Randidly turned away from the messy scrawl of the layers of academy plans in front of him and frowned at the message he just received. Then he looked down at the plans he had been adjusting. Randidly had just returned from dropping off Delilah and Tim in his Alpha Cosmos and had planned on using the morning to address the preliminary list of problems that Wendy had with his designs. And for a ‘preliminary’ list, it was certainly… comprehensive, to Randidly’s eyes.

Even if he was perfectly solved all of her gripes, this goal of addressing each issue in a single morning was likely quite optimistic. Wendy was… extremely demanding in her requirements for the plans. She would help Randidly assemble the whole, but she refused to waste her time designing the ‘trivial details’. Which meant that Randidly needed to spend quite a bit of time finalizing his plans into a satisfactory form.

Despite the importance of the task, the message had already derailed his focus. No point in forcing it now.

If Octavius doesn’t reply in the next few days, I’ll just need to badger him until he can give me a definitive answer as to whether there is a danger in using Dungeons. Randidly flexed his right arm back and forth as he walked out of his work hut. With a more focused wave of his hand, he pushed away the moonlight spirits surrounding his island and revealed the clear light of the early morning around him. Despite the chill, the sky was clear and blue.

The light reflected off of the dusting of snow on the surrounding hills and created an aura of inviolability on the ground over which the Wandering City passed. Kharon had proceeded to the edge of the borderlands and was now crossing into the Southern area of the Zones on its trek to the Orchard. They would likely arrive there around noon.

Randidly turned away from the brilliant light of the flawless morning; the message still held his attention. It was a short message, asking for his presence at a dinner in a few days’ time. Randidly scratched his neck. The sender was Lyra.

Truthfully, Randidly had plenty of motivation to talk with Lyra after her experience with Kaan Swacc. He just kept finding excuses not to reach out. And honestly, he already had so many things on his plate that the extra emotional turmoil of that meeting seemed like a problem he shouldn’t bother to deal with. In a lot of ways, Lyra and his relationship had come to rest after he had created a Class for her. Or at least, it had from Randidly’s perspective.

From the framing of the message, it seemed like she didn’t share his feelings on the subject.

But she likely had some information about Kaan Swacc. After how difficult the fight against the former Special Investigator had been, Randidly knew better than to leave any stone unturned. Plus, she could give him some valuable information about the Nexus Ways after seeing Kaan use them for so long. And yet…

I would prefer if I hear from Octavius before that… Time in a Dungeon would be a nice buffer to consolidate my current state… Randidly thought sourly, knowing that he was looking for another way to delay. Then, because he was thinking about it so much, Randidly sent a reminder message to Octavius about the situation in the Nexus. But he specifically stated that he would like Octavius’s opinion on the dangers of Dungeons as quickly as possible.

In the meantime, Randidly opened up his Path menu to cash in on his spoils. The confrontation with Kaan Swacc had been extremely fruitful; combined with the unspent PP he previously had, Randidly now had accumulated 1114 PP that he could spend. It was a significant sum. Even considering the high PP costs of some of his Paths, Randidly had the choice between finishing one of the larger Paths or even several of the smaller Paths available to him.

“Heh, it’s just a matter of choosing what to do…” Randidly spoke awkwardly to the air and scratched his cheek as he pulled up the list of Paths. Honestly, the thing had grown almost too massive as he had accumulated various options in his journey through the System. But he supposed that most people’s lists were just as long, if not more so; at least he had the ability to generate a lot of PP to pursue the gathered Paths.

Lumped together, it was a pretty dense mass of text, question marks, and numbers.

