept those entirely to himself, not even sharing them with Grim.
Once the computer had grown to the size they had been waiting for and the Mana and Anima from their batteries had decreased by 1 percent, Mark created a ping in Felix’s mind.
It’s time.
Not yet. We have more Anima and Mana. Keep going.
Affirmative.
Felix. Grim cut in, We aren’t even sure if you can handle this one, don’t push it.
Keep going.
Felix was the authority and so they kept going. Grim watched and waited, knowing he wasn’t going to listen to him, his nerves growing within Felix’s mind.
He ignored that though and watched as the computer kept going until it used twice the Mana they had planned for it. Then, he cast his Spatial Translocation Spell and appeared near the center of the room, floating a few meters beneath the sphere and slightly off to the side. They had calculated his position very precisely so that as the Mana lasers instantly pierced his body as if it wasn’t there at all, he only took minimal damage and none of it to his brain.
Reaching out with his Anima Control, Felix reached for the impossible object in the middle of the room. It was still completely incomprehensible and beyond his understanding, despite how hard he had tried. He understood the math. He felt the computer. Even that wasn’t enough though.
It didn’t matter if he could understand it, what mattered was whether or not he could control it. So, he began to take hold of the computer.
Shutting down the machines in 3 seconds. Mark mentally warned everyone.
Don’t. Keep going. I can control this.
Feli- Grim tried to caution him.
Affirmative.
Felix couldn’t control it. He could feel that. What he could do though, was contain it.
As he did, he poured the entirety of his will power into the Fractal Mana Form, feeling it out and helping compress it down.
He couldn’t describe what it was but he felt something as he did so, an inkling of a feeling. Like a tiny pin prick of light in total darkness. He didn’t know what it was exactly but all he knew was that he was getting closer to it as Mana and Anima poured into the computer and he desperately needed to get to whatever it was.
Unlike his experiences of The Endless Hunger though, the feeling felt nearly euphoric, like the false promises the Curse of Desire showed him but, this wasn’t a curse at all. It felt to him like infinite knowledge. Something he desperately craved.
It wasn’t a concept or a conviction or a curse. He had no idea what it was but he just knew he needed to reach it. It was some kind of breaking point he had to achieve.
So, as Grim yelled into his mind, he overrode him entirely.
Mark, you need to shut it down. It’s already using 10 times more Mana than w-
Don’t. Use all of it. Empty the batteries. Have the Resident fill them. Pour everything in.
Affirmative.
Grim didn’t feel what Felix did. He couldn’t. Felix could show him later but for now, the feeling and experience he was having was so deeply ingrained into him and so fundamental, Grim couldn’t observe it. Neither could any of his Residents.
Mana and Anima continued to pour into the room, weaving into the Fractal but it didn’t grow in size. Instead, Felix kept it compressed, finding within him will power he didn’t even know he had. Whatever he was chasing, he wanted it so much that his entire Soul was pushing along with him, helping him. It became temporarily far more aligned that Felix had ever felt it. It was how Felix imagined it felt to have three perfectly balanced convictions.
Which, with the sheer amount of Anima in his Soul, had a massive effect.
They hadn’t been sure if Felix would even be capable of holding the computer they had originally planned to make stable. Now, Felix was certain he could hold all of it stable. He had to.
The batteries are down to 20% capacity.
That’s enou-
Open the room. The only way to get more is through Fission.
Understood. Coordinating the Residents.
FELIX! You can’t possibly be serious. You need to st-
Grim. I’ll explain later.
I- Felix felt Grim sifting through Felix’s recent memories and experiences, trying to understand. Felix knew he wouldn’t find anything.
Fin still hadn’t finished the Mana Accelerator outside but the theory was that pushing enough Mana fast enough, forming a beam with it and shooting that beam through solid matter should theoretically allow them to break down the matter. Mana and the Anima they were accelerating along with it had a very minor attractive effect on other Mana, not quite like gravity or magnetism but there was some kind of force there.
Moving enough Mana and Anima fast enough, the force would eventually become so great, it overcame the matter itself and broke it down.
It wasn’t a theory any longer though. Felix had been paying attention to the beams that tore through his body and he already knew it worked. He knew the lasers had provided a burst of Mana as soon as they passed through him.
