I breathed out. None of the methods Hazel had given me to project authority were working in any way. I couldn’t tap into whatever source inside me held it. This was basically an unheard-of issue amongst the human population. Everyone had some level of control over that power contained within their souls. Unfortunately, it’s like I didn’t even have any Authority to tap into. Luckily, I might have a solution to that problem in the notifications I had been ignoring during my conversation with Hazel.
The first one was a little unexpected.Milestone Achieved: Protected the forest from a Maleficarum Infiltrator for the first time. Following the natural way of purging their spawn before they can become greater threats.
Species Level (Runaspriggan) Increased +10 (26)
+10 Might, +30 Wit, +40 Spirit, +20 Fortitude, +30 Arcana, +20 Grace
That explains why I feel so much stronger, and my frantic pace to get out of the zone seemed to be easier to handle without stumbling. Even without [Natural Enhancement] boosting my dexterity. Also what the fuck is a Maleficarum Infiltrator?My thoughts paused for a moment, trying to process the information given to me. I knew I was being mentally influenced somehow, but I had assumed it was due to something in my Core. Instead, it seems to be related to me being seen as a plant creature. I didn’t know what to take from that, but at least I knew Eryx didn’t install badware onto my operating system. There was nothing I could do with that information, so I moved on.Congratulations on reaching level twenty! Choose one of the following three skills to shape your path to Eternity:
[Species Skill Option]
Name: [Voidbranch]
Tier: [Emblazoned]
Description: [Despite having no affinity for the realm, you have spent a noticeable amount of time in the Void. Though a creature of nature you may choose to infuse your being with the void, splitting your being between two planes. This will make Space Mana far easier to manipulate and allow capacity expansion of spatial storage devices connected to you as your affinity grows. Note: This skill does not alter attunements.]Oh boy, I get a treat for being tortured. All jokes aside, the skill was amazing. I almost picked it immediately without looking at my other options, but if the Skills that have shown up so far are anything to go by this should be the lowest-tier offering. I had to assume killing a creature over a hundred levels higher than me influenced the Tiers of Skills offered. Maybe it would allow me to figure out how to teleport back to Fateswatch?
I had to steel myself. I wasn’t going to rush into the options.[Species Skill Option]
Name: [Oakbound Resilience]
Tier: [Emblazoned]
Description: [You have endured torments no fragile seedling could fathom, emerging from the ashes stronger than the twisted roots of an ancient tree. Pain becomes little more than a whisper against the ironbark of your will, its sting unable to shatter your focus. With every blow, your resolve hardens, your mental fortitude now as unyielding as the heartwood of the oldest oaks.]
Okay, this is getting ridiculous. Is every Skill going to relate to the teleport incident? Honestly, with how often I’m thrown into a blender made of pain, this option is fairly enticing. Almost enough for me to pick it over [Voidbranch], but no, the other Skill still won out in utility alone.
[Species Skill Option]
Name: [The Roots That Bind]
Tier: [Eclipsed]
Description: [You faced a foe of extraplanar origin many times your level—its very presence distorting the fabric of the world around it to suit its needs. Foes on the level of the Resplendent Sovereigns are no easy targets. In addition, you have travelled the planes, an almost impossible goal for many as the journey would be naught but suicide. You can use this victory to feel the roots that bind the worlds together, imbuing you with an innate sense of planar boundaries. These roots can be connected to enabling the expulsion of extraplanar beings back to their homes or altering the planar composition of your surroundings. Personally summoned extraplanar entities will yield to your will with greater ease, knowing you have bested one of the greatest strengths amongst the planes. Grants permanent, evergrowing knowledge on binding techniques to hold entities to your will, along with a boost in comprehension of ritualism (Symbolic Encoding). The roots of the World Tree stretch across creation, weaving through planes like threads in a vast tapestry. Those connected to the roots can feel the rhythm of the natural path.]
I nearly stumbled while reading the next notification, barely catching myself with the improved Grace I’d just been given. Then, I took a minute just to process what I was being offered.
