Ajax’s POV

Nice Ossan that Nash character.

I can finally feel Lifestuff flowing back in my veins after his gift. I should save it, only using it when it’s absolutely necessary… and for training… and when it is really fun. Well, with how full my belly is of this so called Aether is and how little I use by now to move around, I can probably splurge a little. He really is a nice Ossan and if I ask nicely he can probably give me more.

Shrugging my shoulders after a particularly large jump, I slow my pace making sure that he isn’t following me. Shuffling, sliding and wild jumps are fun, but he can hear them. Damn sensitive ears.

A minute later, I’m struck by a wave of disappointment. He didn’t even try to follow, but he probably has a bunch of boring stuff to deal with.

Stealthly climbing a 6 stories tall building, I look over to three southward Queen’s pyramids. With plenty of Lifestuff, I will have a much easier time sneaking in, but now isn’t the time.

I run through the Guard’s schedule and look for the next window.

Tomorrow morning during food delivery. Without this much Lifestuff, the small weakness I sensed wouldn’t be enough, but now? Now I have a real shot.

Skipping atop buildings, I come back home, see my parents, eat my dinner like a good little boy then prepare till the very last minute before laying in bed.

After that, it takes me an hour to slow my racing heart down, but eventually, sleep takes me under for about 3 hours. I spring out of bed more alert than I ever felt before the integration. The system is probably the best thing that happened for my sleep especially as my parents now only keep a loose track of my schedule.

With hours to go, I get a quick breakfast but instead of waiting until it's go time, I already run as close as I can to the pyramid I chose. Now, I only have to observe and wait.

Hours sitting still in the best cover I found only a couple hours away feels nearly impossible, but somehow I hold myself back. Without Nash’s Life stuff gift, this would be impossible, but I shouldn’t waste any. Too precious.

I lay on the ground and start to weave a very subtle cloak with only the barest hints of Lifestuff to make sure I go by unnoticed not only to their eyes but also to their other senses and the magical sensors like the life detectors. Those had been hard to figure out how to fool, but with awesenones flowing through my veins, it’s barely any work.

Three servers with two large boxes in between each pair come to the gate just as I get within 30 meters. The guard's attention goes to the two large boxes.

A single slip and they will know I’m here, but my movements are smooth, the precise shape and perspective of my background cover my illusion. Timing everything and accounting for all the observation angles, I go behind a guard’s back and get in position to enter the corridor. Mana coated hands, with a secondary cloak of Life stuff make that effort relatively easy. Even the best mages can’t feel small spells when I correctly shield them. I pass inside just as the shield opens.

One of the guards is startled for a moment and I freeze holding absolutely still as he takes a close look at a readout. Probably the life detector. I didn’t know they had made them even more sensitive, but it's fine, I only need patience. They won’t get a second warning. With my heart thumping and blood rushing to my legs and arms, I wait absolutely still.

They let out a wry smile for a moment and I fear the Jig is up, but a moment later, I hear them speaking to each other:

“Nothing to worry about, just a small blip on the detector.”

“Log that as a false positive?”

“Yeah, code Alpha Juliet.”

I feel something strange in the second Guard’s voice. Is that Mirth? He seems to be holding back a chuckle.

Never mind, no time to waste with idle curiosity. What will sate real curiosity is just ahead. I slither along the ceiling with mana grips keeping up all my stealth skills, though not the dumb system ones, painstakingly practiced ones that actually work.

Getting back to the entrance before they are done is gonna be troublesome if I want to ‘explore’ the crypt.

The shields close as the servers are allowed inside past the pair of guards just outside blocking anything, even a tank’s shot from entering the pyramid. The only wind comes through small selective openings in winding paths past the equipment around the door.

I walk with knees and hands glued to the ceiling, in a much different manner to my former visits. Even my couple visits before the enemy attacked were only playful walking instead of full stealth mode. Most of the time nobody bothered me, not even the occasional guard trying to stop vandalism, but the system repaired anything done to the pyramids and so concern quickly faded away. Though the pyramids still look old similar to before integration, too many details are different.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

I move out of the corridor even before the servers. The ceiling arches upward but I observe everything that I could possibly want from my vantage point. I climb to the very top before hanging my feet.

The blood rushes my head, but it feels nice so I stay in the position for a few seconds. Then I turn around and feel something strange in the air that, unlike my last visit, over a month before the attack.

The impression of Lifestuff overwhelms the air.

No, not actual Lifestuff, but just its impression. The same impression I feel from the system’s screens when I’m paying attention. As I shift my feet and hand around and it's gone.

My mind halts. Secrets, secrets, secrets, this is why I came over here.

Shifting my feet and hands around I find that I need to touch the very center of the chamber before that impression comes back. But that isn’t enough to unlock it. I watch as people get their food and I realize time is running out.

