Chapter 903 – One shard

POV Cerulean Parlor

“10 million shards on his death,” a mora woman in an all-white sundress says.

“10 million says he takes one of the Champions with him,” the man with a bear face counters.

“Lady Kindness, are you not going to join in on our betting?” the woman with the half-spider body asks with a polite smile on her human face. Her spider face unblinkingly watching the Ruler with all its eyes.

“It would be unfair to bet against kids like you,” the Ruler says, waving it off and resting against the person who’s acting as Nathaniel Gwyn’s handler, a woman with black hair with bits of red in it. “And what do you think? How will your ward do?”

“Adequately,” she answers.

“How very serious,” Kindness smiles even more, leaning against her friend.

“Seeing everything he’s done as of late and how he did against Nyssa Volare, he could probably face one of the weaker Handlers, couldn't he?” This time it’s a lynthari who speaks, uncharacteristically entirely covered in fur. Body, face, and all. Said lynthari man even has a slightly more cat-like mouth, which he smiles with as his fluffy tail sways behind him.

“Thankfully, there are no such people who’d be accepted into this parlor,” the demon man with glasses sitting beside him snorts. “The human has guts, though.”

“If you say so,” the lynthari gives a quick flash of his fangs. “How is your buddy, the Hornless, doing? Not scared he will be next to die after Envy?”

“How brave of you to talk about him that way when you wouldn't even be able to stand in his presence. Or have you hidden the strength of your heart from us? Have you reached the level of Lord Wrath to talk that way?” the demon returns.

“You, my handsome fellas, can fight once this is over. Do not ruin this rare opportunity for the others, especially as I'm the one putting on this show for you.” A feylith woman with huge wings wearing a sleeveless dress smiles at the two men and then gestures at the spider woman. “My dear, we haven't heard your opinion.”

“Oh, Lady Lust, my opinion does not matter in comparison to the others present here,” the spider woman gives a gentle smile. “But since it's you who asked, in my humble opinion, the human will be making it out alive. As for his state, I can’t be so sure about that. The Champions he’s decided to challenge seem like a great fit for him, but we all know there are always surprises.”

“I wonder what Diligence would bet on. Kant, what would your Colony leader say?” the man with the bear head asks the next member of the parlor.

In reaction, the vessel of the Ruler of Diligence lifts his head from the device he’s been toying with, something akin to a far more complicated Rubik's Cube.

Said vessel is a huge, muscular velnar man sitting hunched over, and timidly giving the others a quick, nervous smile. “The First One wouldn't care, I don’t guess, but I personally hope he gets crushed. Though Zant seems to like him, so maybe not? He could be a decent guy, the sort of person I could befriend, but he also made fun of the First One, so he can die too. It's complicated!”

The voice that comes from him is soft too, unmatched to his muscular body and the words he just spoke. Then, ignoring everything else, he looks back down at the device and returns to tinkering with it.

At just that moment, the door opens, a new figure is standing outside, simply giving a nod, one of the local employees responsible for taking care of the place and the needs of the people inside.

That selari man, giving a polite nod, says, “The Ruler of Greed has sent a message that she has wagered 100 million shards on the victory of attendee Nathaniel Gwyn. An anonymous Ruler has also bet a single shard on the attendee Nathaniel Gwyn.”

With that, the doors close to an explosion of muttering as the selari man leaves.

“It can't be.”

“It wasn't him, right?”

“There’s no way.”

“It has to be a prank. Could it possibly be Humility? She likes those kinds of jokes.”

“As if he would ever notice someone like that human.”

“But isn't he one of his Adepts?”

And then the Ruler of Lust snorts, “That high-nosed bitch Greed once again can’t even be bothered to show up and just sends a message like we were mere trash.” The feylith flickers her wings in annoyance.

While hiding the gesture, Kindness gives the Handler she’s resting against a big smile, only for said Handler to roll her eyes in response.

Then everyone’s attention turns back to the screen just as the man in huge armor takes his first step onto the 5th floor, once again sacrificing 15 stats of Constitution.

"Now, I am curious what-" the words of the bear man cut off.

Then the man leaves, returning to the 4th floor.

"Oh, did our attendee get cold feet?" the lynthari chuckles, showing off his fangs in the fullness of their beauty, but his words quickly sputter to a halt.

