CHAPTER 135: Discovery
Adam grumbled. Then his stomach grumbled. He opened the Rift menu and used it to move a tub of animal cookies from a warehouse to his lap.
Over the last three days he hadn’t eaten enough. So many people kept trying to get in touch with him, but that distracted him from his purpose, so he locked himself away. Only the girls could come in and he made it clear to them that he needed time. As long as he left their connections open and they didn’t feel pain coming from it, they agreed to give him space. He let them in twice a day, partly because they brought food with them.
He really didn’t want to miss anything though, which is why he wanted to be alone. The whole situation was confusing to him. This whole setup felt forced. It had to be a trap.
Rescuing an army that should be on his side from enemies that looked strong but weren’t. He had struggled against that Scyrric base commander when he had rescued Nick and Lamar. Adam knew what a strong opponent looked like. There might have been ten bosses with the army they just faced, but they crumbled easily. Adam probably could have fought them all at once.
Add to that how fast the leaders of Carmichael’s forces leveled up and it just felt wrong. Carmichael HAD to be in league with the invaders. Unless that is what they wanted him to think, further weakening both sides.
“Argh!” Adam growled in frustration as he floated on his pool chair.
A few people suggested he was being paranoid. He knew he was too in his own head, thinking of too many possibilities that probably weren’t it. Yet, after that soul attack that had hit him, he couldn’t take any chances.
That big guy, Gregor, had been the cause of it. Adam had no doubt about that. Somehow, he had tried to rip out part of Adam’s weird soul. Along with figuring out the new traps that were hidden, Adam needed to come up with a defense against that attack. Fortunately, he had returned to normal after getting some space and time for his soul to settle all the way.
Adam had barely slept since then as he spent all his time monitoring the new arrivals. He had a dozen displays open around him as he listened to their meetings, watched the key players’ conversations, even listening to them sleep in case they might reveal something unintentionally.
Nothing had come from it. Sure, he knew about their plans to blockade the base, their fear of entering the base without knowing what it was capable of, and how they were conscripting the people who hadn’t evacuated to the base sooner.
They had found out the good hunting locations, and places where the Sentinel Army had captured Rift bases. Teams were inspecting the rifts to see if they could get in one or take control of it. Yet none of that indicated invader involvement. Almost the opposite.
It also felt like they didn’t know they were being monitored. Adam knew every time he stepped onto a Rift base. The feeling of reality being altered was something he could sense. Anyone related to the invaders should be able to do the same. He had seen it in the group of Gohralluhs and Kabuterci that that had stepped in, expecting the territory to be at the walls.
No one from Carmichael’s side seemed the least bit aware, or even cautious. They genuinely seemed to believe that the base only went as far as the walls and spoke openly about it in their meetings. All of which made them oblivious that Adam was watching.
“Rah!” shouted Adam as he pointlessly slapped the water. It splashed a ton of water out of the pool, almost capsizing his chair and getting his animal cookies wet.
Since he didn’t want to ruin his snack, he changed the focus of his frustration and instead slapped the non-physical displays positioned around him. He waited until his hand reached it before using a mental command to make the display spin, simulating a slap. Not quite as satisfying but also less destructive.
The displays continued to spin at various speeds, not slowing or stopping unless he gave them a mental command.
“If only I could use my damn status menu!” swore Adam.
He raised a hand and a new display with his blacked-out status came up.
Name: █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █
Age: ██
Race: Human
Class: █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █
Strength: N/A
Agility: N/A
Vitality: N/A
Intelligence: N/A
Wisdom: N/A
Core Skills:
█ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █
█ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █
█ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █
Skills:
█ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █
█ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █
█ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █
“Ack! It can’t even figure out my name or age! The only thing it can decide on is that I’m human, the one thing even I question with all I can do!”
Then Adam slapped the status sheet and sent it spinning like with the others.
“Maybe I’m getting too tired. Maybe there isn’t even some plot here,” signed Adam. “Maybe I’m just causing conflict with people I should be reconciling with, weakening everyone.”