Friend to Humanity 0/100, Mantle of the Patron 0/500, Aether Convergence II ???, the Bell of Doom Tolls 0/600, The Ashes of Ulaat, Patron of Ash 0/1000, Order Ducis: Font of Guidance ???, Humanity’s Torch 0/500, Bearing of a Teacher ???, Puppet Master 0/100, Pain Immunity I 0/250, Cleaver of the World Tree ???, Weakness of the World Tree 0/500, Guilty Conscience I 0/100, Peerage of the Baleful Court I 0/600, Hands of the Artisan 0/???, Ashes of Illym, the Above-Average Child 0/5000, The Flame that Burns Memories 0/????, Exodus, the Terror 0/1000, Genesis, the Considered 0/1000, Image Cooperation I 0/100, Body Refinement I 0/???, Chimera’s Struggle II 0/????, Spear Mastery III 0/200, Mysteries of the Fiery Emerald Waltz 0/???, Violent Heat I 0/???, Sovereign of Violence I 0/1000, Body Beyond the System 0/????, Deathwish III 0/3, The Pursuit of Alchemy 0/750, Monstrosity’s Growth 0/1000, Weakness of the Grim Chimera 0/500, Weakness of the Stillborn Phoenix 0/500, Greater Visualization 0/???, The Shadow Beyond the Threshold 0/???

The first and most obvious thing that Randidly noticed was the change in Deathwish: it had become Deathwish III. Chuckling darkly, he set that Path to the side; just one more question he would save for when he headed into the Nexus.

The list was pretty impressive, but Randidly quickly began to remove a dozen Paths from contention as soon as he laid eyes on their familiar names. Although he thought finishing everything would be the most satisfying, life wasn’t designed for that sort of method. There were a lot of attractive options, but if Randidly didn’t focus, even he wouldn’t be able to accomplish his main goals.

The much-abridged list ended up being a combination of tempting previous options and some new arrivals that grabbed Randidly’s attention.

Aether Convergence II ???, the Bell of Doom Tolls 0/600, The Ashes of Ulaat, Patron of Ash 0/1000, Cleaver of the World Tree ???, Weakness of the World Tree 0/500, Ashes of Illym, the Above-Average Child 0/5000, The Flame that Burns Memories 0/????, Exodus, the Terror 0/1000, Genesis, the Considered 0/1000, Image Cooperation I 0/100, Body Refinement I 0/???, Chimera’s Struggle II 0/????, Spear Mastery III 0/200, Sovereign of Violence I 0/1000, Body Beyond the System 0/????, The Monstrosity’s Growth 0/1000, Weakness of the Grim Chimera 0/500, Weakness of the Stillborn Phoenix 0/500, Greater Visualization 0/???, The Shadow Beyond the Threshold 0/???

The problem was how many of the Paths appealed to Randidly. In the end, he had only cut the list of Paths down by half. Perhaps it was a sort of curiosity that kept them in the contention through the first round of cuts, but he still had too many options to consider any of them seriously. So he began to rule out other Paths.

The easiest to remove were the Paths relating to a specific image and the two Ashes Paths. Or at least, Randidly initially wanted to sheer down the options like this. And Randidly was only too happy to set aside the Weakness Paths for the moment, including the two newly appeared ones for the Grim Chimera and the Stillborn Phoenix.

But what was somewhat frustrating were the Paths that seemed related to one image, but only generally. Both Monstrosity’s Growth and The Shadow Beyond the Threshold seemed powerful but possessed clear links to specific images. Perhaps because of the recency of their arrival, Randidly assumed that they were relatively more powerful than his more long-held Paths. Although he didn't want to imbalance his triple image further, the power they hinted at was tempting.

For now, Randidly left them as options. And he cut the Paths he could choose down to a more reasonable number.

Image Cooperation I 0/100, Body Refinement I 0/???, Spear Mastery III 0/200, Sovereign of Violence I 0/1000, Body Beyond the System 0/????, The Monstrosity’s Growth 0/1000, Greater Visualization 0/???, The Shadow Beyond the Threshold 0/???

If Randidly wanted to actually try and complete multiple Paths, the obvious choice would be for one of those Paths to be Spear Mastery III. At 200 PP, it was easily within his ability to immediately complete. And afterward, he would have more than enough to push most of the way through the higher cost Paths. His remnant 900 PP would have a lot of purchasing power.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Yet that road didn’t much appeal to Randidly. Mostly because his current spear style was a bit… rough. To put it very directly, he couldn’t even manage to demonstrate all the training he had done with a spear with his new, powerful body. As he was barely able to manage manifesting his three images at once, he hadn’t gotten much time to grow used to fighting with his new form. Even just walking around while all three images merged physically was a struggle. Until he could manage himself and felt more confident in his fighting, Randidly didn’t want to take the next Spear Mastery Path.

