CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT

  The silence of the elevator ride to the top floor of the building wasn’t exactly what he’d call… companionable. Although, the view was such that he didn’t really care about all the unbroken ice chilling the air. Flanked to either side by hulking reptilian guardsmen, Richard peered out from beneath the bulky misshapen helmet he’d bummed off the leftmost soldier.

  Well, more like bargained for, really, and considering the pleased grin that had yet to leave—what he was just going to have to assume was a normally stern countenance—Richard was beginning to believe he’d severely overpaid.

  Not that it mattered any. Twenty fewer points weren’t exactly going to break the bank for him right now. Richard swept his eyes over the gleaming skyscrapers, so unlike those from earth. They twisted and jutted in illogical ways, looking more like those extra screws you never knew what to do with after assembling something from Ikea, rather than anything he’d entrust his life to. The rooftop gardens were pretty though, and the flying cars were a nice touch.

  It was just too bad all this slick-chromed opulence was built on the bones of billions.

  The elevator dinged as they arrived on the top floor. Glass doors sweeping aside to reveal what looked to be a launch pad. One of their futuristic arial vehicles parked in the middle. It was a lot smaller than he’d been expecting. Like a private jet and a taxi car loved each other very very much, and, nine months later, this little wonder popped out as the result.

  Richard was led up to the descending staircase and swiftly clambered into the well lit interior. Plush cream sofas and steaming appetizers were what greeted him. Despite the iron clad clauses binding the admin just as surely as a peak grade sealing talisman, Richard declined the kind offer of sparkling water and alien escargot. Even if the admin wasn’t trying to poison him, there was a line he simply would not cross.

  Richard noted how his two guardsmen each shot the snot coated snacks a longing expression.

  “Knock yourselves out,” he exclaimed, causing both of the drooling reptilians to jump. “Really. Go to town. It’s no skin off my back.”

  And if it really is poisoned, well, then I’ll know our little agreement isn’t nearly as iron clad as I thought.

  The two looked at one another, unsure. Richard grinned reassuringly, and nodded towards the platter. After a second more of hesitation, the two converged on the food, and began devouring it whole. Richard watched them for a time.

  Well, it’s not fast acting at least.

  Turning his cold eyes back to his own treats, Richard grinned, the expression actually reaching his eyes this time around, if briefly.

  And this is why you always pack your own snacks when anticipating a long flight.

  A stack of gleaming golden tickets winked back at him suggestively.

  It was everything he’d felt comfortable squeezing from the admin, while still holding onto enough debt to beggar the Consortium, should it ever come to that. Just another bit of insurance to help coerce compliance from these conniving lizard men. Ideally, he wouldn’t touch that debt except for in the most dire of circumstances. Settling instead for a stack of legendary lottery tickets, and a decent chunk of attribute points.

  Free Points: 24,990

  He wouldn’t be using them immediately. He’d get the most out of regular training as he could first. That would all come later, however. For now, he had plenty to occupy his time.

  Richard reached for the first of many tickets.

  +++

  About an hour later, their little taxi jet docked on a decidedly impressive looking sky port. All jutting anchorage, gleaming sky bridges, and far, far below, the shifting bustle of busy commuters—looking, from his high vantage, like little ants scurrying to and fro. The occasional cloud drifting past to obscure his vision. Richard turned away from the breathtaking view, allowing his guards to lead him down the stairs and onto a private dock.

  There, a spiffy looking attendant greeted them with a smooth bow. Not even shooting their resident infant—practically swimming in a clearly adult sized helmet, by way of clever disguise—a fleeting look. Instead he turned and led them deeper into the building. If the jutting landing docks were the outstretched branches, this massive cylindrical complex would make up the trunk. Richard was led up and down several elevators, then escalators, down long hallways, and through automated doors. Imposing metal slabs that required a keycard to open.

  Much of this convoluted journey, unfortunately, obscured by the overly large helmet bonking his nose with every step. Richard wasn’t overly worried about getting lost, however. He wouldn’t be taking the same route back as he came in, after all. For that, he had a get out of jail free card.

  Eventually, their journey came to an end. Two massive double doors cut into the shape of a circle barring their way. Like so many times before, the attendant stepped forward and pressed his keycard to a sensor. Unlike all those times, however, this time it was followed by a twelve number passcode, fingerprint scan, retina scan, and finally a DNA scan. The attendant quickly wiping away the spot of blood from his pricked finger.

  Finally, the imposing double doors slid aside, with a groan of metal and the whir of articulated motors, to reveal…!

  Another forest.

  Richard could’ve sworn.