He looked at the various spinning displays, then stared up at the sky, no longer fake with the Rift being merged with the planetary reality. Taking a deep breath, he slowly let it out. Then he sank down into the chair and closed his eyes.
The sensation of floating on the water relaxed him. The warm water caressed his legs as it lightly splashed against him. He got himself comfortable, hugging the now closed tub of cookies.
Unfortunately, sleep didn’t come. Usually, he could fall asleep quickly, as long as the river wasn’t running through him. As Abbey had pointed out, he slept more than probably any other adult on the base. However, this time there was something nagging his mind.
Adam grumbled again in frustration. Then he cracked open one eye and squinted. The displays were still spinning. A dozen monitoring ones and his status menu. Something felt off but he wasn’t sure what it was.
He eyed each display in turn, slowing down their spinning individually before speeding them up again. Nothing seemed unusual. What they displayed also seemed unimportant since no meetings or conversations were happening.
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Each display was thoroughly inspected, but Adam’s eyes kept drawing him to the spinning status. He stopped that display and looked at it straight on. Nothing stood out to him, so he moved through the different tabs. It was the same as every other time he checked it…useless.
Then he spun it again and the nagging feeling of wrongness returned. He looked closer at it while it spun. There was something here, but he didn’t know what. He couldn’t figure it out even if his unconscious mind had noticed something.
A few more times he stopped the window, then re-spun it. Only while it was spinning were his eyes drawn to the display. He tried to get closer to it, but since it was linked to his distance, that did nothing.
Adam tried to command the display to get larger. It grew, the illusionary display was now passing through the other displays as it spun, overlapping them. The nagging feeling of wrongness got stronger.
He increased the size again. Looking between the various spinning windows, squinting to try and catch what it was.
Then he realized what was bothering him, and he stopped all the windows sideways. They all disappeared from view. They were there, just positioned so he was looking at their edge dead on.
As two-dimensional constructs, they had no depth, and were impossible to see from the side. Yet, he could see a vague reflection from his status, barely noticeable. He had to look really hard to see it.
To get a better look he turned the display only a few degrees, just enough so that he could see the edges. There it was, a little easier to notice. He made the personal display larger still, almost the size of the pool but floating in the air.
“It has three layers,” he whispered.
There wasn’t a reflection. There wasn’t a depth. Three separate displays were mashed together and the light coming off them affected each other, making them hard to see.
He banished the display, and all three windows vanished. He summoned it back and once more expanded and tilted it. How could he see what was on each individual layer?
It took a lot of trial and error. A lot of mental focus. He was eventually able to peel them apart, like stickers that were on top of each other.
Adam smiled in satisfaction as he tried to tile the panels so they were side by side instead of overlapping. It took him ten minutes and he felt rather accomplished by doing this.
Then Adam looked at the three displays and his jaw dropped. He dismissed all the other monitoring displays, staring at the three separate panels in front of him.
“Is this for real?” he asked, his mouth going dry. Nervously he muttered, “I guess this would explain why my soul is corrupt if true.”
In front of him there weren’t just three displays, each was a different status screen for a different person. The first one made sense to him.
Name: Adam Clemens
Age: 18
Race: Human
Class: None
Body: *Select a Class to apply stats* - [2] levels on hold
Strength: 4
Agility: 4
Vitality: 3
Intelligence: 4
Wisdom: 5
“I’m so weak!” he said, commenting on his stats. Then he looked at the next screen.
Name: Adam Clemens
Age: 29
Race: Human
Class: Soul Forger [250] Epic / Tier 5
Body: [2]
Strength: 447
Agility: 423
Vitality: 644
Intelligence: 1858
Wisdom: 1299
“Twenty-nine?!” exclaimed Adam as he looked at the age. Why did it think he was 11 years older? Then he looked at the third window.
