For the first time since I’ve met him, the Champion down in the hole seems to be experiencing an emotion other than his usual lazy confidence. It’s not anger, it’s not even surprise. He just seems genuinely curious, his eyes ticking between me and the unsealed portion of his bond.
Neither of us moves any closer to the hole. I know for sure that if I enter it, I won’t be able to leave; that’s just how it’s made. It’s not because of the mana, no, it’s something else entirely that I can’t quite understand yet. Out of all of the things here, I’m probably the most curious about that hole.
“Mind telling me your name, oh Lord Champion?” I ask as I take a seat, and the bond lets me.
“My name’s Caius. What betrayed the presence of my bond? I thought she’d hidden perfectly.”
“Izzy told me,” I answer without concern, having already confirmed their status through the Community chat.
“That’s curious, we’ve been listening in on your telepathic communication and my bond should have been well hidden, even from her skills.”
But not the system channels, I want to say, but it’s not like he would hear me.
“She’s more talented than you would have expected. So what was the twist? We made a deal that I would come back later to free you, but there you are, sending your bond and trapping me here.”
He isn’t sitting anymore, and his eyes are constantly on me as if he’s reading something in my posture, taking each of my movements into consideration.
“Neither of us truly believed it, Nathaniel. Those were just empty words we said aloud, in a vain attempt to deceive each other. My bond would have killed the members of your group and placed the bodies of the ones with the most interesting skills into storage and come up with a way to fully free me at its leisure. Meanwhile, I would watch you die here and later take your Mana Wavelength Iris.”
“So there was never a chance for us to free you?”
“People tend to be easier to manipulate if they think they have something I want. They barter, they feel safe, and they tend to be easier to push in the direction I want. None of you, Nathaniel, could get me out as you are now.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
“Indeed.”
“Can I ask a few more questions?”
The darkness that was about to surround me pauses, and followed by the feeling of it looking over at its master, and waiting for his orders.
Caius smiles and gestures with his arm, "Please."
“You said I’m already taken, what did you mean by that?”
“It’s not complete, but there is a mark left on you by someone very powerful. To put it in more barbaric terms, the message goes something like: ‘This is mine, I found it first.’ Marks like this are very archaic, a relic of the Absolutes and Champions of old. Nowadays, things work slightly differently.”
As the presence reaches to me I ask one last question, “Do you remember what I said to you before? When you asked if I wanted to kill you.”
“Yes, you told me that you would kill me.” Caius smiles, and the pressure around me increases. A feeling that his bond is about to tear me apart.
Then I take a step and jump into the hole.
There is nothing stopping me. You can enter, but you cannot leave.
The sheer surprise on the Champion’s face as I land next to him is fun to watch.
My vortex core is full of primordial energies, and as Caius throws a punch my way, all of the kinetic energy in my body rushes out at once in an attempt to push him away and strengthen my body.
Even crippled and despite having never been specced for close combat in the first place, the Champion moves with incredible speed. The arm I use to block his strike evaporates into nothing, even after being bolstered with kinetic energy. Even with my unique passive.
But emerging from all that gore is a single shining white speck, almost seeming to float out into the air between us. The small grain of sand seems to be even more visible in this hole that serves as the Champion’s prison.
All the mana I got from my passive explodes from me, and the grain of sand becomes charged, swirling around crazily while Caius rushes to dodge. It also pierces through my body, drilling holes into it as it moves erratically through the confines of the hole.
From down here, I hear the Champion’s bond for the first time. It screeches, and the black smoke throws itself into the hole, rushing to save its master, even knowing that it’ll be trapped.
My body crashes against Caius, and a swing of his arm opens my belly, spilling my intestines into the open air.
It’s worth it though; just that short moment of imbalance causes him to miss, and the white grain of sand touches him. The tiniest touch on his skin. Barely a split of a second as it passes by.
And it’s over.
He stops moving. The bond stops moving. And I push my organs back inside of my belly.
The air vibrates and starts shaking, and an eruption of sound pours into the chamber from all sides. Tons upon tons of white sand rushing into the cave around us.
Somewhere hidden in the desert, huge reservoirs of mana explode, dozens of them, the explosions of such enormous amounts of mana can be felt even down here. Likely having been set for the sole purpose of serving to charge the sand that now, charged, rushes down there through three huge tunnels.
Caius and his bearing change, as if he can’t believe what just happened. Anger appears on his face, the anger of a powerful man, as he takes his next step towards me, arm lifted to deliver a finishing blow.
He doesn't say anything about me dying here with him, but I can’t help but tell him, “I told you I would kill you.”
These words make him pause for a moment.