His 800 meter Matter Control range was more than enough for him to feel his Mind Residents obediently tossing objects into the room. They didn’t need to do more as his Matter Control latched onto the various objects, items, plants and garbage as it didn’t matter what it was. All matter was equal as all that mattered was the total mass.
Each object, Felix began to rapidly spin around the computer at the center of the room in three dimensional orbits as they were torn apart by the various lasers. Each time an item was cut, a burst of Mana was created and carried along with the laser.
Mark, Arysha and the rest of the team who had helped him design the machine worked as fast as they could to the influx of Mana and luckily, it wasn’t as chaotic as they had been worried about. Instead, the lasers were so fine, they only tore away tiny slivers of the objects as Felix spun them around and through the lasers.
Even then, a large chunk of the Mana was being lost to the room from the violent process of tearing matter apart. It wasn’t anything like an atomic bomb because the mass wasn’t turned to energy, it skipped that step entirely. Instead, it became a burst of Mana.
How much longer?
Mark knew what Felix was talking about without asking, 2 minutes to total battery depletion.
Deploy the Mana Collection Constructs, recycle the extra in the room. Turn off lasers as necessary but keep them balanced and running as long as possible.
Affirmative.
From outside the room, hundreds of Mana Collection Constructs began to pour in, like a swarm of creatures. Some were tiny, others were larger. None of them were the ones Felix had used in The Abyss though. He had long since deconstructed those and repurposed them. He had new constructs that were much larger as well but they couldn’t fit between the lasers in the room.
The constructs charted routes around the outside of the room, collecting Mana then pouring back out of the room, instantly replaced with another a moment later.
Battery depletion rate has been reduced. New estimate for total depletion, 24 minutes.
Just 24 minutes wasn’t enough. Felix pulled all the matter he had been orbiting through the lasers in towards the core where the lasers were more dense and allowed them to be completely obliterated by the dense array of lasers. That massive burst of Mana right near the Fractal Mana Form strained Felix’s control to the limit as his Residents accommodated and began tossing matter into the room at a faster rate.
He was getting closer to that breaking point he felt, whatever it was, but it was still just out of reach. He didn’t feel like he needed vast amounts more though. It began to feel like he could reach it. Like he could get there.
20 minutes later, the lasers began to disappear one by one in a specific pattern to ensure they remained balanced and that was when it started to become much harder for Felix to contain the computer.
Without the lasers actively weaving the computer, a force trying to contain it vanished and Felix had to make up for that loss himself.
The breaking point he was chasing was just out of reach, but now it felt like he could almost just reach out and touch it. Like it was right there. He was just missing density. He had enough Mana but it wasn’t compressed enough so, he began to squeeze down as hard as he could.
He channeled everything he had into the computer. All of his will power and his Soul and he felt it gradually shrinking ever slightly. With each millimeter he compressed it, the will power required to keep going felt like it doubled.
Time to try something stupid. Felix said entirely to himself.
The first thing he tried, was to sense a feeling of density from anywhere. He started with the Fractal Mana Form but it was too new to the universe. He tried his own Soul but that was too rife with other experiences for him to extract an individual concept. Then, he reached into the walls of the room around him.
It wasn’t so dense he ever would have tried to extract the Concept of density from them before but it was all he had left. There wasn’t anything better in his Soul Space and at least the relative age of the walls in the room should help. No matter how hard he tried though, the Concept of density remained elusive. It wasn’t even that he found a sliver and it wasn’t enough. He found nothing and began to doubt the Concept of density existed outside of Black Holes and Stars. If it did, it was beyond him in his current state.
Plan B.
Instead of reaching outwards, Felix reached inside of himself this time and began to reach into his own Core Soul. There, he searched for something that should have been much easier to find. Another Conviction.
He knew they were there. He knew they were already inside of him and he just had to find them. He even knew at least one of them would definitely help with his current situation. There was a conviction within him that felt to him like control or authority.
Felix had already explored the convictions within himself before but he hadn’t managed to get a good enough grasp on them before to actually actualize them. Now though, given how aligned his Soul had become in pursuit of compressing the Fractal Mana Form further, he was hoping.
Finding the rough edges of the conviction within himself, the whispers of it all throughout his Soul, he began to pull on them. Bringing them forwards from the depths of the experiences within his Soul. He brought forth the forgotten and ancient parts of him, the parts from before he was him, from his Soul before he had been born.