Something has gone wrong, and I was clearly not supposed to be given this Skill. Despite the fact I definitely needed to select it, that thought was holding me back. I’d already clearly annoyed the people running the system if the angel was anything to go by, and grabbing this skill might be pushing it. Unless angels are just like that? I sat down on the barren dirt plain and allowed myself to dwell on the topic.
I could just take the win and accept the Skill. It would obviously become something fundamental to who I am. But that comes with the risk of being punished for doing something I absolutely wasn't supposed to. How did I even get offered this, though? While the Wretchspawn was strong, it definitely wasn’t on the level of whatever the hell a ‘Resplendent Sovereign’ is. I re-read the description to try and gain a better understanding.
The requirements I’ve met seem to be that I’ve beaten something many times my level from another plane, and I have travelled to other planes. My only extraplanar experience is being stuck in the Void and… I shivered at the thought of the other plane. Just not going to think about that one. Much safer to do that.
All of a sudden, a realization came to me. Somebody was too lazy to set the requirements for gaining this Skill properly. There was an assumption made that nobody would be able to kill an extraplanar being many times their level and travel between planes without having first gained enough levels that killing whatever beings exist on this plane would be trivial. Nobody at my level is supposed to be in this zone. I was teleported here because of a series of events that whoever developed the Skill didn't take into account. The likelihood that I would end up here at a low level, having travelled through multiple planes and then managed to kill one of those things, was probably astoundingly low.
I couldn’t help myself—I just started laughing at the absurdity of the error made here. This is why you QA test your products before release. So that mistakes like this don’t slip through. However, I suppose I was supposed to be on the QA team in this case. This was a beta test, after all.
But that didn’t change the situation. It wasn’t my fault the teleport broke, but I was still sent through... I coughed and cleared my head. Don’t think about it. They’ll blame me for any mistakes, and I can’t even report this bug because the report function is turned off. I had to wonder why they did that. They had to know I would run into issues since I wasn’t in their pre-designated spawn area, which should be better designed than out here. This means that running into errors like this was intentional. Kalezares, or whatever his name was, is right. We do need to have a long talk.
The safe option is to take [Voidbranch] and call it a day. Once the report function is turned back on, I can report the bug and probably get a sweet reward. I was tempted to do that; after all, [Voidbranch] was very useful, and it was fairly plausible that I would be allowed to pick that Skill without issue. I had gone to the void without it having been an issue with the system.
Letting out an exasperated sigh, I had to admit to myself something that I hadn’t wanted to so far. This world wasn’t one where my accomplishments meant something like I had felt could be the case back in The Cradle. The things I’m achieving aren’t really under my control. They’re being caused by whoever designed this mess. Picking the higher Tier Skill would just be admitting that to be true and that’s why I feel hesitant. If I get punished or not, do I really have any control over that either? Maybe the angel was just in a bad mood and that’s why the teleportation incident was resolved… The way it had been.
Nothing really matters in the end. Either I get tortured forever, or I don’t, and nothing I do will influence that outcome. I let myself fall flat lying on the ground and picked [The Roots That Bind].
[Error: Skill and Species Tier Discrepancy]Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
[System Error Code: 1-409-ADMINREQ]
[Skill acquisition request cannot be processed due to an incompatibility between current Species Tier and requested Skill Tier. Admin attention required to complete the request.]
[System Update]
Admin Attention Confirmed
Skill Acquisition Authorized
Huh. So, my situation is partly intentional. That certainly says something. I’m not sure what, but it is something.
Moments after finishing the thought, my mind was flooded with knowledge, and it felt like somebody was driving a nail into what I could only describe as my spirit. So much information poured into my Core that it began to ache, a dull throb that started as the beginnings of a migraine but rapidly escalated as the transfer sped up, centred in my Core. I winced at the discomfort, struggling to process what I could, but it felt like being forced to absorb the contents of a hundred libraries all at once. At the same time, that extra part of my body that I hadn’t been able to sense before was being inflated like a balloon. It was impossible to forget any of the information. The knowledge settled into my mind, always accessible—like my understanding of Mana circuitry had become when I chose my species—but unlike my circuit knowledge, it didn’t feel natural. It felt more like the extra knowledge was being crammed into my head all at once.
