Cyril Sarnath
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Chapter 166
🕑 Added 2023-05-07 01:14:58 +0000 UTCUntainted Paradise’s space department’s first major breakthrough went unnoticed. Exactly the way they hoped for. They finally had unrestricted access to space without supervision of the Solar Council and the World Government. They understood that this wouldn’t last forever and eventually others would catch up and counter-measures would be developed. But Untainted Paradise didn’t become the largest non-government organisation by pure luck. Having poached key researchers from the World Government’s department of space, Untainted Paradise had all the pieces in place and rushed with their plan to leave the prison of Earth.
Also, it was time to prepare for an inevitable confrontation with their enemies.
—
A Level 4 rare monster with two hours heads, the body of a crocodile and neon wings stilled when Keynes activated [Spiritual Wraith]. It sniffed aggressively, not accepting Keynes’s sudden disappearance. Keynes didn’t use it defensively though. He was testing the interaction between [Spiritual Wraith] and [Mana Shot]. Previously, [Spiritual Wraith] shattered the spell twice, disabling it for a few hours. At first, Keynes panicked, fearing the worst, then Alice calmed him down, explaining that spells weren’t easily disabled permanently and such occurrence required extreme circumstances.
They had brainstormed around the issue because being stealthy without ability to attack felt very bad. Keynes’s first idea was to use his spiritual aura to fix the problem but Alice convinced him to try with essence first.
With assistance of Kora’s [Essence Sight], after killing a group of Level 3 monsters and collecting a hefty amount of essence, Keynes started using it to fix the spell. In reality, they didn’t know what they were doing. Not only essence could have affinity but it was unclear where to begin and what exactly should be fixed.
Lem Solaris didn’t appear when Keynes asked for help so they were on their own.
To his calculation, he wasted enough essence to take him to 50% toward another Level before they noticed that spell cores reacted briefly to a pattern Keynes used to move essence around his body. This coincided with another small discovery; whenever Keynes went with his instinct instead of relying on his perfect memory and absurd learning speed, he was able to make progress and reinforce [Spiritual Wraith]’s structure. While Keynes worked on the feeling and instinct alone, Kora watched him carefully. Essence was definitely forming a pattern.
They kept at it for a few days, until Keynes felt [Spiritual Wraith]’s structure undergo a gentle change. There was no system message or anything that indicated that the spell had changed, except for the feeling inside him.
As the Level 4 monster grew frustrated with its inability to locate Keynes, he softly reached to [Mana Shot] and started charging it slowly, one mana unit per second. [Spiritual Wraith] shook but its structure held.
In the end, it didn’t matter. At 25 mana units, the monster detected Keynes even with [Spiritual Wraith] active. It charged him but it was clear that it couldn’t see him. Keynes waited until the monster was right next to him, then fired [Mana Shot] into its head. The spell wasn’t charged enough to take out a Level 4 rare monster in one shot and acted more as a distraction than anything else.
The creature roared in frustration as Keynes vanished again. Keynes used [Telekinesis] to play with it. For some reason, [Telekinesis] wasn’t destabilising [Spiritual Wraith]. They believed it was due to charging [Mana Shot] as mana accumulated inside the skill and resonated outside, affecting [Spiritual Wraith].
Shoving broken branches and rocks at the monster for a couple of minutes was—
A sword appeared out of nowhere and beheaded the creature.
“Kora! I had it,”Keynes yelled.
“You were dragging it out needlessly,” she said. “We aren’t here to torture them. They haven’t done anything to us.”
“It tried to kill me.” Keynes turned to her as she appeared between trees. “That’s a good enough reason for me.”
She shook her head, not letting herself be dragged into this conversation. They collected essence then left the monster’s corpse behind. It dropped nothing which wasn’t surprising. The current drop rate was extremely low but given the number of monsters inside this dominion, they had several items and skill shards per day.
So far only the Ancient Treasury remained in their possession. All other items were devoured by the ring already. The extra skill shards were nice and tempting but Keynes couldn’t absorb any extra ones without removing [Chaos Aura] which didn’t want to do.
“Is it time to push forward again?” Keynes asked as they walked back to their camp. They were currently around ten thousand rank after travelling closer to the centre. Level 4 monsters were becoming a standard now but the biggest change was the dominion’s debuff. They felt very strongly now and it wasn’t what they had expected to be.
The dominion’s only debuff tried to calm them down, soothing them into inaction. Alice had been the first to realise it and warned them about the effect. The most dangerous thing about the debuff was that it didn’t feel threatening. But they still didn’t understand the end goal of the debuff and that was worrisome.
“I…am not sure,” Kora replied after a moment. They crossed a small stream that weaved between roots protruding from the uneven, overgrown ground. For ascenders with 35 points in Strength and Dexterity, traversing such a terrain was a piece of cake.
Keynes sensed hesitation in her voice and decided to prod for more information.
“Why?”
“This is the only place in the world that is freely available to everyone and drops items and skills. Do we really want to end this?”
Alice immediately reacted and said in Keynes’s head, she is forgetting that these monster dominions grow stronger over time. If it is not stopped in time, it may become too difficult to end. Dominions should be dealt with without hesitation. Tell her that!