The conviction slowly began to materialize within him and he felt it becoming clearer. He continued to pull on it and felt like it was right there, just missing a slight push.
So, he pushed but… nothing happened. No matter how hard he pulled on it, he wasn’t ready and he couldn’t do it. He failed.
Okay. Plan C I guess. Which isn’t really a plan at all.
With no other option, Felix grabbed the Fractal Mana Form and shoved it into his chest, the same way he had the System Chunk. This time though, he pushed it much further and less dangerously. He didn’t need to bore a hole in his Soul, he simply pulled it into his Core Soular Space. There, he had much more control and his will power was easier to channel so he continued to compress it.
The Fractal Mana Form continued to shrink and Felix continued to push it towards his Core Soul, the center of his internal universe. The basis of who he was.
Then, ignoring the warnings and screams within his head and all around him, he pushed it into his Core Soul.
It still wasn’t enough. He felt it. He was so close. He had nothing else to give it though. It sat there, right on the edge of something, teetering on the edge of a cliff. He had nothing else to give though and so it sat there. Then, he lost consciousness.
Felix didn’t know how long he had been unconscious. When he gained awareness, it wasn’t like the last time he had shoved an object beyond his understanding into his Soul. This time, there was no pain. There was something much worse.
His Core Soul felt unstable.
It hadn’t shattered, considering he still existed but the fact that he was worried about that at all was not good.
It didn’t look to him like his Core Soul was on the verge of exploding, but it was pulsing and distorting itself as it tried to contain the Fractal Mana Form contained within it. Reaching inside himself, he tried to help but there was nothing more he could do.
His Core Soul was already as strong, aligned and focused as it ever been. There was more will power going into containing the Fractal Mana Form than he had ever used himself. It was doing more for aligning and compressing his Soul than all the Curses orbiting it ever did.
Sitting up, Felix immediately felt the problem though.
All of his will power was being consumed by the Fractal Mana Form. There was nothing left and so, his Reaper’s Skills that he had worked so hard to maintain at all times, were impossible to use. The film like layer he had created over his skin, was no longer film like and dense, it instead grew sparse and did little to nothing for his defenses. His Mana channels too, were no longer functional, the Mana within them dormant and quickly dissipating.
Carefully reaching into his Mana Core, he could draw out some Mana but he couldn’t shape it all. Using any of his will power, even the slightest sliver of it, caused his Core Soul to lurch and became far too unstable for him to risk it.
This may… have been a mistake.
Checking his Status Screen for any amount of salvation, Felix saw all his stats were drastically lower than they had been with his Reaper’s Skills. Every single one was significantly lower except for one. Astonishingly, his intelligence, was more than double what it had been.
Curious, Felix just felt out his own body but realized the Fractal Mana Form wasn’t being used at all. Instead, it was still the computer he had replaced his brain with long ago but somehow, it had been upgraded. It was denser and faster, the internal structure optimized.
Finally tuning into his own Mental World and surroundings, Felix addressed whoever was listening, What happened?
You’re an idiot. Grim grumbled.
On a scale o-
This was by far the stupidest thing you’ve done. You’ve redefined the scale.
Felix snorted, Well. I’m not dead so…
You should be. I don’t care about your stupid Soul. We accounted for that when we calculated exactly how much you could handle. Then, we agreed to double that.
Yeah. Felix didn’t want to keep arguing. He still felt like he wanted to go further and if he could do it all over again, he would have just pushed harder. What happened to my brain though?
Grim mentally frowned in confusion in Felix’s mind as he felt a number of Mind Residents scurry around, What do you mean?
It’s upgraded somehow.
Yes. Grim started paying very close attention to Felix, You upgraded it?
When?
A few minutes after you went into focus mode.
I went into what?
You blocked everything out and dropped to the ground. You looked unconscious but you were actively upgrading your body and brain so we realized you just had a spark of inspiration.
Right… Guess my memories are just a bit out of sync. We’ll do a memory diagnostic when I’m feeling better.
Are you su-
Affirmative.
Lifting himself into a sitting position, Felix began to meditate and went over the changes to his body and mind that he had apparently done to himself somehow. The fact that he remembered none of it, in his Soul or memories, was more than a little worrisome.
