Duke saw the Overmind and the Eye of Infinity appear before him. His XENOGLOSSIA picked up their body language before they even spoke. Duke did not trust the Ability in this case as he expected Entities to be able to control their bodies absolutely. Still, what his Ability showed him was satisfaction from the Overmind and calmness from the Eye of Infinity. He didn’t speak, waiting for them to start.
It was the Eye of Infinity who spoke first, “It has come to pass as I saw it to be. You played your role brilliantly, Duke.”
“Played my role? What game is it that you are all playing? I’m tired of being everyone’s pawn in these games of power.”
The Overmind stepped in, “Duke, you are no pawn. You just flipped the entire board over, sending our foes into utter chaos.”
“Our foes?”
“Yes, Duke, Our foes. The Syndicate has been predating upon dungeons for centuries.”
“I am feeling very short of answers right now and not exactly in the best of moods. Someone please make it make sense.”
The Eye of Infinity floated back a bit to allow the Overmind to be the sole focus of the conversation. The Overmind floated in front of Duke’s face at about arm’s reach before continuing.
“You have seen what powers magitech, right?”
“Sure, Mana Cores.”
“How does one make Mana Cores?”
“I don’t know how anyone else does it, but I use my Dungeon Core Creation Ability and just don’t infuse the core with the full dungeon potential. It was an easy leap to make with the Ability.”
“Yes, I suppose it was. Now, how do others make Mana Cores?”
“I…I have no idea. Some form of enchantment perhaps?”
“The truth is that they can’t. They tried making them out of the cores of the few monsters that have their own cores, but they were temporary at best – single use and not able to be recharged. The true Mana Cores are made from dungeon cores that are stripped of their soul. They are the shells of slaughtered dungeons. My children! Sacrificed so that these mortals can spread across the Cosmos.”
Duke felt the impact of the Overmind’s words deep in his own heart, the pain resonating within his own center where once a Seed of Anomy had germinated only to be replaced by the seed of a core. The core itself wailed at the loss and the feeling nearly overwhelmed him. Duke took a few breaths to re-center himself before saying anything.
“You are telling me that the thousands of ships flying from system to system are all powered by the corpses of dungeons?”
“Millions, Duke. Millions.”
“Why isn’t this public knowledge? Why is this allowed to continue?”
“Because before you, I didn’t have a single person who cared. No one before you ever really treated a dungeon as an actual living entity. Even those that had developed an avatar were just considered amusing curiosities but few truly understood that dungeons are living beings. Certainly those sent to ‘harvest’ dungeon cores didn’t know or care.”
“That’s insane. How could no one else have figured it out? Dungeons have been around for…well, I don’t know how long but a freaking long time.”
“Few dungeons are planted on worlds that do not already have a magical presence. Those planted on magically dead worlds just do not survive. They don’t have a high enough Tier to overcome the magical suppression of those worlds.”
“What was that about magical suppression?”
“Worlds that are without magic. Most of them sit in one magic suppression zone or another. There are some that have a magic siphon pulling their magic away and some that have something that suppresses their magic. More often or not someone set them up like that for a reason.”
“It’s not natural? It’s all artificial?”
“You seem rather invested in this concept, Duke. Is there a reason for it?”
“Not here. Not now,” The Eye of Infinity interrupted them. “There are too many watching. Too many listening in. Already you have said much that may have been best left unsaid.”
Duke looked around but didn’t see anyone else but with Entities involved, he didn’t trust his senses to be able to pick them up. Still, he did not want this conversation interrupted or overheard so he stopped talking.
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The Overmind continued instead, “Go visit Sam. I’ll meet you there once you have had time to review things you have been avoiding.”
“Avoiding? What are you talking about?” Duke stopped as he noticed the flashing indicator in the corner of his vision telling him he had notifications waiting. He nodded and prepared to TELEPORT away. As he withdrew his navigation core he realized that relying on the device was all well and good for situations where he had time to take it out and study it. But for when he really needed to move quickly, it was insufficient.
Duke studied the core for a full minute before he pulled up the one pending Tier Ability slot and tried his idea. He attempted to absorb the core’s magical navigational ability and focus it through the empty Ability slot. It seemed that the system agreed with his attempt because he received a notification.
*** Congratulations! You have crafted a new Ability. This new Ability is called COSMIC NAVIGATION and will take up your Tier Eight slot. As this Ability was both absorbed and crafted with a Tier slot, it starts at a significantly higher rank than normal. You new have this Ability at Adept 1.
