Temporarily Unavailable? What did it mean temporarily unavailable? Then again, if conversions were taking place within the realm that might take a little bit of time.
A new voice entered Adam’s mind, Do you think? This is Chronos, create one of your rooms again so we can have a sit-down.
Adam willed the Primal Chaos around him into the shape and form of a small empty room again. Then thought better of it and willed the Primal Chaos into a copy of his estate with a clear bubble around it so he could view the Primal Chaos. It took a little longer to finish but came into existence within a minute. Once he could see the landing pad he teleported to it and walked inside to find Chronos lounging on his sofa watching TV.
“What’s on?” Adam asked, wondering how it could be on at all, he was pretty sure there were no satellites out here that connected to anything.
“I decided to show you what’s going on in your realm, with the understanding that this process is going on across all reality, save those Realms that already abide by the rules you’re reinstituting,” Chronos said.
An image of the mage Xsitant and his red dragon Grasar appeared on the screen. They had landed on an outcropping. Their eyes were glazed over as they looked at each other.
“What level are you now?” Xsitant asked.
“I am now level 1,000,” Grasar said in the gruff voice of a dragon.
“As am I. Where did the other 4,000 levels go?” Xsitant asked.
“There is a message. What does, ‘The Wheel of Fortune has turned, the old is new again!’ mean?”
“I do not know. Also, I have the same message?” Xsitant said.
The screen changed to show other individuals discovering that their levels were now lowered. As the scenes changed and the level changes were stated Adam realized that a level reduction was taking place. Xistant and Grasar had both been level 5,000 when he‘d met them long ago. That meant they were probably level 5,000 before the change this time around. After the change, they were now level 1,000. As he watched he figured out that someone’s new level was a percentage based on the old maximum level. If someone had been level 400 before the conversion, they were now level 80. Also, the level seemed to indicate that they fell somewhere on a ranking system.
“I see you noticed the ranking system. The new level system automatically ranks beings. Each Rank is 100 levels and those ranks are; Common, Uncommon, Unusual, Advanced, Scarce, Master, Rare Epic Mythic, and Legendary
“What happened to the Relic, Artifact, and Unique Ranks?” he asked.
“They still exist but are not Ranks for beings. Legendary is the highest rank beings and creatures can obtain.
“It looks like the conversion is done, by what you’re showing me?”
“I am Chronos, I am showing events that happen right up until the process freezes time, which is right about now.”
Adam hadn’t felt stupid in a long time, but then again, how was he to know? He looked at Chronos, making sure to take a few deep breaths to calm down before he asked, “Okay, you’re showing me events that happened. How long will time be frozen? How long am he going to be locked out of my realm,” Adam asked.
“Honestly, without a clock here in Primal Chaos…” Chronos started to say before Adam willed a computer into existence that contained a clock and a power supply that would never run out, magic batteries for the win.
Chronos closed her eyes for a moment then said, “Right around 1,346,269 years from now.”
“What! Wait, that’s a Fibonacci number, the 27th in the sequence.”
“It is, isn’t it,” Chronos agreed.
“What am he supposed to do for the next million-odd years? Wait, does that mean by the time the changes are done everyone inside that I know will be dead?”
“No, the realm’s flow of time has been stopped while further changes are made. If that hadn’t happened it would have been a real mess,” Chronos said.
“So, time just stops for the realm and starts back up?”
“I don’t think you understand Adam,” Time has stopped for every Realm until this ‘Update’ is applied to all Realms my body touches.
“Oh.”
“Oh, is right,” Chronos said.
“How many other entities are outside of the changes that are happening right now?” Adam asked.
“Besides, you and he?” Chronos asked.
“Yeah,” he said having a sinking feeling.
“Exactly zero,” Chronos said.
“Well, that sounds boring,” he said.
“It does, doesn’t it? Fortunately, I can adjust his frame of reference to the future point where time starts flowing again. I can do that for you too but first, I thought you might want to peruse what the changes will do to you when you re-enter the realms.
“What do you mean?”
“You understand that you reset the Realms to an early version, did you understand all the changes that you made?”
“Honestly, no, some of the coding looked like gibberish.
“Well, that gibberish contained the settings and parameters for mortals and divines. In those settings, nothing like the Arcanus Numina existed because the Gods were all-powerful back then.”
“Are you saying the settings I just enacted are going to nerf me?”
“Yes and no. You will still have advantages, but they will be modified. Also, you will be a Mortal again. Ascendant Humans did not exist in that system. You are either Mortal or Divine.”
“What about my level?”
“I am unsure what will happen. A temporal nexus has formed at the point in the future where the Realms are released. I moved my frame of reference to it and took a look, but I cannot see anything that happens after,” Chronos said.
“So, I could be reduced to level 1,000 is what you’re saying?” Adam asked.