  +++

  As it turned out, the evergreen forest wasn’t nearly so intolerable as he’d been expecting. As he peered in through a thick layer of glass, he remarked on its upsides.

  It was wide, for one, open, and probably smelled of pine. Really, what more could you ask for? Richard snorted. Even if it had been an issue, however, any disappointment on his part paled before the sheer practicality offered by whatever techno-magic made this place tick. Standing beneath an overcast sky—what could only be a clever projection of some kind seeing as they were well within the building at this point—Richard watched the attendant slowly ramp up the time dilation.

  Richard only speaking up when the tingly skittering sensations running all along his body turned to sharp pain. The attendant dialed it back a smidge, and then looked to him for confirmation. Richard gave the scaly gentleman a cheery thumbs up. He, in turn, stared back at the upraised thumb dubiously. Apparently it wasn’t a universal gesture. Eventually taking the hint, the attendant swiftly exited the airlock—or, he supposed, would it be timelock?—along with his two guards.

  Richard contemplated waving goodbye, then thought better of it. The one without a helmet briefly looked back expectantly. Richard pressed the big red button that sealed the outer doors closed.

  What did he want from him exactly? He’d paid for this helmet fair and square!

  Before pressing the second big red button, the one that would open out onto the forest proper, Richard plopped down onto his rear, shucked off the helmet, let it roll into the far corner, and finally dug around in his spatial ring for the thing he’d been putting off on consuming for quite some time now.

  ?—|-New Form Energy Bar: Kalax Tropical Vanilla-|—?

  Giving the package a good pounding, until the insides had taken on a suitably crumbly consistency, Richard tore open the package, careful not to spill, and airplaned the contents into his open mouth. The second the first crumb touched his tongue, he could taste the incredibly potent mana. It was intoxicating. Far more so than he remembered it being. As if his body had been yearning for this very thing for who knew how long, and only now did he manage to sate that hunger.

  Richard choked down the contents—mana and vanilla swirling on his tongue. Fear and anticipation vying for dominance as the treasure made its way down his esophagus. When it finally hit his stomach, it detonated like an atomic bomb. Exploding with far more intensity than even he’d been expecting. The mana flowing down the wide, ten lane highways that were his mana channels as if a thing possessed. Or… actually? Was it even the mana at all that was doing this?

  With his abysmally low peerage, normally he’d be forced to wrangle the mana into submissionfor a while before it bothered to listen. And yet now…? Before he could even begin to grapple with the whole tedious process, the mana was racing towards his core as if all the demons of the underworld were at its heels.

  It was… wrong. Uniquely wrong in a way he didn’t really know how to describe.

  A strange sickness overcoming him. A pulsating nausea that thumped in time with his heartbeat. And this strange sensation, he was sure of it now, it was emanating from his mana channels.

  Richard immediately wanted to explore this new development, but he really didn’t have time. Even in the few seconds he was distracted, more and more of the mana was funneled into his mana core. Worse than that, when it arrived, there was a portion of the mana that seemed unaccounted for. Simply gone, as if somehow lost in transit. Richard grit his teeth. He really didn’t have time for this. And so, instead of investigating the anomaly, he instead directed the flowing streams of mana towards where he actually needed it to be. The incorporeal spot near his heart, where his soul was located.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Obeying with far more alacrity than he was used to in this timeline, the mana swiftly changed directions. Flowing into his soul with greater and greater speeds. A deluge of purest mana, at least a step above him in terms of sheer quality, flooding towards his unfinished soul seal at his behest. The very same he’d left at fifty percent completion. A rough framework, almost like a sketch, that just needed to be filled in to push it over the edge to completion.

  Mana continued to flow unceasingly, and Richard could only grin. In the first minute, progress to completion rose from 50% to 70%. And over the course of the next five, that number rose from 70% to 99%. By this point, only drips and drabs—nothing when compared to the previous deluge—were trickling into his soul. That wasn’t a problem however, because, out of the three hundred sixty nine mana he currently had at his disposal, three hundred sixty eight of it was just enough to finish off that last percent.

  Richard wiped a bead of sweat from his brow.

  “Phew! Cutting it a bit close near the end there, aren’t we?”

  And so saying, Richard promptly rose to his feet, stored the discarded helmet into his third spatial ring—waste not want not—and finally pressed the bright red button that was supposed to give him access to the hunting grounds proper. It opened up with a pressurized release of air. A breeze tickling the short hairs growing on his scalp. Richard took in a deep lungful. Relishing the earthy scents of loam, and the crisp scents of pine.