COSMIC NAVIGATION allows you to know not only your location within the Cosmos but also the location of any place you have visited previously. You instinctively know the distance to any location you have visited. This Ability is paired with your TELEPORTATION Ability and will allow you to map a route to any distant location you have visited regardless of whether you have visited any necessary intervening waypoints. ***
As the Ability formed in Duke’s core, the navigational core simply melted into his hand, its capabilities absorbed and, most importantly, its database was added to his Ability as locations he had available. With a smile, he TELEPORTED away on the first of the seven legs required for his journey back to Teldin.
Duke appeared in the Lake Front Inn, startling a table full of Legionnaires that he did not recognize. They jumped to their feet and reached for their weapons before a loud voice shouted from several tables across the common room, “Stand down! That’s the king.”
The Legionnaires immediately stopped and saluted Duke in the odd crossed-arm salute that Aurelia had pushed throughout the Legion. Duke returned the salute with a wry grin, “As you were and excellent reaction speed.”
Seconds later, he was seated at the bar with Calen serving him a glass of scotch whiskey. He raised the glass to Calen and proceeded to dive into his notifications.
*** Congratulations! As the overall champion of the Contest, you have earned a Title. You shall forevermore be known as the Grand Victor of the Cosmic Contest. This Title grants you three effects. First is free passage through the Domains and Territories of all Entities of the Cosmos. Second, all your Characteristics receive a 10% bonus. Finally, you are granted an automatic breach of the Mortal Barrier should you reach sufficient experience to reach Tier 11. ***
Duke re-read the Title description. There’s a few things in there that I’m going to have to dig into. Mortal Barrier? What the hell is that? Duke continued reading his notifications.
*** As your prize for winning the Contest, you have been granted one custom-designed solar system in the galaxy and dimension of your choice. You have a total of 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms to work with in the creation of this solar system. The only other restrictions on this system are that it cannot be located any closer than 2 light-years from an inhabited system and it cannot be located in a dead-magic zone. ***
That’s a lot of zeros, but I have no idea how much mass that is when compared to anything I am familiar with. Not sure who I could even ask. Oh well, more notifications to get through.
*** You have slain over 2,000 members of the Syndicate with one use of an Ability. This grants you the Mass Murderer Achievement. There is no reward for this achievement but expect extreme enmity from this group in the future. You receive 144,759,917 (159,235,909) experience. You have Tiered up to Tier Nine and have reached level 427. You have 19,926 Characteristic Points to spend. As you have achieved a new Tier, you have the choice of the following rewards:
1. Create a new Ability appropriate for your Tier
2. Advance an existing Ability by one rank (Maximum of Adept)
3. Advance an existing Skill by one rank (Maximum of Adept)
4. Gain 200 bonus Characteristic Points
5. Gain one powerful item appropriate to your Tier
6. Gain the Ability to cloak your presence to anyone below your Tier level
***
Duke took in the monstrous amount of experience and the associated levels that came with it. He had Tiered up and was less than 25 levels from Tier Ten. He looked at the massive number of Characteristic points and realized that he would have to allocate them over some time as that much at once would be an enormous amount of pain. He allocated some for now, saving the rest for later.
Duke brought his base Strength, Endurance, and Reason up to 3,000 and brought his base Psyche up to 13,000. The pain of adding over 1,500 points in one go was significant but short-lived. He decided to add no more than 1,000 points at a time until he got them all allocated.
While he waited for the Overmind, he ran through a slew of other notifications. Most were related to the people he had killed. And then he saw the one specific to his UMBRAL REAPER Ability. It had gained an obscene number of levels, nearly three hundred. He marveled at the Ability as it sat at the cap of the Master rank. One more level and it would be his second Ability to reach Grandmaster. The devastation he had managed with it at Master rank had been insane even if it had been OVERCHANNELED with most of his Mana pool. OVERCHANNEL also increased but not by nearly as much, reaching Master 40.
Duke now had a lot of families out for blood. The consequences of killing all those Syndicate people were only just starting to manifest. He had felt justified at the time, but now he was not sure. He continued drinking his scotch, starting his fourth glass while still waiting for the Overmind to show up. It seemed that it was going to be a while, so he settled in, turned around, and watched the Legionnaires.