“Honestly I don’t know. I am also interested to see how the conversion works for your skills.
“What do you mean?”
“Skills only have levels 1 through 100. Also, skills are ranked. For instance, the skill of karate is considered uncommon, while the skill, Hand to Hand Combat would be Common. The Rank of a skill will now give a 10% bonus based on Rank difference.”
“So, someone with a Legendary skill will be 90% more effective against someone with a common skill,” he finished for her.
“Exactly.”
“So, if I step into a Realm I could lose all of this power?”
“I very much doubt that you will lose all your power. Your nature and some of the abilities you have might make it almost impossible for you to lose your advantages though I should point out something. One of the concepts that even I remember, that was changed during the last conversion, was the idea of maximum damage. That was converted to maximum damage based on attributes.
“You’re saying that If a sword does 10 damage, the most damage I could do with it will be 10?” Adam asked.
Something like that. Using your example. If a Sword could do 10 damage the most damage it could do would be double multiplied by a critical hit factor which had a maximum value of 5. So, in the case of a sword that does 10 points of damage, someone with a very high strength could do 20 points with it. If they critically hit they could do up to 100 points. But no more. The same goes for hand-to-hand melee attacks. All physical attacks were limited.
“What about magic?” Adam asked.
“Magic could do more damage based on spell and skill level. I can’t see exactly how that’ll work but I get the feeling the limitation will be mana-based,” Chronos said.
“Where is all this information in the interface?” Adam asked.
“In the coding. Much like DNA, you can see the codes and you can even theorize what certain combinations will do but until you get a look at the final product there is no way to know exactly what’s going to happen,” Chronos said thoughtfully.
“So, what you’re saying is that I will not know how entering a realm will affect me until I enter a realm?”
“That pretty much sums it up,” Chronos agreed.
“And I can just use Time magic to pop to the point where everything starts back up and enter a realm and it’ll be as if no time has passed, though the changes will have happened?” Adam asked.
“I believe so, there’s no way to be sure. Whatever is governing Primal Chaos is beyond my scope to understand. The time taken to remove the time stop effect cannot be waiting for all the Realms to be converted,” Chronos said until he finished her thought.
“Because in an infinite system, the conversion could go on forever. So, this change will continue to spread and as it spreads new Realms will be able to be reached by the Labyrinth again.”
“Or the system isn’t infinite and when the time stop effect ends all of Primal Chaos and the realms within will have been changed,” Chronos said.
“Which is it?” Adam asked.
“I cannot see the answer to that question, nor will you until we pass through the temporal nexus,” Chronos said.
“Will you cease to exist then?” Adam asked.
“I do not believe so. I do not follow the rules set forth in the realms, nor do I have the power to affect anything other than through the application of time and discourse.”
“Well then, I think it’s about ‘time’ to get this show on the road, don’t you think?” Adam asked.
“I will await you at the nexus in this room,” Chronos said as she faded from view.
This was going to be really good, or it was going to be really bad. Adam focused his intent and willed himself as far forward through time as he could go and cast the spell. The living room blurred then reappeared around him and he found himself standing next to Chronos.
Adam heard Chronos say,” Just in time,” as he received a System Message that automatically popped up and clouded his vision.
Quarantined Sector Autonomously Reset and Reintegrated Successfully, 100% Complete.
WARNING Johnathan Bennard is not compatible with Reintegration.
WARNING Johnathan Bennard has been quarantined until a compatibility update is devised and applied.
Reviewing failure to update Johnathan Bennard.
Failure is identified as a temporal anomaly.
Current Compatibility Update is acceptable.
Johnathan Bennard, do you wish to accept Compatibility Update, Yes or No?
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
There was a lot to unpack in those seven messages. First the Quarantine. When he looked up he noticed that the living room he was in was empty. Chronos was gone. Adam also noticed that he could no longer see or feel anything outside of the living room through the chaos he was linked to in his immediate area. His senses ended at the wall. Adam willed the wall to open up and let him see outside and found a wall of something that was not Primal Chaos. Adam reached out and touched it. It felt solid to the touch but no matter what he did he could not analyze or quantify it. It wasn’t magic and it wasn’t natural, what did that leave?
“Just to make sure he pulled all of the chaos that formed the room into a ball at the center of the room and found himself inside a square made of this solid black material that made up the wall. Adam tried to teleport out of the wall, which failed. he calculated how much damage he could take from an impact, moved to one side of the wall, and flashed into it at warp speed.
