The broadcast thankfully ends, and Noah does his best not to sigh in relief. He may have unmatched mana control, but his emotions are another matter.

“This time when I resurrected,” Noah begins, and the Interviewer doesn’t stop him, so he continues, “the cold didn’t bother me, but I still summoned my armor. I didn’t feel like putting on yet another show for all the CorCivs.

Not if I wasn’t going to get paid for it.

I was torn about having killed Rilen’s projection, or whatever it was. I was glad I hadn’t actually killed someone, but at the same time worried about him coming back. I got the feeling he wasn’t going to leave me be, and killing him for real might be the only way to stop him.

I inevitably was reminded of Luke, but told myself it was an accident. Which was true enough, and he was corrupted, trying to attack me.

I shook my head, pushing the thought away. I couldn’t afford to get distracted. I had to focus on the here and now.

Which I did, taking stock of my situation.

Despite dying, I was alive thanks to my resurrection token. Which, worryingly, was becoming a habit. Though, I suppose it’s better than dying and not coming back.

While it was too bad I’d wasted a resurrection token, it had at least healed me, and I felt better than I ever had—in my own body, anyway. It was the first time I was at full strength at Copper. I wasn’t even thirsty anymore.

Like the first time I’d resurrected, my cards were empty of mana.

I activated Contract first, pushing mana into it, then added Smoldering Caress to see if it increased the draw. It did, but not by much, so I went ahead and activated my third and final card, Blood of the Phoenix.

Last time I’d died I’d lost my clothes and anything I’d had on me, so I was happy to discover that I’d retained my meager possessions this time: the egg; the fragments from the undead ice giant, as well as the voucher though I still couldn’t tell where that was stored; and the shard I’d gotten from the ice giant matriarch. I wasn’t sure if that was because they were in my storage abilities or not, since my clothes certainly hadn’t stayed with me when I’d died going through the keymaster’s portal tunnel.

I also noticed something interesting: I had a new ability under my Fodder hobby.

Avatar of the Sentinel

Even a shadow of the primordial can bestow profound power.

Increases speed, strength, and size.

Any damage sustained while in the form of the avatar is not inflicted upon your actual body.

Maintaining this form requires both lifeforce and mana. If you run out of mana, you will be ejected from the avatar. If you run out of lifeforce, you will die.

While in this form, you lose access to all your cards and abilities.

Well, that explained why I had died. I’d stayed in the form too long and it had used up all my health and mana.

I wondered how and why I’d gotten the ability, and if it was any different from what I’d just experienced when fighting Rilen and his team.

My curiosity got the best of me and I decided to test it to see if there were any differences, and also to try to get a better idea of how fast it drained my health and mana.

I activated the ability and felt like I was sliding down a steep incline, then suddenly I was once more the avatar.

I wasn’t inside it, exactly, not physically. It was as though my own body had been exchanged for this one, and I could feel it somewhere… else.

I could tell I was stronger, but the power wasn’t as great as it had been and the form itself looked different. I no longer had an arboreal bent, but instead seemed to be made of a dark prismatic substance that looked nothing like skin. Its increased size remained, which surprisingly wasn’t disorienting. It somehow felt natural.

I brought up my own information to see if I could find out the thing’s rank.

Avatar of the Sentinel

Rank: ???

Level: ???

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

That was less than useful. Interesting, though.

I wondered if it was what other people who tried to inspect me would see. When I’d inspected Rilen I hadn’t been able to see what it was called. Now I could see that, but not its rank.

I tried examining my own mana, but the most I could tease out was that it was more powerful, not by how much.

What was interesting was that it didn’t seem like my mana. There was nothing of subjugation in it, nothing of me. Just… hunger.

I didn’t think it was Gold anymore, it didn’t have that domineering sense of superiority, but it was still incredibly powerful.

One thing that was useful compared to before was that there was a sort of timer now, little bars showing me how much mana and health I had left. They either hadn’t been there previously, or I hadn’t noticed them.

I watched them for several seconds. Both indicators decreased noticeably, but not significantly.

I had some time to test things out, I told myself.

Besides, I wanted to get back to Koren and Vyrania as fast as possible, and what better way than in a more powerful body?

I pulled up my map to get my bearings, but nothing happened.

“Ah, balls, that’s inconvenient.” I couldn’t use any cards or abilities, which apparently included other hobby abilities.

My voice came out strangely. Deeper and distorted.

“Hello, this is weird, I sound like I sucked that gas that’s not helium.”

I shook my head, stopped wasting time, and deactivated the avatar form so I could use my map.

My armor was gone, but other than that I was unchanged.

