Alexia

Too many things are pointing towards the System trying to cull users as a possibility. And even the Quantum Architect mentioned that he didn’t have absolute control over his own creation, despite him mentioning the requirements for me to become The Reaper being that I wouldn’t try to rule the dimension or destroy the System.

Come to think of it, the System Architect never directly told me exactly why he made the System. He listed off a bunch of things the System was doing for the universe, but he never said why he made it. What purpose he made it for.

He even directly told me not to ask that question. That he wouldn’t answer it.

I hope he’ll consider answering it the next time I see him. Assuming I see him again considering that the Tutorial is over.

Although… when I think back to everything he told me before, there is one possible explanation for the monsters that comes to mind.

Since the monsters were all left to that universe alone, it’s possible some are evolving. And those evolved monsters could potentially be these Chaos Monsters.

Then again, this is all just speculation. Nothing concrete unless I ask him.

I never thought I’d say this, but I hope I see that asshole again soon.

Putting the matter of a genocidal System aside for the moment, I return my attention to the puzzle. And this puzzle ends up being a bit easier than the other one I did strictly because the statues end up destroyed when you get them incorrectly placed. So I don’t have to repeatedly battle the same enemies every time I mess up.

So thanks to that, along with the fact that the monsters seem to specialize more in physical damage than magical damage, I make it through the rest of the puzzle without any real issues, eventually unlocking the entrance to the temple. And immediately letting out a horde of a couple dozen Chaos Monsters.

Seriously?

I quickly get to dealing with the monsters, none of whom have any magic and are all lower leveled than the statue monsters to my pleasant surprise. So it doesn’t take long before I finish off the last one and start making my way into the temple itself.

The inside of the temple is a lot like the outside. Entirely made up of a non-transparent ice, with a very faint blue glow to it and a slightly more ancient and perhaps a tad pious note to the architecture. Something you would barely ever if ever see before the Reset simply because there were no gods and haven’t been any for a very long time. With the exception of a couple Ascendants calling themselves gods.

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But those generally ruled worlds far away from my old world, so I never saw them or their architecture. Outside of some video games that is.

The architecture aside though, there don’t seem to be many monsters in the temple. Excluding the ones that charged at me when the entrance opened.

Which I find rather interesting.

I continue walking through the temple for a little while, just looking around the place. Until I feel my foot going down slightly after placing it on the floor, making me instinctively teleport backwards to avoid a large icicle spear stabbing straight at where I was just standing.

Traps. Haven’t seen many of those in dungeons post Reset.

It’s mostly just been monsters for days.

I kneel down to get a closer look at the icicle spear that is now sticking a few inches out of the ground and spanning a few feet in length. Then at the pressure activated slab that I had stepped on. One that somehow mimics and perfectly merges into the ice around it.

Well-hidden traps too.

I stand up straight again before continuing my trek through the temple. And the further I get in, the more traps I find. Most of which are simple things like darts, icicle spears, and some pitfall traps, but there were a couple more annoying ones. Like an ice flamethrower trap. One that spewed cold flames out from the floor the moment I stepped on it.

The trap only hit me for a split second before I teleported though, and that little damage was easy for my soul to heal.

In the end I end up walking for hours, seemingly with no end. Just finding one trap after another without a single monster in sight.

And I’m very much starting to question just what sort of building I’m inside right now. Considering how I’m pretty sure I’ve walked several times the temple’s size by now in length. At least, from what I could see of it from the outside of the temple.

So either I’m in some sort of illusion, or this temple is far larger on the inside than on the outside.

If I had to guess, it’s the latter. Because if it were an illusion, I’d probably have been repeating the same traps and halls this whole time instead of traversing new ones.

Plus I’m immune to status effects. And illusions are, albeit still a debated-on subject, considered a status effect applied to everyone who sees them.

Can’t say it for certain though, and there’s no way to prove that it isn’t an illusion.

I can’t help but find it rather annoying though, because I’ve already lost my place at the top of the rankings in level because of this trek through the temple. Not just that, I’ve lost second place as well, booting me down to #3.

A massive pain.

Makes me wonder what the others are thinking when they’re seeing my level go down.

I frown at the thought but continue trekking through the annoying temple until I finally find something different.

A large room filled with ice cold water and what looks like dry ice, more cold water pouring into the room from holes on the walls, and just a few little platforms amidst the giant pool of water to stand on.

And a single boat.

Then what looks like piranha jumps out of the cold water and splashes back in.

Now this just reminds me of the Crawling Caverns.

Well, aside from the fact that I'm pretty sure that was a zombie piranha.