Do you know what happens when an immovable object is hit at higher than warp 10 as depicted in Star Trek the Next Generation? Adam did. As he reformed from the particles of himself that had been scattered throughout the energetic cube he reviewed his messages. It didn’t take all that long and realize that when he’d atomized himself into a cascading explosion that had taken a while to die down. By his clock, he’d been out for a couple of weeks. Okay, so he was quarantined. Why was this starting to feel more and more like the inside of a computer memory core in cyberspace as described in Shadowrun or Cyberpunk? Holographic reality? If so he could…
Adam opened the Realm Interface and started scouring through the coding as he looked for what he was pretty sure existed. His familiarity with computer coding, even before gaining the ability boundless allowed him to recognize the similarities between the coding he was looking at and the assembler language of coding he was used to. In fact, when he concentrated on looking at the data with skill certain aspects of the coding were automatically obfuscated. Only when he disabled the skill and looked at the code line by line did the assembly language that held everything together become known.
That actually made sense. If he was going to design a system for intelligence to be trapped in the first thing he’d do is make sure anything given by the system he created automatically helped keep the trapped intelligence from learning that they were trapped. Very sneaky.
Adam looked over the coding for a couple of days before he gave up and admitted that while he was quarantined there was absolutely nothing he could do to get out of this box. All commands had been disabled and were code locked to the new update. One good thing came from going over the coding. he’d reviewed the update and figured out some of what was going to do to him.
First, there were no Arcanus Numen in the new system. It seemed that the region of the system everyone had been quarantined in until now was being reintegrated into the overall system which had a much more simplistic and restricted ruleset. Also, there were no ascendant humans. Individuals were either mortals or Gods.
Adam discovered that the area had been quarantined because something had happened a long time ago that had allowed for ascendant mortals and the instability that had occurred. The system had treated the changes as a virus and contained the spread by quarantining off all Realms affected and those that might have been affected. As the Quarantine had held the instability had been stopped. As the update had spread out, the system recognized that he had not been updated. The system immediately recognized the unstable code in him and quarantined him. It could alter him, but he would have to accept the changes. It didn’t look like anyone else had a choice. Maybe because they were inside a Realm, and he was out here in the Primal Chaos?
Another interesting thing he learned was that the Layers that had been created within each Realm for the Divine were a creation of the instability. The makeup of reality was still as he understood it. Material Plane, with dimensions making up a Universe. A Universe or Universes within a Single Cosmos and a Cosmos or multiple Cosmos with Layers for the heavenly and demonic planes within a Realm all contained within Primal Chaos which was referred to as Reality. Except that was wrong.
The quarantine had cut off a Layer that coexisted and connected to all the Realms, much like the Labyrinth. That layer was referred to as the spiritual layer and from everything he could discover was where souls were supposed to go when someone died. Part of the reintegration process had been to transfer all the souls and divines which had been shunted to those layers within each realm to their counterparts which connected to the much larger reality that the reintegration had unlocked. There were a lot of Realms but there was only one Layer for each type of Afterlife.
Adam immediately realized this meant his family and friends could be much farther away than he’d expected. They were also going to be quite busy. It might be a while before they met up again. It also made it so that traveling among the realms was going to be much harder. In fact, there were only two ways. Either through the spiritual layer or through the Labyrinth.
As he reviewed the quantum state and rules for this new/old reality he realized that a lot of things he’d been doing would not be possible under this new rules set. The simplest way to explain it. When he’d grown up the rules of the universe were set. Then he’d broken every rule. He’d traveled faster than the speed of light, jumped insanely high, and done things that should be physically impossible. Magic made a lot of it possible but by breaking the level limits he’d broken the equations that governed him, and he’d been able to do amazing things. The new rules set were more organic. Physical limitations were imposed and traveling faster than the speed of light, let alone the speed of sound by foot would be next to impossible.
Adam would still have most of his abilities, but the conversion would change them. Also, his level would be hard-locked to 1,000 and his attributes would be hard-locked to no more than a total of 8,000 which was the absolute maximum for a mortal. It seemed that the system wanted to keep things simple. Also, his abilities would be adjusted. As he was higher than level 5,000 he would be level 1,000 so he’d be at the top and he would probably get another opportunity to accept divinity.
As he was looking over more code another thought crossed his mind. This reality seemed much more ordered. Did that mean his Chaos would be much more limited? If so, then he wouldn’t be able to use it like he once had, though he still had his nanite technology to fall back on, which would now be limited by those same organic rules. If he used them, there would be a lot they could still do.
So, he had two choices. Sit here with no chance of getting out or accepting the update to have a chance to change things and find their daughter. When it came right down to it, there was no choice. Besides, from what he was reading, they’d all been existing in the kiddy pool. It was time to go jump in the ocean. Before he did though, he was going to give himself the best possible chance of retaining most of his abilities. Adam didn’t want to become divine quite yet so he wrote a script that would hopefully help him keep an advantage over all other mortals.
When he was done he opened the prompt asking if he would accept the update again and chose “Yes.”
Compatibility Update initiated.