I opened my map. I could still see the dots representing Koren and Vyrania. I studied the map for a few moments, committing to memory their position in relation to my own, then reactivated the avatar form.

I thought I might have been able to cheese the ability, but the map closed on its own.

I took off at a sprint, dodging swampy pits, leaping over rocks, and simply plowing through and obliterating fallen tree trunks.

Invigorated, I pushed harder, leaping as high as I could, landing in the treetops then pushing off, running across their tops like a superhero.

I let out a triumphant cry as I soared from treetop to treetop, barely needing to touch down at all, my avatar body propelling me at inhuman speeds.

Then my foot broke through a branch, my weight too much for it to bear, and I stumbled and crashed through the branches and landed in a pile of muck that sucked me down like quicksand.

I panicked at first, but then remembered my weapon, which I tried to summon to use to pull myself out with.

But of course I couldn’t use any of my other abilities.

I was really starting to freak out, then had a thought. Did I even need to breathe? I wasn’t human at the moment, after all.

It turned out I didn’t, and after much wiggling and thrashing, I was able to pull myself free.

It wasn’t even a deep pit, only two feet or so of swampy water.

I stood at the edge, looking down, and shook my head. “Guess that’s what it meant by water taking life.”

Just went to show, there’s always something that can take you out, no matter how powerful you are.

Even lowly mud can bring down the mightiest of foes.

Those with power tend to forget that.

I shifted out of Avatar to check my map to see how far I had to go.

There came that sliding feeling again, and then I was back in my body. I was perfectly clean too.

I could tell I was injured a bit, but not in any outward physical way.

It was weird. It was more like a whole-body soreness, or tiredness. But it was mild.

I went to check my health and mana, but the little bars representing them were gone. Apparently I could only see them when I was in avatar form.

After rapidly switching back and forth multiple times, I started to feel woozy. My health and mana were very low.

I quickly left the avatar form. There was no cooldown, but the act of entering and exiting the form used up both health and mana at a much greater rate than just staying in the form did.

Using energy to enter the form made sense, but that it needed it to exit as well made it dangerous. I’d have to pay close attention to those bars in the future.

I decided to stay in my normal form to preserve my remaining health and mana.

I checked my map and was surprised to find I was already about three-quarters of the way to Koren and Vyrania.

I proceeded more carefully in their direction. They still hadn’t moved, and as I grew closer I began to worry they were injured, or that maybe Rilen had come back to life somehow and attacked them.

‌

∎ ∎ ∎

While my Copper body was no match for the avatar form, it was still stronger and faster than I ever imagined I would become. It felt as though I was already beyond what even the most elite of humans would have been capable of.

And so it was in no time at all that I made it back to the battlefield where Koren and Vyrania awaited me.

“You’re still here,” I said, skidding to a halt beside them at the edge of the woods, Koren punching and kicking a tree, Vyrania looking like she was meditating.

“Of course,” Koren said, not pausing his arboreal abuse. “We knew you had a resurrection token, so assumed you’d be returning.”

“You also have the egg,” Vyrania added, getting to her feet. “Which we can’t complete the event without.”

“That too,” Koren allowed.

“We knew you had the map,” Vyrania said, “so debated going to look for you.” She motioned at Koren. “He said you could use the exercise.”

“Plus,” Koren added, “you’re so slow that if we went in the wrong direction, we’d outpace you.”

“Wow,” I said, “thanks for the multiple votes of confidence.”

“I am your confidence man,” Koren said, delivering a final blow that knocked over the tree he was beating on.

“You keep using that the wrong way.”

Before Koren could respond, a new message appeared, materializing into view as that overly enthusiastic voice spoke.

HELLO! It’s me, System 3121-111. So nice to talk to you again. I should do it more often.

Anyway, I’ve finally settled on the prize to give out in relation to the [Hero Board].

There are actually three. Isn’t that great!?

The first is an item I’ve decided to call [Gambler’s Redoubt]. I’ll leave it as a surprise the amazing things it will do. Everyone in the top ten has just received the item.

As for the second and third prizes, here’s how it will work. Brace yourselves, it might be a little complicated for your simple monkey brains to comprehend.

There are currently ten people in the top ten. I hope that much is obvious.

Anyone who murders one of the top ten will take their place, and become a top ten themselves if they weren’t already.

Once you’ve become one of the top ten, your goal is to eliminate the other members before anyone outside of the top ten can take their place. Whoever first achieves being the sole living person in the top ten will be crowned champion.

And your prize? Retirement! Fully funded. You won’t even need medical insurance.

And not only that. You’ll get your own subsystem, becoming the most powerful and awesome non-system being in all existence!

After reading the message, Koren and Vyrania were looking at me in a way I didn’t like.