I groaned and rolled over in the dirt, glad I was in a completely dead zone with nothing nearby. I could barely process my surroundings as the transfer happened, and I immediately understood why I would normally be blocked from receiving a Skill this high of a Tier. I shouldn’t be able to handle this, but I could feel something forcing my soul to stabilize. If there hadn’t been an extra force there to hold me together, I would have just broken my mind and spirit. Shattering whatever grasp on reality I had previously held before and reducing myself to a mere husk of a person. I shivered at the thought of that happening despite the pain.
Minutes later, the transfer slowed, and I gasped in relief as the pain nearly vanished. Only the small chunk of my Core that was missing still stung a bit. A part of me was bitter about everyone else being able to regenerate from injuries, yet my Core was immutable after being damaged. I’d have to look into fixing it at some point. Maybe I’ll get an idea on how to do that when I get to the end of the ring.
Looking over the knowledge implanted into me, I was amazed. It was like there was a whole new world for me to explore. Multiple, in fact, and I mean literally. Looking at the environment around me, I could feel the level of stability in the environment. The Skill was telling me that it was the planar walls holding reality together that prevented planes from colliding. It felt like a root structure was built into reality itself, keeping the fragments of the dimension together yet separate. The roots felt slightly off, indicating the plane likely had a connection to another somewhere nearby, which wasn’t too surprising considering the events of today. A thought came to me that I might be able to compress the structure to shorten travel distances.
Also, of course, I had been running in exactly the direction that stability was dropping. I could only shake my head at that fact. This was the second time I was running in the wrong direction. Was this just chance, or am I being fucked with?
I reached out and touched the wall with… Some part of myself. The Skill wasn’t entirely clear what part I just knew how to extend a root of what was probably ‘The Mother Tree’ intuitively. Then, as a test, I bent the wall, letting the void flood in. I was immediately greeted with a familiar message after barely a speck of the void had appeared.
Mana Stores at 10% Capacity Please Halt Mana Usage or Risk Internal Damage
It’s been too long—mana capacity error message. I’ve missed you. Has it really been less than a day since I saw you? Like a lover in an overly codependent relationship, you will always be by my side.
Cutting off the Skill immediately, I dove into the knowledge I had gained. There was just so much of it that it felt ridiculous. A lot of it was based on those intuitive controls. Despite them being intuitive, it actually took a lot of know-how to intuit how to feel the roots. I didn’t care about that stuff, though. The knowledge I was more interested in was the ritualism. But sorting through the memories, I found nothing relating to general rituals or even plane-related ones. After re-reading the Skill, I gave myself a moment to bask in my failure in reading comprehension. It was a comprehension boost, not a knowledge transfer. The knowledge only related to binding entities, and oh boy, was there a lot on that subject. Funnily enough, that knowledge was mostly based in ritualism, and I was amazed at how quickly and deeply I understood the intricacies of this very specific subject.
I learned nothing about rituals in general, though. I only knew how to create add-ons for summoning rituals to ensure binding terms were met, along with a bunch of general information on specifics relating to the type of entity. Unfortunately, while I could match the addition to a specific kind of creature once I had seen them, I had no way of knowing which ones would match to which creatures. The knowledge seemed to be very carefully designed to allow me absolutely no advantage right now. Unless I wanted to summon a Minor Lesser Wretchspawn Larva, the only extraplanar creature I was familiar with, in which case I knew exactly how to make sure it didn’t immediately murder me. I wondered why angels and imps weren’t included. I would have figured they were considered summonable beings, but since they weren’t, I suppose that showed my lack of knowledge quite clearly.
Once I had finished reviewing the information, I realized that I had missed something I had expected. Despite the kills, I hadn’t gained any Class levels. This implied that the experience-gain system wasn’t simply based on kills, as I had thought. Maybe I should ask Hazel about this.
Unfortunately, she was otherwise occupied, as my mental shouting into the communicator didn’t garner any response. Instead of bugging her, there was really only one thing to do now, wasn’t there?
I was going to head directly towards the tear between the planes. Because that was the only way I could get my hands on a source of ritualism and planar summoning knowledge. There are supposed to be surviving ruins somewhere around here, and one had to assume that meant loot, both in artifacts and, if things go my way, books. As I began walking at a steady pace in the direction most likely to get myself killed, I hoped they were in a language I was familiar with.