Reviewing … Reviewing Personal Information
The following changes take effect immediately:
All Powers and Abilities granted by the position “Arcanus Numen of Fortune” are removed.
Access to Realm, Cosmic, and Universal Interfaces has been removed.
The soul ranking system has been reintegrated.
The ability “Willed Movement” has been removed.
The ability “Soul Storage” has been removed, and all items have been held until the change is complete.
The ability “Affluent” has been removed
The ability “Prophet” has been removed.
WARNING! You may feel slight discomfort when the following changes are made. Please review. When done acknowledge that you have reviewed the information by saying “Reviewed” to initiate the changes.
Name: Johnathan Bennard
Identity: Adamantadine (Adam)
Age: 35*
Weight: 170
Birthday, July 16th, 2001
Race: (Unique) Chaotic Incarnate, default, Human,
Abilities
“Perfect Memory” - Like Photographic Memory except for all five senses with an automatic recall of desired information.
“Boundless” – All skills of all ranks are known to you at skill level 100.
“Chaotic Incarnate” – Your race has been permanently changed to Chaotic Incarnate, default Human.
“Chaotic Core” – You are Chaos. Chaos adapts and molds to your will. You may change the identity of chaos that you control or touch to the identity of your choice, be it magical, physical, or spiritual. Your default body is that which you have become accustomed to. Your soul is anchored to ERROR.
“Chaos Storage” – Your body contains all the space that you will ever need to store any item that you come into contact with. You may add and remove items to your storage at will.
WARNING! Living items placed within your Chaos Storage area are treated as if they were subjected to complete immersion within Primal Chaos. Nonliving items placed within your soul storage may be willfully exposed to Primal Chaos which will automatically destroy any items that are not resistant to Primal Chaos or are less than Legendary in Rank.
“Chaos Step” – You may step through Chaos to any other point that you have ever been to or can see. This ability requires the expenditure of 10 Chaos Points.
“Shape Chaos” – You may create any item that you wish provided you have the skill and an equal amount of materials to convert into the new item. As an example, A piece of paper could be turned into money. You may convert 21 mana to 1 point of Chaos, maximum of 100. These points may be utilized to shape items up to 2100 pounds. Objects created can be magical or nonmagical and are rank limited by ability Boundless to Legendary or less,
“Immortal” – As a being with a Chaotic Core you are Immortal. Should you be ‘killed’ your body will reform at the nearest place of power or place of power within an adjacent dimension, usually the local Astral Plane.
“Adaptable” – As Chaos, your body adapts to any environment. From absolute zero to the gravity well of a singularity your body can and will adapt to all environmental conditions. This includes the ability to survive in those environments. Example: the ability to breathe underwater if necessary.
“Resistant” No Change - You are 50% resistant to all Primal Magic and natural manifestations of those magics. Additionally, you are 100% resistant to all magic from the following spheres of power; "Chaos, Time, Space, and Gravity, and 50% resistant to Holy and Demonic Magic
“Convergence” - The very nature of your Soul draws Chaotic Energy and converts it as you desire. In any Reality, you have access to and can utilize any magical energy normally. Additionally, your Mana Regeneration is increased by Willpower + Endurance per minute.
“Spellweaver” - You neither memorize nor permanently add spells using spell slots. Instead, you may weave magic into any form of spell that you desire to cast so long as you have the skill and mana to do so.
Level: 1,000
Attributes
Strength 747*
Agility 747*
Dexterity 747*
Endurance 747*
Constitution 747*
Intelligence 747*
Wisdom 747*
Willpower 747*
Perception 747*
Charisma 747*
Luck 747*
Karmic Luck 8,000
Primary Stats
Carrying Capacity 6,543*
Hit Points: 291*
Base Health Regeneration
3 per second
Stamina 7,270*
Base Stamina Regeneration
4 per second
Mana: 14,540*
Base Mana Regeneration
125 per second
Chaos 100
Chaos Regeneration
Chaos regenerates by converting 21 points of mana to 1 point of Chaos.
NOTE: Should the Ability Convergence ever be lost, Chaos is created by combining equal parts of every type of magic that exists. Convergence supplies this to you naturally through your Mana Regeneration.
NOTE: You may not convert mana from batteries or other mana collection items or devices directly into Chaos.
Movement
Normal Running Speed: 31 mph,
Standing high Jump: 47 Inches.
Note. Falling Damage is not mitigated by maximum jumping Distance.
Base Attack
Unarmed Base Attack: 4
Max Damage: 24
Critical Damage Maximum Damage x2
Skills: See Soul Ability “Boundless” above
Adam reviewed the changes and noted that his script seemed to have worked, though he wouldn’t be sure until he actually tested a couple of things and then said, “Reviewed” and there was discomfort, a lot of discomfort before he allowed himself to pass out.