I use that opportunity and say, “Use 1 Day Beyond Stay token.”
Before his blow lands, I disappear. I feel my body and mind spinning and the area surrounding me changes.
It seems to be somewhere around midnight, and I stand on the polished and perfectly smooth black stone that seems to stretch on forever. There’s nothing as far as I can see. No hills, no trees, no mountains, no clouds. Just straight and perfectly polished black stone flooring. The sky is full of beautiful stars and nebulas.
My heart generates mana again, and I revel in the sweet sensation as it begins to fill my body.
Once again, my handler sits before me, in a chair set behind an old wooden table stacked high with papers, plenty of mana stones, and a number of items I fail to identify.
She moves a thread of her red tinged black hair to the side and looks at me with her big brown eyes, “You’re in a bit worse state than I left you.”
I follow her eyes and look at the wound on my belly. It’s closing slowly, but at least my organs aren’t spilling out.
“Will I still get notifications here?”
“Yes,” she confirms, likely knowing what I’m waiting for. “You know, you might not be nearly as normal as you think.”
Huh? There is no way that’s true. She should take a closer look at the rest of group 4.
In the end, I still nod, it’s better to agree with crazy people so they leave you be. Then I wait. And a moment later, it comes.
[You have defeated Grimshaper - lvl 495]
[Lvl 263 > Lvl 264]
[Lvl 264 > Lvl 265]
[Lvl 265 > Lvl 266]
[Lvl 266 > Lvl 267]
[Lvl 267 > Lvl 268]
[Lvl 268 > Lvl 269]
[Lvl 269 > Lvl 270]
[Lvl 270 > Lvl 271]
[Lvl 271 > Lvl 272]
[Lvl 272 > Lvl 273]
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
[Lvl 273 > Lvl 274]
[Lvl 274 > Lvl 275]
Worryingly, there’s no notification about the bond. I'll need to warn the others as soon as possible; there's a chance we missed something.
I then invest the stats gained into mana.
“Happy?” she asks me as I close these notifications.
“He was a Champion, I should get more levels,” I complain regardless.
“Oh really? Do you truly believe that?” My handler smiles, leaning back, and watching me from behind her desk.
I don’t bother answering. It’s more than clear that I abused the environment, and Caius was weakened so I get an ‘assist’ at most. But that doesn’t change my opinion of the system being an asshole, especially after stealing so much XP from me.
“You know you could have died. What if the transport to Beyond hadn’t activated?”
“Why would it not, it activated before with Whitey.”
“The system might have disabled it after you abused it.”
“As if I’m the first person to ever abuse it like that. If the system didn’t like it or could, it would have been changed hundreds of years ago,” I just wave my hand.
Overall, my plan was simple. The guy couldn’t sense the grain of the sand hidden within my body. I even tested it a few times, I even sent away all the spears to get him to lower his guard.
I’m also not too proud to not accept that I would have died without the Beyond entrance token. But why wouldn’t I use things like the Community and the items awarded by the system to my advantage?
As for the Beyond entrance token, I got it from killing a thousand monsters over level 200. It worked nicely, the guy probably thought it was because of my amplified emotions.
“I’ll get back to you in a minute,” I tell my handler.
Then, while she sulks, I open quest notifications, starting with the oldest.
Congratulations, you have killed 1,000 monsters over level 200.
You have received a Beyond 1 day stay token.
Congratulations, you have reached level 275.
You have received a Beyond 1 day stay token.
Congratulations, you have survived.
You have received:
Beyond 3 day stay token
Active skill combination token
Yeah, that seems about right.
I look at my handler, “Hey, isn’t that reward too much?”
“What did you get? Let me check.” She grabs a paper from the table and taps on it a few times, “Oh, active skill combination token? It’s fine, survival quests can be like that, especially with personalized rewards, plus even though he was crippled and trapped, you did kill a Champion, so it’s a pretty big achievement.”
“I can live with that.”
I ignore my handler again and, for the first time in a long while, I open my status. My eyes first head toward my stats to check the results of the restrictive training emblem.
Strength: 141
Dexterity: 137
Constitution: 309
Mana (Stage 1/3 - Vast Mana): 1131 + 1131
I then close the window and open it again. It's still there.
Yeah, it's not bugged. My new training method has gained me 25 levels' worth of stats. Around 20 in Strength and Dexterity and over 30 in Constitution.
If Lady Lissandra continues to give me such fine things, I might fall in love with her. I think I should probably apologize to her; I’ve treated such a fine Absolute far too harshly.
She might give me something even better if I beg hard enough. Buying her a gift or two could certainly raise her opinion of me. So what might so fine woman as her like?