The armored man on the screen enters the 5th floor again, only to instantly leave so he can re-enter the 5th floor once again while the people watching stare on in shock.

"What the actual fuck."

And then he does it again.

And one last time.

POV Nathaniel

I take my time, getting used to my recently lowered constitution while I take a moment to look around. As always, I’ve appeared in a different spot from before, so I pull up the map in my mind and try to locate myself in relation to the two Champions I want to face.

The ones I’ve chosen aren’t all that far from each other. There’s only one other Champion that’s somewhat close-ish, but they’re pretty well known for having poor perception.

So far everything’s going according to plan, and as I use mana and kinetic energy to move my armor, the earth shakes beneath me, rumbling through my many layers of defenses, and the air smells weird. Too clean, perhaps?

After about ten minutes or so, I’m somewhat adapted and begin to trigger the preprogrammed skills I’ve got stored in the vast archive of my unique pristine passive. One after another, the intricate steps activate, demanding that I fuel them.

Useful for sure, but not as fun as having to adapt and actively do everything. But it’s still fun in its own way. Humans are, after all, built to strive for convenience, efficiency, and new ways of gaming the rules, from the intern trying to find new ways to slack off at work, to some asshole CEO thinking about the best way to avoid taxes just a little bit more.

An [Empyrean Lance], unlike any I have made before, stretches as tall as I am in my new Regalia. Then launches itself high into the air, bound to a thread I’ve created with [Weave] to maintain a connection so I can be ready to pull it back, as the kinetic propulsion nodes I’ve glued to it do their best to add more oomph to the strike.

[Empyrean Lance - lvl 71 > Empyrean Lance - lvl 72]

I watch that lance disappear beyond the fake clouds, thinking it might be one of the last times I get to see it. After all, [Empyrean Lance] is a feature of my current class, and it’ll be gone once I choose my next one. Though I have plans in place for that, too.

Multiple normal projectiles form all around me, floating in place, each half my height and as dense and heavy as I can make them.

I continuously allow my eyes to take in more and more information as I perform one last check-up and fine-tune the movements of my armor.

I might be delaying things a little, but I open my status to give myself that last boost of confidence.

Name: Nathaniel Gwyn

Title: Absolute Candidate

Difficulty: Hell

Rank: S, Radiant Gold

Guild: Primordial Knights

Floor: 12 - Ancient Weapons of War

Time left until forced return: 1y 176d 19h 10m 3s

Traits (3/3): Preeminence Eyes 3/5, Mana Vessel 2/4, Empyrean Ichor (Purity: 36%) 2/5

Lvl 443

Strength: 395

Dexterity: 379

Constitution: 10

Mana (Stage 1/3 - Vast Mana): 2536 + 2536

Primary Class: Mana Weaver (Unique Arcane)

Sub-class: [Adept of Pride]

Active skills (9/10):

Focus - Lvl 86

Redistribution - Lvl 84

Eclipse (Pride) - Lvl 79

Empyrean Lance - Lvl 72

Manifestation - Lvl 69

Weave - Lvl 55

Selective Adaptation - Lvl 49

Mana Manipulation - Lvl 88

Attunement - Lvl 29

Constructs:

Kinetic Mana Heart

Sealed Ignition Heart (Partially Sealed, 1/3)

Sovereign Chassis

Passive skills (4/5):

Heat Resonance Restoration (Low Pristine)

Cognitive Vector Module (Unique Pristine)

Adaptive Defense (Low Pristine)

Mana Tempering (Low Pristine)

Tokens:

Send a single item to your disciple (up to epic rarity)

Beyond visitor token - 1 year (unlocked after tutorial)

Beyond 14 day stay token (x 22)

Ten minute Disciple Communication token (x3)

Mid Pristine item

Shards: 6,123,923

There is, obviously, my new construct that went much smoother than expected. As silly as it is for me to say, I’m just an attendee using a shovel to recreate something the system integrates on microscopic levels with eons of data.

Yet, I’m very happy with this one.

Congratulations, you have created a new Construct. The name will be registered and shown in your status under active skills and over passive skills. Well done!

Sovereign Chassis (construct): A controlling chassis integrated deep within your body and mind. It is directly connected to your Cognitive Vector Module, allowing for scaling limited only by your mana.

It does all it could previously, just better, and most of it thanks to my passive and the vector module it created deep inside of me that served as a base for me to connect to.