Name: Gregor Munstean
Age: 42
Race: Human
Class: Grand Blood Berserker [108] Rare / Tier 4
Body: [21]
Strength: 2087
Agility: 836
Vitality: 1371
Intelligence: 0
Wisdom: 0
Adam frowned at the sheet. Then he pulled open a Rift window focused on Gregor. The tag above him was only “Blood Berserker”. No “Grand” to it. He also didn’t look in his forties, but if he took 11 years from it, the same as the older Adam window…
Staring between the displays, unsure of how to interpret this, Adam was stunned. Floored. This was completely incomprehensible.
Three statuses were contained in him. THREE! No wonder his soul had no space. Even if they weren’t really in him and just looked like they were, that could definitely cause corruption.
Then he thought back to his own soul space, to the blood splotch shaped memories that only had a few intersecting with his own memories. Those had been the memories from a larger man who had fought the invaders. Much more muscular than Adam ever would be. He looked back at the window with Gregor on it.
How could he have future memories of Gregor. Or was that even Gregor? It seemed as possible as anything else that had happened in the last few months.
Adam also wondered if future Adam and Gregor were friends or enemies. Right now, Adam couldn’t even get close to the man. If Gregor truly was a berserker, then he wouldn’t have a skill to allow him to soul attack Adam. That means the pain and issue that happened was because of something different. Maybe Gregor didn’t do anything consciously, and it was Adam having parts of his memories, status, or soul.
What was even with future Gregor having zero intelligence and wisdom. How could he survive like that?
“I hate time travel and alternate reality stories,” whined Adam. “They never make sense to anyone but the writer.”
Deciding to ignore all the possibilities, Adam wanted to run some tests. To start, he pulled on his heat and fed it into the river. Adam felt his strength increasing like normal. Then he looked at the stats on his 19yo status.
Strength: 4 (+208)
Agility: 4 (+83)
Vitality: 3 (+137)
Intelligence: 4
Wisdom: 5
“Huh. That’s ten percent of the stats listed on Gregor’s panel.”
Adam activated [Body and Soul Shaping], drawing more power from his soul. Then he checked the status again.
Strength: 4 (+312)
Agility: 4 (+124)
Vitality: 3 (+205)
That was 15% of future Gregor’s stats. The spigot of power from [Body and Soul Shaping] was opened even further.
Strength: 4 (+416)
Agility: 4 (+166)
Vitality: 3 (+274)
“Nice! 20%!” exclaimed Adam, excited to see quantifiable numbers going up. He couldn’t keep the smile from his face. There was so much determination to push forward that Adam didn’t notice the water hissing and his floating chair shriveling from the heat.
“Let’s see how high I can go!”
Then Adam opened the spigot as far as he could. Pain flared in him. His skin ignited. The chair caught fire and snapped, dropping him into the pool where the water quickly evaporated with steam clouding his view. There was only a moment for Adam to see the panel before he fell.
Strength: 4 (+832)
Agility: 4 (+332)
Vitality: 3 (+548)
Even with the steam obscuring his view he was still able to see the panel, but even hitting 40% was too much for his body. There was no way he’d be able to hold that much power for long. He had to shut it off.
Then Adam heard shouting.
“Darling! Where are you?” yelled Andrea.
“I can’t see anything with all this steam!” shouted Alissa.
“Where is his excellency?” cried Ashtala.
Brittney, who had the highest vitality at 207 didn’t hesitate and yanked off her shirt and shorts then jumped in the water. “He’s in here!” she called to the others.
Adam felt himself forcibly grabbed and dragged to the edge of the pool. The three other girls were staring at him while Alissa held her nose to block out the smell of burning hair and flesh.
“What happened, Adam?” gasped Brittney.
Adam couldn’t help but chuckle, his burned lips curled up oddly, making Andrea wince and look away. Abbey’s hand touched him, and she cast heal several times, bringing him back to normal.
“I was experimenting with something,” answered Adam.
“From the look of you, I’m guessing it didn’t go well?” assumed Abbey.
“On the contrary, it went better than I could have hoped!”
“And you still ended up like that?” asked Andrea.
“Well, one thing didn’t go well,” said Adam wistfully, as he looked to the bottom of the pool where the plastic tub of animal cookies had melted, dropping the cookies into water. They were ruined.