I lovingly check the useless stat increase. Sure, they can’t quite compare to the glory of mana, but getting them for free like this means I can put more stats into mana.
As if I wouldn't have done it anyway.
I also know that at some point the rate of improvement will slow, and the emblem will need to be adjusted, or I’ll need to use significantly more mana. But that’s something I can work on, after all, I already have plenty of interest in emblems. Plus, I can probably store a LOT of mana in the crown and use that to power the emblem in addition to the reserves in my body and reservoir.
Seems good.
I then open my entire status.
Name: Nathaniel Gwyn
Title: Champion Candidate
Difficulty: Hell
Floor: 6 - Astral Prison
Time left until forced return: 3y 308d 16h 06m 11s
Traits (2/3): Mana Circuit 2/3, Mana Wavelength Iris 0/3
Lvl 275
Strength: 141
Dexterity: 137
Constitution: 309
Mana (Stage 1/3 - Vast Mana): 1131 + 1131
Primary Class: Focused Channeler (Epic)
Sub-class: [Adept of Pride]
Active skills (9/10):
Focus - Lvl 53
Perception - Lvl 50
Redistribution - Lvl 50
Resonance - Lvl 51
Mana Domain (Pride) - Lvl 45
Tether - Lvl 40
Infusion - Lvl 37
Mana Crown - Lvl 39
Mana Manipulation - lvl 54
Constructs:
Reinforcement (Construct)
Thermokinetic Mana Heart (Construct)
Mana Regulator (Construct)
Mana Sovereignty Mantle (Construct)
Vortex Core (Construct)
Passive skills (4/5):
Arcane Resilience (Mid Epic)
Phoenix Embrace (Mid Epic)
Cognitive Fortress (Mid Epic)
Mana-Kinetic Conversion Reservoir (Unique Epic)
Tokens:
Trait strengthening token (2nd stage)
Beyond 1 day stay token
Beyond 3 day stay token
Active skill combination token
Shards: 149,748
I could live with that. Yup. Not bad at all. Just wait for me, Whitey. I'm gonna kick your ass very soon, I just need a few months, and you are done.
Well, for the second time, considering you’ve already been killed once. What a loser.
In a much better mood, I turn to my handler, “I would like a different handler.”
She tilts her head to the side and smiles, “Would you?”
“Yup. Someone more useful and cooperative. How does the thing with handlers even work?”
“Oh, it's quite simple,” she doesn’t even seem insulted, rather she answers my question with forthright honesty. “When you first enter Beyond, every handler has a chance to pick you up. If only one is available, they will get you. If there’s more than one, they either bid on the opportunity to represent you, or the other handlers will back off based on prior deals and coercion.”
“How many handlers were after me? And how much information do they have?”
“Quite a few wanted to get a hold of you, but there were others from your planet who drew a lot of interest, especially that man. Before you ask, I won't tell you more. As for the information, just the basics like your status, excluding the most powerful skills and traits. Then they get a sample of the records of your performance across each of the floors. As for the full records, only the Rulers can see them… and maybe a dozen others. Then, of course, your handler once they’re assigned.”
“See, that’s actually pretty good, why couldn’t you be more cooperative before. So I want to ask...”
She lifts her hand to stop me from talking, “Your time here is limited and we’re nearing the end. In a few seconds, you'll be sent to the Entrance floor. If you still want to change your handler, you can do that; just say ‘I want to change handlers,’ and the system will offer you some options.”
Finally, she stands up and moves around her table, stopping in front of me. She has the look of an adult playing a trick on a dumb kid.
“Both you and I know you love to gain power and information on your own. You have that insatiable curiosity and weird sense of pride you’re building. You complain, you curse, but the feeling it gives you is something you are addicted to.”
She lifts her finger and waves it from side to side, and I can’t help but follow it with my eyes, much to her amusement.
“But just this once, allow me to give you some information few handlers can give you. Information you can’t talk about outside of this place.”
My handler moves her face closer and whispers, “There are 13 floors, each tied to one of the Rulers. This was something Greed wanted. Through her immense power and trickery, she persuaded the other Rulers to agree, and they altered the previous version of the tutorial.”
Her voice becomes even quieter, and I feel her warm breath on my ear as she whispers, “Only one Ruler refused, and no one was crazy enough to try to force him.”
The next few words reach me, “On each of the floors, if you're lucky, or unlucky enough, you can meet a Ruler from some point in their past. The floors are made from their planets or places important to them. This is my gift - an answer with many more questions.”
She is smiling as I get pulled away to the Entrance Floor, her brown eyes glowing, “Tell me, do you still want to change handlers?”