  He knew for a fact that time dilation did weird things to surveillance devices. Made them go haywire in a major way. And while the attention of, say, a god wouldn’t be hindered by something so mundane as space time, in the event he garnered a god’s attention, he would have far bigger problems on his hands. All that to say, he could go all out in this place and not have to worry about exposing himself willy nilly.

  And so, it was with that in mind that he took his very first steps onto this brand new frontier, ready and willing to devour some souls.

  +++

  From the concealed cover of his treetop vantage, Richard peered through pine needles and narrowed eyes, at the very first of his prey. The first of many, ideally.

  +—|-Sparking One-Horned Hare-|—+

  ?[Lvl 19]?

  Electricity arcing all along its long spiraling horn, the red eyed hair hopped out into a clearing. Rising up on its uncomfortably muscular hind legs, it snapped its head about—ears swiveling like rotary antennae—as it tried to get a better read on its environment.

  Now, he thought it should be said, he wasn’t taking cover purely for the bunny rabbit’s sake—although the way it’s ears flapped about while it scratched at a persistent itch was properly terrifying. Instead, it was more out of a wary sense of respect for the other deadly creatures freely roaming around in the considerably large forest. It’d been quite some time since he’d felt he were dancing on a knife’s edge, merely waltzing through a forest. And yet, a few close calls had already made it readily apparent that this place wasn’t messing around.

  The nearby dive, snatch and vanishing act of some blood colored hawk the size of a 787 firmly imprinting that fact into his mind. That this corporate hunting grounds did not play by Baby Mode rules. There were no convenient zones to rely on. Separation between F Grades and E Grades.

  Meaning that, when considering any individual engagement, one always had to judge whether that lvl 19 hare you’ve been eyeing was worth possibly inviting a Lvl 199 bona fide kaiju to join in on the festivities. It added a healthy dose of impending doom that he’d missed these last few weeks. After all, what was life without a bit of risk?

  Richard zeroed in his focus. Pulling two simple talismans from one of his spatial rings. A frost and force talisman respectively. He pulsed as little mana as he could get away with into the runes—aware their were beasts capable of sensing mana expenditure—and grimacing when he ran into the unforeseen “quirk” of his super suction mana channels. That thing being, for how amazing they were at drawing in mana, they really didn’t care for the idea of letting it out again.

  He was forced to push on the mana, at great cost to his mental energy—feeling like he were working the mana through congested arteries, and not the insanely wide pathways he knew they were in truth. Eventually, he pushed through that odd resistance, and his mana began to flow normally once more. The two talismans shot from his fingers. One just the slightest bit faster then the other.

  The creatures head snapped up immediately, but by then it was too late. Lightning arced off of its lone horn, sending a jolt of electricity through the leaping frost talisman, causing it to explode into a cloud of freezing mist—quickly enveloping the hare. It’s muscles stiffened ever so slightly. Not much, but enough. So that when the leaping force talisman descended, it couldn’t move out of the way in time.

  The sound of its neck snapping was far too loud for Richard’s liking. And as it collapsed into the snow, lifeless, Richard prepared himself to flee. Thankfully, the moment passed, and no E grade monster descended to tear his tiny self apart. Not that he couldn’t give such a beast a run for its money with his freshly minted hoard, but he’d rather not waste anything, if possible. Not to mention the nightmare he’d be greeted with if he actually succeeded in slaying it.

  No, better for everyone he avoid them for the time being.

  Actually, wasn’t there something he was supposed to be doing? Eyes going wide, Richard leaned back into the trunk of the evergreen and strapped himself in with the length of rope. And none too soon. In the next moment, something intangible slammed into his chest, and Richard knew no more.

  +++

  Souls. What were they? How did they come about? And how did they work?

  All good questions. Richard also had no idea. All he did know was that, for whatever reason, they played a significant role in level acquisition. For every kill a person made, be it bestial or sentient, a small pinch of their departing soul would then be appropriated by the master formation. Whereupon the soul stuff would then be run through whatever arcane mechanisms allowed it to operate. What they labeled, “experience” eventually coming out—all shiny and fully process—on the other side.

  Of course, Richard had no idea how this entire complex soul mechanism worked. What he didknow, however, was the point at which the captured sliver of soul entered into the experience making pipeline. It would be rather hard not to. He had spend the last however many days stopping it up, after all.

  Effectively meaning that, now, whenever this external soul stuff from recent kills invaded his master formation, instead of smoothly transitioning into a piddling amount of experience, it would get stuck. Trapped. With nowhere to go, except, into the narrow makeshift mana straw he’d jabbed directly into his soul space. Or else close enough that the difference was practically negligible.