I have to make my own luck. Shooting a hint of mana cloaked in Lifestuff down, I flip over a shelf of equipment that nobody was looking at and drop from the ceiling to the tomb in the cramped quarters.

My mind struggles to keep a convincing illusion around myself, but I get what I need as that feeling gets stronger to the point a system screen pops up.

A force grips me as the words of warning expel my own magic fully revealing my visage to the others. But a moment later I’m no longer in that tiny little space, I’m seemingly in an infinite void with a much larger screen.

You meet the parameters to unlock a legacy Class.

Error… system user already has class.

Do you wish to switch your class from A&*MT#2 (Legendary) to Speaker of the Dead? (Mythic – Locked rarity)

I stand in a strange space, dazed and with a foggy mind like I had just woken up after a long night with a smartphone under my bed covers and bloodshot eyes. I try to clear it and most of it fades, but some is still there. A blanketing messing with my memories but there doesn’t seem to be anything I can’t remember.

The void gives way to the dead forest, but as I try to walk past the system screen, my strange ghostly body is repulsed. Meters from the closest tree, I can’t feel its bark. There isn’t a single leaf is in its canopy and the entire field is full of dead trees like that. I follow the edge of this barrier all the way around learning it’s not even a full 2 meters wide.

The system screen follows me through it all, consuming a portion of my vision.

I won’t be able to explore unless I agree.

“That is no fair.”

This probably is a step in the right direction of unlocking the pyramid, but giving up my class for something completely unknown? Sure it looked strong, but I get in enough trouble as it is. I don’t want to speak to the dead. All kinds of weird people will want to talk to their grammas and stuff.

Sure my class is all jumbled up and I don’t even know what it is supposed to do, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. It is my class and it has helped me to get to where I am now.

1.

Are you certain of your choice?

With intent, I tap the only option I could choose.

Confirm

Somebody else could use this cla…

The blanketing on my mind comes back with a vengeance.

‘What was I doing?’

I looked around the central chamber in the pyramid, instinctively reactivating my stealth skills, but by absolute and unmitigated luck nobody was looking in my direction. Their gazes are either on the red alarm light that must have just lit up or taking care of their job.

Shit, I was detected.

With barely concealed moves I prepare to rush out. Any scout could spot if they were looking directly at me so I flow way more Lifestuff than normal to keep the second layer of my illusion.

I try to feel for the change in the Aether but the potential for a system screen is gone.

Jumping up to the ceiling from the sarcophagus I look for the impression on the ceiling but it’s back to normal stone, not some weird system interface.

Disappointment.

The slightest of nuggets unlocks in my mind. A thread that if I follow will lead me back to what I was thinking, but I’m too flustered and as I run to the exit I sense a memory on the tip of my brain, ready to come to the surface. But it’s clouded by something and then is completely and utterly gone.

My actions come into focus. If I don’t keep myself on track, I will get caught and I don’t want that.

Everything fades away.

I finally achieved my goal. Sure in the absolutely easiest of all the pyramids. The one with the most holes in its defenses and nearest to cover, but still a successful infiltration.

A mixture and triumph and exhaustion hit me as I rush out. Knowing where is the most sensitive sensor, I pay particular attention just as the guards look inside.

There are dozens of other pyramids to explore. I just need to not get caught.

I tap the little log box I engraved myself. It precisely measures how good my stealth is and the distortion I induce in the environment. That’s the information I need to improve. Now, I just need to time my exit with the guard's entry. Too bad I can’t hear a single word from their mouth.

Still, in back of my mind, I spin and spin trying to remember something, but I’m a hamster running on a wheel.

No matter how fast I go, I’m standing still.

===========

Pyramid guard’s POV

“Really sloppy and he had such a good start. It has been a while since he made such a good starting attempt. Time to enter and lock before he rushes out. He had his fun already.”

“Yeah, he screwed up big time. I never seen him do that.”

“Even the best of us screws up sometimes.”

Entering quickly and reactivating the shield less than a second later we start o search, even asking for help from a couple of the researchers, mages and the servers inside to no avail. Ten minutes later after going over each and every single cubic inch of the space systematically we find nothing. Pulsing life detectors and sudden changes of movements leave no room for him to escape. But Ajax isn’t in the pyramid.

“His dad is gonna be pissed. We detect him entering supposedly secure facilities and we can’t locate him afterward?”

“Should we log it as an actual false positive?”

“Nah, the blimp in the central chamber was clear. It’s his life signature.”

“They aren’t very precise.”

“The first sensor was like 5 centimeters from him. That is plenty of precision, and the second took a full picture. We do need to step up our game, if the enemy managed to pull something similar we are screwed.”