Keynes knew this and repeated Alice’s words to Kora. She mused it for a few minutes as they crossed a chasm beyond which lay their camp. They jumped over a ten metre wide chasm as if it wasn’t there. When the camp got in sight, she stopped him.
“There are millions of people inside the dominion. There are monsters at least up to Level 4 and rare rarity. Items and spell shards they drop can be exceptional. I have a feeling that given time we will outpace anything the dominion can throw at us.”
“I agree.”
“You do?” she sharply glanced at him, surprised. Then her expression changed and she added. “But?”
He laughed. Over these couple of weeks, Kora got to know him pretty well.
“These ascenders one day may turn against us,” he replied a moment later with solemnity. He didn’t like this line of thinking, it reminded him too much of Wagner’s pragmatism but the other man was rarely wrong.
“That's a twisted way of thinking, Keynes. The world isn’t black and white. This isn’t a simple us-or-them.”
“What if it is?”
“Why did you cause the fourth outbreak then? It will make our enemies stronger, right?”
She stared at him expectantly. He liked it about her, even when serious, she remained calm and timid. There was no heat in her voice, no anger.
He looked away, not because he couldn’t hold the stare but he needed to collect his thoughts. He was beginning to sound paranoid; like Wagner, who was paranoid. But was it a bad thing? There were many people after them. They couldn’t be careless. But then again, that wasn’t what Kora meant. She—
Master! I sensed another ascender!
Keynes turned to Kora, his expression serious.
“Alice sensed another ascender.”
“Where?”Kora looked around but neither of them could spy with their aura without alarming others. So they had to rely on their senses and Alice.
He is not far but…he does not feel dangerous.
Despite Alice’s words, they proceeded very carefully with Keynes keeping [Spiritual Wraith] active. It would really be easier if he could toggle it on and off.
Alice led them directly to the ascender. He was the first one they met in the dominion, which seemed strange considering how many people had entered it. At the lowest point, they were over a million-something in the ranking.
Nothing of that mattered as they arrived at the spot indicated by Alice. She confirmed that there were no other ascenders around. They found a lone man leaning against a tree. He looked at peace and wasn’t alarmed by their arrival. From the look on his face, it appeared that he wasn’t aware of their presence even though they stood in front of him and he was Level 4.
Kora gave Keynes a questioning look as if he knew what to do.
Master… look at his left arm, Alice said, her tiny voice trembling in shock.
Alerted by her tone, Keynes checked the man’s arm and—
“Kora, I think I know what the debuff really does.”
“No…” She gasped, covering her mouth “Don’t tell me we…”
“It would explain why we haven’t met anyone else before.”
Half of the ascender’s arm was turned into wood. The debuff soothed people then turned them into trees. This was…strange, unnatural; nothing like fighting monsters. He needed to warn others. He turned the tablet on and called Pucci who had entered the dominion recently.
“What’s the matter?” Pucci asked, he sounded tired and exhausted.
Keynes went on, explaining their finding while Kora attended the ascender. They didn’t decide what they were going to do but something had to be done about him. They couldn’t leave him to die in such a horrifying way.
Pucci found this whole thing exciting and requested Keynes to stay where they were and wait for his team. Keynes protested but Pucci didn’t care.
“We aren’t going to wait for him, are we?” Kora asked.
“I don’t think they’ll arrive here anyway. This man is Level 4 and he already succumbed to the debuff. I don’t think Pucci has anyone of Level 5 with him beside himself. If he comes as far as here, he is going to kill them all.”
“Let’s try to do something about him,” she said.
Alice, is there anything you can do? Keynes asked.
I…yes, I think there is something we can do.
***
Minutes stretched as Keynes’s spiritual aura touched the man’s core. It felt tainted and ill, and yet there was that unnatural sense of calmness.
Master, I feel an intruding presence… you should withdraw.
“Don’t fight, don’t struggle, don’t pretend.”
The words sneaked into Keynes’s mind as if they belonged there. Keynes almost pulled his spiritual aura out of the ascender but then he calmed himself down. He understood what the debuff was trying to do to him and resisted.
“Why resist? Why struggle? Why move?”
Keynes ignored the voice while he delved deeper into the ascender’s core. His instincts fired up and he was about to follow the usual methodology dictated by his experience when he remembered his training with essence and [Spiritual Wraith]. Instead of logic, he went purely by feel.
It changed everything. Somehow, his body knew what to do better than him. Were the Rapid Learning and the Photographic Memory buffs more of a hindrance than a boon? It was difficult to picture this kind of scenario but even Lem Solaris had said so.
The voice in Keynes’s head grew more erratic and weak.
“Don’t…why…stop…”
Eventually, it stopped. Keynes heard Alice’s relieved exhale.
“Something’s happening,” Kora said.
Keynes’s eyes snapped open and felt all his strength drain away in an instant. He dropped on the ground like a rag doll.
“Keynes!”
Kora actually managed to catch him before he hit the ground, not that there was any risk of injury. She did it anyway.
At the same time, the wood from the ascender’s arm started to recede. It was a lengthy process and by the time it ended, Keynes fully recovered from his ordeal.
For Level 4, the ascender looked old. The arm where the wood had been, also looked unnaturally pale and unhealthy. He didn’t wake up immediately but the taint was gone from his core.