For a similar reason, Randidly was deeply conflicted about the Image Cooperation Path. Although it seemed useful, he ultimately decided to put it on hold. First, because he wanted to take an extended crack at the issue of utilizing the images together by himself. And also because he didn’t believe that the System’s Path was designed to help him utilize images in this manner anyway. Better to spend his PP elsewhere.

Of course, as soon as Randidly thought that the System wouldn’t help him, he had a Path called “Body Beyond the System”. He was aware that Paths would allow the user to deviate from System guidelines, but in Randidly’s experience, those deviations came with costs. So even though that Path interested him greatly, he wouldn’t casually complete it.

Which finally left Randidly with five choices.

Body Refinement I 0/???, Sovereign of Violence I 0/1000, The Monstrosity’s Growth 0/1000, Greater Visualization 0/???, The Shadow Beyond the Threshold 0/???

Body Refinement would likely increase his physical abilities even further. Sovereign of Violence implied it would give him more fighting tools. Monstrosity’s Growth drew Randidly’s eyes because of the term Monstrosity; likely it was a Path specifically to draw out the potential of Skill Monstrosity’s Appalling Physicality. As the Skill currently sat at an Ancient Rarity, there was plenty of room for growth.

Visualization was one of Randidly’s core Skills, allowing him to utilize images more efficiently. So taking that Path to increase his image’s power further was very appealing. The Shadow Beyond the Threshold seemed related to Revelation of the Atramentous Threshold, which was a Skill that Randidly was continually surprised by. Empowering it was sure to result in Randidly receiving a large benefit.

And in fact, as Randidly considered his five options, he activated Revelation of the Atramentous Threshold. The purple-black energy filled with twinkling orange and emerald stars covered his body. He gazed deeply at his options for a long time, peering into casualty to see if he could intuit the results of taking each Path.

Of course, all his information was speculative. So very quickly, the future broadened into meaningless ambiguities. So just as quickly as he summoned the energy he dismissed it with a small smile on his face. The revelation was only a tool. Instead, Randidly pressed his eyes closed. All this is fine… but what do I want…?

In the center of his being, three images spun slowly. Growth, survival, obsession. Each began to resonate slightly as Randidly’s mind followed his desires.

What will bring me closer to what I want?

Just as Randidly was about to choose a Path, a message came from Octavius. He asked Randidly’s forgiveness for the delay on his reply but explained that he and Vualla were still dealing with some small issues that had cropped up since her return. Apparently her citizenship status was somewhat sensitive. But, to answer Randidly’s immediate question, Octavius gave him a mostly positive answer: Dungeons probably were likely harmless.

Be careful with your Nether while you are within the Dungeon, it might affect the surrounding space in special ways. But there are no secret tests or tribulations from spending too much time in the Dungeon. Just Aether Sickness. Octavius wrote. Your situation is pretty unique. Most people in the Nexus have more time than they know what to do with. They don’t need to stretch their time out even further in order to increase their power.

Randidly grinned at the message. “Thank god.”

Already, he was making plans for his trip into the Dungeon. Different weaknesses Randidly identified in himself and projects he needed to focus on were added to a quickly growing mental list and filed away for later. As Randidly continued to stand on his island with a grin on his face, he began rapidly ordering the list into descending importance.

Then with a blink, Randidly looked back at the Path screen in front of him. “One thing at a time I guess. And since I know I’ll be in the Dungeon soon anyway…”

As Randidly tossed the 650th PP into the Path, he completed it.

Congratulations! Your have completed the Greater Visualization Path! There are many Paths forward, but it simply isn’t true that all routes can be traversed by mundane means. The further toward the Pinnacle you travel, the bleaker the terrain becomes. As you walk forward, you pass unmarked graves and shards of broken blades littering the ground. The Path leads forward, yet passing through the broken ground leaves you without sight of your destination.