That’s why my constitution is ten now. My construct, with the help of my specially dedicated submind and my unique passive, takes care of everything. It does body reinforcement, it helps with Mana Cycling, it helps with primordial energies, it keeps the mana inside of me my own, and all that good stuff.

And this isn't the end of it either. I’ve saved space for future improvements.

Taking a breath of overly filtered air, I move my hand, just the one attached to my real body, not the armor. The layer of woven mana threads opens a space for me as I grab the syringe Doc and I prepared and modified for a more gradual rate of activation. I inject it into my heart, which, according to our design, begins to speed up. I boost myself into the air and begin to run, enclosed in that huge suit of armor.

I start slow at first, but with time, as I pick up momentum, I speed up, breaking through the trees around me and crushing huge stone boulders as the earth cracks and shakes under me.

More breaths, all slow and steady as my thought acceleration takes hold, and I concentrate on my preparations.

[Focus - lvl 86 > Focus - lvl 87]

The area I’m heading to is ten minutes away at this speed, so I scan over my status again.

I had hoped to purify my Ichor by a bit more than 6%, but despite my every attempt, it refused to budge. I suspect it’s going to require a bit of trait strengthening before I can do it again, or at least more time.

There are also a few new passives.

Incredibly, an Adaptive Defense appeared in the list of buyable passives once I got [Attunement].

Adaptive Defense (Low Pristine) - Each incoming attack registers its damage profile upon impact. Subsequent strikes of the same nature suffer heavy, stacking mitigation, while associated status effects lose their effectiveness.

Since I have [Selective Adaptation] and all that, my future goal is obvious. If I fail to get [Adaptation], I might as well lie on the floor of the sacred machine and let the kindred children paint me until the lead poisoning from the paint, in combination with my inborn mana deficiency, takes me.

Just for a moment, I allow my Ignition Heart to pick up and direct the thermal energy it generates through the nodes I built into the armor. Flames spark and then burst from the back and the bottom of my feet, sending out streams of fire as long as a bus and pushing me forward faster.

I crash against a giant tree without so much as slowing down. I cross a river, sending water spraying everywhere and boost myself up a hill that breaks under my steps, causing a small avalanche which I surf for a moment before boosting myself half a mile through the air.

After landing on a mountain, I run across the peak and jump off, adding another boost into a stand of trees at the heart of the forest, shattering them on contact.

The flames boosting me ahead spread between the trees, raising the temperature, setting them ablaze, and burning them to ash. Even as I get further away, the flames continue to spread, setting the forest aflame.

When I step back onto more rocky ground, the accumulated heat at the bottom of my feet from the nodes heats up the stone, partially melting it.

I open my status again and read the description of my other passive obtained from one of my rewards, without spending another 24 million or so shards like I did to acquire Adaptive Defense.

I also sold Mana Wave Predation, which I liked quite a bit, though it had long been lagging behind, especially now that I can do all these things actively and to a greater extent, all thanks to what I've done to my body. Without it, there isn't even that little bit left to rely on, and that’ll just force me to push my active mastery further.

And then there’s my newest passive, my choice of the three I was offered, with the others being Mana Permanence (Low Pristine) and Corrosive Current (Low Pristine).

Mana Tempering (Low Pristine) - The user's mana aggressively tempers itself with every impact it takes, meaning active manifestations grow drastically more unyielding and destructive the harder they’re struck.

I wonder if there’s ever been another attendee with four Low Pristine passives, one of which was unique.

My scan detects the presence I’ve been targeting, and it detects me in turn. Knowing the best way to attract the second Champion, I weave a powerful flame orb and launch it in the direction of its territory. That guy hates any sort of fire, and his ability to detect and react to it is highly refined. He'll be here soon enough.

Of course, the Champion grade being I’m currently heading toward awakens too and begins to shake off its slumber.

I sacrifice a few huge chunks of mana required to move me along with the huge mech and perform three extremely long range teleports, as the last one drops me high in the air.

Appearing in the air, I release thermal energy through the nodes in my back and boost myself toward the ground at high speed, accelerating even further with kinetic energy.

I break through the top of the mountain, which explodes into a caldera, while the rock melts around me and I crash through, deep into the cavern beneath.

Once there, I slam into the still barely awake hydra as it lifts its five heads up in confusion, just as I crash into its body and pin it to the ground.