It's no use constantly worrying about dying if nothing I do can change my situation anyway. I might as well roll the dice and see what happens.
A few hours into my walk, I passed by another Wretchspawn Larva. It did its usual thing of rolling across the ground and absorbing ambient Mana and turning it into something vile. But something felt off about it. Not in the "oh gods, kill it with fire" way—though, yeah, that was there, too. It was more like the abomination didn’t fit within the space it occupied.
The reality around the spawn looked almost like a puzzle. Someone had shoved a piece into what was absolutely the wrong spot. The piece was forced in and damaged the bits around it to stay in place, which meant there was a weakness to exploit.
I felt towards the World Tree. The concept was foreign to me, but I felt a kind of resonance with the idea that there are roots that bind all things. They are found everywhere and are intertwined with reality itself. Nature enforces itself to hold things the way they are. Feeling outwards, I could sense where the roots spread and noticed the strands twisted and bent around the spawn. Instead of blending seamlessly with the local root structure, it felt like a foreign thread, one not meant to be there.
Using the Skill, I grabbed the root connected to the wretched being, and it froze in place as if I had just stopped time from affecting it. My Mana began to burn away at a rapid rate. I could tell that this action was using Nature Mana specifically, as the concept itself was intertwined with the natural state of the world.
I pulled on the root, and nature returned to balance the equation.
For a moment, reality seemed to become more real, like someone had turned up the world's resolution. Then, a popping sound echoed across the plain, and the spawn vanished. A notification flashed in my vision.
[Title Acquired]
Name: [Realm Balancer]
Tier: [Emblazoned]
Description: [You have restored the balance between realms by banishing a foreign threat back to its rightful place. You have begun the cleanse, and your actions have been noted.]
Effect: [Banishing entities is now more efficient, +15% Spirit Effectiveness]
That wording isn’t creepy at all. What does it mean that my action was noted? Who was informed? What does this mean? Is it just flavour text?
Checking my Mana reserves, I saw that banishing a single larva had consumed a quarter of my Mana pool. So, the boost to my efficiency is appreciated. I also thought about what increasing my Spirit stat meant.
Hazel mentioned to me that Spirit was a measure of the stability of my soul. Increasing it obviously increases the output of Mana from my soul, and there is something relating to strength of will based on the stat as well. But what does it really mean?
It obviously relates to how I was able to banish the creature, but that didn't feel like I was opposing its will or anything like that. Unless it was just so mindless that it didn’t have a will, that’s always a possibility.
I would have otherwise thought that Arcana would be used in this situation because that’s a measure of magical strength and capacity. If I had just been throwing around magic to enforce the banishment, then that stat would have been the one that improved.
A realization came to me a little bit late. If I ever get stuck while teleporting again, I can just pull myself back to this dimension, returning exactly where I left. Which begs the question, why didn’t the angel banish me back here? Is it because I would have just reappeared in the location I had come from? That would have been the arena underneath Fateswatch, and being sent back there would have allowed me to get outside the bounds of what the coordinators wanted to allow. If I had chosen to and had enough time, I could have tunnelled my way out of there, which would have allowed me to return to town relatively quickly. In fact, why did this whole problem arise in the first place? The reason I’m stuck out here is supposedly because their quick teleport function wouldn’t work at this distance. But they have the ability to pull me all the way over there once a day just for funsies. Couldn’t they just teleport me from the arena into Fateswatch and fix this whole thing?
This implied something deeper about my situation. It wasn’t just a one-time error that kept me out of Fateswatch. I was being actively prevented from going back… Not only that, but there was somebody who’s been in a time loop for two hundred years. I had to wonder what was going on back there.. What’s going on in the realm of divine politics that’s driving these decisions?
After making another attempt to contact Hazel, which resulted in no response, I shrugged and continued my journey toward the center of the zone.
That Li guy better not loop again unless I’m dead. Maybe I can set up a contingency with Hazel to have him killed if I die… Wait, why did she never meet me until this loop?