Dirt and bones soaked in blood have slowly oxidized, resulting in a vast stretch of grey-green wasteland as you travel upward on this vast slope. As you gaze at the surroundings, it is obvious that this is a playground of disease and death. Fissures into the abyss are laying beyond ever lip of ground, gleefully waiting to take the lives of the unwary. They are so prevalent that you begin to wonder if this vast mountain you have spent so long climbing is hollow.

And that makes you wonder what forms the foundation of this path toward the Pinnacle.

Gas seeps upward from cracks in the ground; visibility becomes increasingly scarce as your legs carry you up the slope. If the goal has vanished, you at least trust that upward is forward. With the creeping mist comes an increased danger from the faults in the ground beneath your feet. As your speed slows to avoid danger, silence descends to hush all but the sound of your own breath. Trailing behind you, your shadow laying against the surrounding mist is your only companion in this broken land.

Yet as you continue upward along the mountain path, the tint of the mist around you changes. While at first appearing to be innocuous steam, it now thickens and curdles like milk left out to sit under the beating sun. The scent of it is heavy and clings to the roof of your mouth as you continue to breathe. The sound of air passing through your throat is rough.

What follows the curdling of the mist is the darkness. Perhaps it is simply your imagination, but under the cover of the surrounding shroud, a greedy darkness is reaching its cold fingers out to grasp at your flickering life. Its long tongue slips up through the gashes in the ground and laps up your sweat.

But the darkness is not even the final shift. As the mist around you deepens and darkness begins to dance, your shadow steadily twists and shudders. Its joints silently twitch. One sharp, broken movement at a time, it warps into a monster. Each of your breaths cause the twisted creature trailing behind you to shudder with repressed hatred. The change weighs on your mind.

To reach this place… have you become… a monster…?

Randidly’s mouth slowly stretched into a grimace as he continued to read the notification he had received for finishing the Path. he was already in a bad mood because the Path only gave 2 free Stats every 50 PP, but now, to receive this sort of dreadful notification…

And along with the notification came a series of sweeping images that seemed injected directly into his mind. While Randidly read through the words in front of him, Randidly’s consciousness turned foggy as though he had gone into his Dreamcatcher. Then he was somewhere else, living the notification as he read it. He felt the sandy ridges of bone, dirt, and dried blood beneath his feet. He looked down into the darkness of those fissures and could not see the bottom, even with his powerful Grim Intuition.

When the mist came, he tasted the moisture on the air. He saw the strangely corporeal form of his shadow behind him. With a mild gaze, he watched it shift from a humanoid to a twisted demon of violence. In the same moment, a wave of insidious mental energy blasted forward to hit Randidly’s images. It seemed that by completing this Path, Randidly had volunteered himself for some sort of mental test.

Is it because I chose the Greater Visualization Path? Or perhaps because my images are a certain, requisite strength? Or even because I broke through the physical limit…? Perhaps it is for the best that I didn’t try to complete a bunch of Paths at once… Randidly hummed to himself, suspended in the reading of the notification. Sensing another wave of mental attacks, he quickly refocused.

That strange energy sought to use such a transformation to weaken Randidly, but it found no purchase on his will as the waves of energy lashed out. The shift in his shadows only caused Randidly to release a bark of laughter. Have I become a monster? Of course, I have. To survive, I became the Grim Chimera. And I will continue changing as I need to in order to survive and accomplish my goal.

Yet you cannot stop now. Take this gift, so that your corpse might trudge just a little further into the grip of the darkness before it collapses and feeds the horror that slumbers here.

Certainly, this notification is the most sinister that I’ve ever received… Rather than the System trying to attack me, this just seems like… the System has given in to despair...

Congratulations! You have finished the Greater Visualization Path! Willpower +50 and Wisdom +20. Congratulations! Your Skill Visualization has evolved into Greater Visualization (A)-

Synchronicity detected! Calculating…

Congratulations! Your Skill Visualization has evolved into Conviction of the Smiling Horror (L)! Skill Level will be maintained. Your ability to conjure details has slightly increased! Your ability to broaden the number of details in your image has vastly increased!

“Mission… accomplished…?” Randidly rubbed his chin contemplatively.