  Now! Did this just sound like self inflicted soul damage with extra steps?

  Yes!

  And did the soul grow marginally in strength by pitting itself against other souls?

  Also yes!

  It was called Bestial Soul Tempering, and was a practice that apparently extended as far back as ye olde earth. Shamans and the like performing similar rituals, if under different names and with far less immediate results. It was quite possibly the least safe soul cultivation method out there, and if he didn’t already have a soul palace in which to greet his supposed guests, well… luckily he didn’t have to worry about that.

  When Richard opened his eyes, he was back inside his soul palace.

  “So far so good.”

  Ignoring the dismissive sniff of his super ego, as he sat overlooking the library—an open book in one hand and in the other, a steaming cup of tea—Richard lifted himself over the balcony to see that not all was as he had left it. Where he might have expected to see the other half of his library, a frozen tundra stared back at him. Snowy blizzard blowing frigid air and a flurry of flakes onto his side of the divide. The way the cold environment was spliced with his cozy one nonsensical and somewhat off putting.

  If he even thought about it for a second, for instance how the elevations and perspectives made no sense in conjunction, all he’d get in return was a splitting headache and a wish not to attempt to understand it again. Shrugging at the anomaly, Richard flew further into the open—drifting closer and closer to the frigid ice storm. Lightning arced from somewhere in the murk, revealing the silhouette of an oh so familiar creature as it crept ever closer.

  Realizing it’d been had, it lowered its head—electricity racing down along its horn. The hair on his arms tingled, the scent of ozone hit his nostrils, just before blue lightning arced—spearing unerringly towards Richard’s unprotected chest.

  The hare’s red eyes gleamed.

  Only to be intercepted by a massive wall of books, nearly six meters tall all told. The now rather pathetic looking arc of lightning leaving a large scorch mark on “An Idiot’s Guide to Anonymous Birdwatching” but doing little else of note. The child-sized hare blanched, took a few wary steps back. Not before the Great Wall of literature, broke apart into its composite tomes, however, swirled around one another in a whirlwind of shifting paper—the flutter of pages like an ominous round of applause—before finally transforming into a leather bound dragon. A papyrus breathing monster on a meticulous one to one scale.

  The hare proceeded to paint the snow yellow with its fear, before being summarily consumed by the dragon’s open maw.

  Immediately, the image of a frozen tundra popped like a soap bubble. The ice and snow transforming into ghostly, semi translucent smoke trails. Winding ribbons of vapor which poured en mass into the cracks and crevices still marring his little soul sanctuary. Sealing up all the cracks in real time, until you couldn’t even tell it’d been damaged in the first place. The last of the cracks seamlessly healing over, before the remaining wisps of soul energy trailed upwards at long last.

  Diving headlong into the roiling black mess of fog keeping him from his upper balconies, and…

  “Do you think it grew lighter by just the tiniest bit?” Richard asked.

  His super ego merely shrugged in response.

  “Do you think if you have to ask that question, it matters one way or another?”

  Richard grimaced.

  “Good point. Which means…”

  “That this will definitely take a while, yes. Please try not to bite off more than you can chew.”

  “You know me. Conscientious is basically my middle name.”

  At that, for whatever reason, his super ego groaned.

  “Saints preserve us…”

  +++

  When Richard snapped back to reality, he was still tied to a tree.

  Best news I’ve heard all day.

  Extricating himself proved to be not much of a problem at all, and in short order he was stepping lightly through the forest, in search of the perfect little hidey hole he discovered a little while back. In short order, the dangerous forest had been traversed, his hidey hole re-discovered—a small burrow nestled beneath the roots of an especially large pine—and a pleasant little cultivation cave kitted out for his express use.

  His little experiment had told him, in no uncertain terms, that enhancing his Soul Grade through Bestial Tempering would be a slow going affair. Not terribly surprising, nor was it the end of the world. He had a full year in which to train his soul and work on his talisman-craft. In that time, less than a day should pass in the outside world. Which meant he had a wealth of time to, not only do what needed doing, but finally, finally, he’d get the chance to explore Shaper’s Legacy.

  It’d been a long time coming, but he felt this was as good a time as any. Plucking the round black object from his spatial storage, he was immediately perplexed on how to gain access to this supposed “legacy.” Figuring it ought to be simple if it’d been given to a literal baby, he pushed the smallest bit of his mana into the object, as he would with any other system item he’d come across.

  In the next moment, both he and the unique artifact disappeared, leaving not a single trace behind.