Chapter 74: Degradation

"Are you serious? I asked out of the blue to annoy you?" Safo was surprised but smiled at Dost.

"I am serious. Three psios died during the war with psiora."

Three out of twenty-five was a lot. Safo felt sorry for asking such depressing questions. "I'm sorry about that."

"It is fine, it was a war. They killed thousands of psiora, and never were sorry about it.

The way to kill psios is to destroy its body and keep the soul isolated for some time. Stronger the soul longer you need to keep it from any object.

The topic of souls is a complicated one. I'm sure you know a bit from the Stone of the Kings." Dost revealed a secret of all Psios race without any expression on his metal face and moved on the conversation as nothing happened.

"You know what is in the Stone?" Safo also skipped the part about killing psios souls. It was useful knowledge but he didn't want to ask Dost to talk about the better ways. It felt inappropriate.

"I was there when King Atan recorded his message to his son Hfan and kins. I know exactly what it says."

Another bomb had been dropped on Safo without a warning.

"What really? You were there? How? What happened there? Tell me everything... But before do you think that it will work, with O'rmon I mean?" Safo's eyes shone bright, he never realized that Dost knew so much about the history of Psiora.

'To think about it, he is an immortal soul and he should've known many things. How dumb I was not to demand every bit of information from his computer head." Safo scolded himself for being short-minded.

"I think that you are a bit harsh, but yes I think it may work. Sadly, you can't use the same method yourself." Dost muttered his last sentence.

"It is ok, I'm looking forward to unlocking my full potential in the future. For now, tell me more about Atan. And does it mean that you saw the lost Ten? The home of all Psio?" With every question, Safo's excitement only piled up.

Dost again thought through his words. He knew more than he was telling, it was obvious. He still kept many secrets.

"Yes, I saw it. Ten is the name of the star. "TenUanHop" is the name of our world. It came from the names of three gods that created our race.

It was beautiful..." Moment of silence, Dost mentally returned to his youth when he freely could fly above the surface of his home planet. His soul could dive into the ground and take control of any object making it alive.

Safo seemed to feel Dost's emotions. It was enough description for some so precious for a soul. He believed that the TenUanHop was a paradise for all Psio. Even if hated to disturb Dost's zen moment, he couldn't help but ask.

"What happened? How did Psio lose the place? And where are other Psio races?" Finally, Safo could learn the rest of the history of the Psio race. His body almost shivered in anticipation.

"I can't tell you the events which led to our flee from our home. Let's say that a series of misfortunes brought a huge misunderstanding between our races. We fought and lost. Psios were banished from the TenUanHop.

About Psiora, as far as I know, the whole race was annihilated in the Psio. Only a thousand or so psiora children took control of rats and tuck themselves inside our ship. When we were at safe distance, we dropped off all psiora in the dumpster which is New Tenga now.

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Since that day we had never helped Psiora in their development and even declared a war to ban them from taking over sapient lives.

We found a new home in the Empire, next to the Emperor we found our goal. And that made us think that we are better than rats. Ignorance is our sin. I'm here to redeem all wrong that I did." With that, Dost stopped talking and went completely silent. He remembered many unpleasant events. So many wars, so many lives, so many sins.

"Can we return home someday?" Safo felt like asking an impossible.

"No, it is not possible. if we do, the universe as we know it will come to an end." Dost didn't want to control his words with his last answer; he told the truth without a pause.

Safo stood up to leave Dost with his thoughts. "You need a rest." Safo stopped at the door for a moment, "They don't hate you. They just miss father," and left.

Safo wasn't in the mood to talk to Yon about his life for the day. Instead, he went to the armored room to practice his resources and meditate for the rest of the day.

In the evening he received a message from Miloud asking Safo to join the game. A moment of darkness while submerging into the depth of the Virtual Dimension, and Safo stood on the plaza of a familiar Cilla village.

In front of him stood a crystal humanoid shimmering its colors under the midday starlight.

"Hey, how are you? Long time no see. Where have you been? I mastered the Bait. It was all about the reaction, not the technique right? Am I right?" Safo had so many questions to ask, he was impatient to spar with Miloud to show him how good he became.

"How did you enter at the same time?" He referred to Luna and him appearing in the game simultaneously. But soon he waved his hand to forget about his question. "He has to hurry. Go buy teleporters to the Snow mountains. It is an open location for now. It is a Degradation event."

Miloud pushed both Luna and Safo towards the stall with teleport scrolls. Players surround the area, everybody was in a rush to buy and teleport the unknown for Safo location.

"What is Degradation? Is someone very popular is doing stupid things, like taking videos on TikTok? We had that kind of people on my planet." Curiosity overflowed Safo.

"I forgot that you two are noobs. Degradation is when the whole one particular monster type descends from an upper cube. It will last for ten days. This time we have time before the alpha comes so hurry up." Miloud was unusually cheerful. He smiled a lot while talking and was extraordinarily talkative too.

"Why do we need to go there?" Safo still could grasp the brilliance of the event.

"Man, why are you so slow? Players can use the portal from Cube 2 to ascend there and gain an extra bonus for that. We have to work our way through, but it shouldn't be a problem. Move, move BlackSly is already there waiting for us." Miloud wanted to ask about Luna's father. But thought that it would take time to get him, so neglected the idea.

Another black and a blank screen in Safo's mind and three of them teleported to the Domloy Village. The heart of the frozen snow mountain. Like other villages in Cube 1, the village was built out of wood. Bigger building amongst others meant that the chief of the village lived there.

Never-melting snow topped the vicinity, NPC were all dressed in fluffy clothing. An enormous mountain white mountain stood tall in front of the village. The Mountain peak was nowhere to see, it went high above the cloud, gradually disappearing in the fog.

We are going to the top. Brace yourself." Miloud again pushed their back towards the exit gates to hurry his companions.

On the way, they talked about Safo's progress with the technique that Miloud sent. Miloud genuinely laughed about their adventures in the cave with Jumpy rocks. By his words, Miloud finished that cave in less than a minute. Luna and Safo didn't believe the boasting.

To Safo's question where was Miloud all that time, he answered that he had to attend school. Miloud said that he was in the school for assassins, where he learned all the skills and methods of the demanded profession.

Luna and Safo simply sighed at Miloud's childish fantasies.

The stream of players migrating to the top of the mountain was impressive. Thousands of players walked the path to the top together. It was an unusual occasion in the area, due to the rareness of monsters.

Often than not players moved from the location to other villages where they could hunt for monsters with relative ease.

"Miloud, I'm not level 9 yet. I can't ascend to the next Cube. We need to go hunting before reaching the mountain top.

"It is not a problem. That is the beauty of the Degradation portals. You do not have to be level 9 as it goes with the regular door to the Cube 2. Anyone can pass the portal given that they won't die in the battle with monsters."

It took the whole night of walking to reach the top. Only to be disappointed that the InCubation guilt captured the trail to portal and was demanding a fee to pass.