Taking stock of everything was even more worrisome. He no longer understood what was happening within his own body. His skin had been modified and was tougher but he didn’t understand what had happened. His muscles, bones organs and brain were all better but he had no idea how. It wasn’t like The System upgrade either during his evolution. That felt like his own body. These changes were beyond him and made him feel like he was being possessed.
If it was just upgrades, there would be no problem. As far as he could tell, they were just upgrades. The issue was he didn’t understand what had changed and so there was no way for him to know if they were just upgrades, or if something else was now hiding within his own body.
He had a few Mind Residents with their own bodies, like Arysha, specifically for the purpose of helping him if something had gone wrong with the upgrade. If he suspected something, Nova could replicate his body and they would help him move his Soul. That plan was a little less relevant now that he had embedded the new computer in his Core Soul but he could still swap bodies if he wanted.
The issue was, even with the upgrades, he still felt like he had aged just shy of death. His body was sluggish, his skin felt frail without his Mana Skin and his healing rate had plummeted. The only salvation in his mind, was that he had already felt out the next realm and knew from the pattern, it was a strategic realm which often meant he wouldn’t have to fight at all.
With that in mind, Felix reached down and pet Nova, who had been napping at his side less out of concern and more out of a sense of protection.
He had her carefully craft him a full set of plate armor and, along with Arysha and a number of constructs, they enchanted it. Then, he embedded some batteries he had into it and activated his Persona. Finally, he equipped the armor and headed into the next realm, his residents already having cleaned up and moved back into the Sphinx’s Vault while he was out.
Luckily, he was right. He was able to completely avoid any fighting himself on the next realm and managed to get three Prime Titles with his upgraded mind.
That wasn’t always the case though and without his Spells, Felix struggled in combat. Luckily, he had a portable army he was carrying around with him but the issue was, he no longer had the will power to bring them back if they died and so, he had to be careful with each one.
They focused heavily on equipment, Nova and the crafter Residents working double time to equip everyone in the best equipment they had, either creating something new or modifying something old.
Felix’s personal participation in the realms plummeted as he let his Mind Residents do almost everything. He provided input through Mark and his massive increase in Intelligence helped but it wasn’t enough for him to get involved directly most of the time. He couldn’t cast Spells, he wasn’t coordinated enough to be stealthy and he was inherently fragile.
As much as he might have wanted to participate, the number of Prime Titles he was getting began to slightly increase when he wasn’t involved. Not by a ton but by enough that it became obvious he was holding them back in most situations. The realm scenarios were just so diverse and to excel in them, the required skill set and expertise was so specific and unique, there was no way for one person to farm Prime Titles in every realm.
Felix had planned for that though and was quite happy with how things were progressing. He was happy, but he was also bored.
While he wasn’t participating, Felix spent all his time desperately trying to regain any amount of his will power he could.
By the 1293rd floor, Felix had regained just enough that he could either cast a single simple Spell, use his Matter Control in a small area or modify some Souls. Though he could only do one at once, the will power he had regained felt much stronger, like it was more focused. Instead of a giant axe, he now had a scalpel. He could do less with it but it was much more capable.
Luckily, it was just enough that he could help Nova and the team of Alchemical Mind Residents in developing a cure for the diseases plaguing the realm.
It was the first time Felix had ever seen a disease or illness affect a high level sentient before but whatever it was, was nasty. It completely deteriorated the body in a way that seemed physical, not biological. Slowly, the infected creature began to dissolve until they became entirely a viscous liquid.
His Alchemists had been hard at work for a few dekads, testing on creatures and every time they did, Felix and Nova used their Matter Senses to confirm whether or not they had succeeded. They checked both whether or not the disease was completely dealt with and whether or not the creature’s body was damaged in the process.
Their checking, ended up saving Felix his Prime Title he was pretty sure since the initial cure, based on a recipe the residents of the realm had already developed, was flawed. It was similar to the combat floor where there were two possible enemies to fight. They could either make the recipe given to them, which was a challenge in itself, or they could develop their own.
With their Matter Control and a full team of Alchemists working in a lab they had custom built, developing a new recipe was much easier than it should have been and in the end, netted Felix two Prime Titles.
The actual titles themselves were almost less interesting to Felix though, than the woman with completely black hair and makeup, red irises and a child like appearance.
[A - Ancient] Edira (Lvl 3571)
“You completely ignored the recipe I gave you.”
Felix nodded, “It was flawed. Even executed perfectly, it didn’t completely remove the disease, just weaken it significantly.”
With a completely blank expression, she slightly cocked her head, “If it is so weak it doesn’t affect them anymore, are they not cured?”
“It would have affected their children. Anyone they came in contact with. You know how contagious it is.”
“I know.”
“Then why not say so?”
She shrugged, “It was the best I could come up with.”
He let his disappointment show on his face for clearly too long because she immediately picked up on it, “Medicine isn’t my specialty.”
He opened his mouth to respond then stopped himself as he processed what she said, “What is your specialty?”
“Elixirs and draughts.” She casually stroked the head of a completely black, lizard bird that looked like a Drakeling or a tiny pterodactyl.
“As in the kind of elixirs that permanently change your body?”
She nodded, “Sometimes. Sometimes for the better. Other times not.”
“Do you happen to sell your elixirs?”
She shook her head, “No point. Each one is custom.”
“Are you… accepting clients?”
“No.”
“I see. Would you sell me any reci-”
“I’ll make you whatever you want. For saving my village where I couldn’t.”
Felix smiled, “Great. What do you need from me?”
“Part of your body to test on. The more you give me, the more tests I can do.”
Felix smirked widely, “Actually, I can do you one better.”
Opening his Kryptos Repository, Felix ejected a corpse. A perfect replica of his body, a spare.
She looked down at the body curiously, “Who’s that?”
“That’s me. I just wear this body like armor to disguise myself.” He explained from his Persona. Now that the realm was complete and considering she needed his real body to experiment on, he felt it was pretty low risk for him to reveal that particular secret.
“Curious.”
“I can provide you with as many bodies as you need, up to a few hundred a day. Do you need… other materials?”
She crouched down and poked at the corpse, causing it to vanish in puff of black smoke, “If you have something special in mind, I’ll see if I can use it.”
“I actually had nothing in mind. I take it you have your own lab, right?”
“Of course.”
“Let me introduce you to my familiar and, if you’d like, a team of alchemists who would be eager to learn from and help you.”
While Edira had her own cauldron in an old church, she ended up spending more time in Felix’s tower than at he cauldron over the course of a few dekads.
Nova provided her with Felix corpses and any material she could imagine while the team of Felix’s Mind Resident Alchemists followed her every direction. Felix was a little worried at first, considering how many of his test corpses exploded, melted or shriveled out of existence but that became less common as the days passed. Her success rate was never perfect but she became more manic and seemingly insane as she delved deeper and deeper into whatever elixir she was making.
She didn’t let Felix provide any specifications or specific Stats he wanted buffed, she just did her own thing. Even his Mind Residents were confused because she had some of them working on one elixir and others working on something completely different with no overlap.
Whether or not he ended up with an elixir at all though, Felix took solace in the knowledge she was imparting onto his Mind Residents. Even without her, they would probably be able to create him something useful.
The elixirs themselves weren’t what he had found in the multiverse. They didn’t just increase his body’s energy density or something else he had already done to his own body. Instead, he had no better way of describing them than as nanobots. She engineered bacteria and organisms to modify the body itself. They didn’t last forever and constantly heal the target or anything but they did permanently modified the bodies she used them on.
Sitting at the top of his tower, beneath the sun like light above him, Felix meditated each and every day. Focusing and honing his will power, desperately attempting to increase how much he could use, both to recover some of what he was using to keep the Fractal Mana Form stable, but even more so to push it that last little bit. If he could just increase his will power, he was convinced he could compress the Fractal Mana Form one last step and reach whatever it was he was feeling.
Sensing a presence near him, Felix pulled his attention back to his surroundings and saw Edira sitting on the edge of the parapet in front of him, playing with her black lizard bird familiar.
“Edira.”
“I don’t have an elixir for you.”
He nodded, “That’s okay. Take your time.”
“I know you want to leave.”
“I can wait.”
“Don’t. I’m coming with you.” She stated.
“You can’t.”
“Of course I can. I’ll stay in here and keep working while you deal with the realms.”
Felix’s jaw dropped, “You know about the realms?”
She cocked her head and looked at him with her signature blank expression, “Of course. I’m not as young as I look.”