Why do I keep repeating this cycle? Was there anything to be gained from saving this city or its people?I felt the pull of [Kairothon's Blessing] begin to take effect as my Mana ran out and [Flow of Renewal] stopped piecing my broken body together. I had run out of Vital Energy long ago, so that Skill was the last thing holding me together. I sent a final prayer Kairothon's way, just a simple question. How the hell do you expect me to accomplish what you asked me to do? Not that he's answered since he first gave me my task in the first loop. I still had the divine quest taunting me whenever I checked my quest log.[Save the Human Race]
Quest Giver: [Kairothon, The Wanderer Of Time]
Tier: [Divine]
Description: [Stop the Epoch Guardian from reaching the heart of Fateswatch to prevent it from activating the Endbringer's Core or bring every human past the edge of the blast zone (10000 km from Fateswatch).]
Quest Reward: [Unspecified]
The second option in the quest felt like it was designed as a joke. Trying to rally the people for an expedition to the Vast Expanse was like asking them to volunteer to skip their second chance here to go straight to hell. The only reason the average person ever left the city was to get the required kills out of the way to avoid the daily punishment—at least that will get patched out at the end of the first month. But by then, the survival mindset had already been set into the culture of Fateswatch.
The last year flashed before my eyes, and I got to watch all of the decisions I made in reverse. I honestly thought we had it this time. I had built up a team of the strongest people in the entire city. We even got lucky and had a beastkin spawn in the fields around the city. Despite their lowered experience gain, the non-human species are fucking powerful, he was half the level of the average person and yet fought better than my strongest guild mate. Still, it wasn't enough to get past the third phase of the fight…
I smiled inside as I watched my guild mates bickering before the final confrontation. They were the only people who mattered to me in the whole city—the ones who listened to my warnings and spent the year growing stronger and the five chosen to receive impartments. The flow of time sped up, memories turning into a blur as I was pulled back to the start. Saving them was all that really mattered to me.
Well, if you're not going to answer Kairothon, then I give up. I'm just going to leave the city with my friends and explore the world of Eternia for a while. Two hundred and eighty-nine loops of trying to save this forsaken place—for what? Why do you care if the beta test humans survive? Why did you give me your blessing? Just to play games with my life like most of the other gods have been doing with their Blessed?
Skill Name: [Kairothon's Mark]
Tier: Blessing
Description: [Upon death, you will be reset back through time by exactly one year or to the start of Eternia, whichever is earlier. Bestows perfect recall of your own past, rendering you immune to memory manipulation. You may choose up to five individuals to store memories for, allowing them to select a set of memories to be preserved by you upon each reset. Memory storage and impartments can only be done once per reset. Praise be to Kairothon, for his wisdom spans the ages, and through him, time itself bends to your will.]
Conditions: [Mark removed if you fall out of your Patron's favour.]
The images flying past me began to slow as I reached the beginning of the loop. I watched myself do the same routine I always do at the start of the month, grinding profession levels while saving as many people in the daily trials as I can. The first month is always the most boring. Everybody moves like clockwork until random drops and reward boxes cause a butterfly effect of changes. For the first hundred years, I'd occasionally meet new members of non-human species in the daily challenges. Those meetings were always a treat, but I’m fairly certain I’ve met them all by now, or at least all of the ones that survive to the end of the first day out in the wilds. Those poor bastards really got screwed over.
I debated which profession I should try this time. Something relating to quick movement and item storage, like one of the courier profession paths, could be useful for travelling the wilds. Or maybe I could go the tamer route. Becoming an elemental tamer was possibly the most ridiculous path I'd tried so far. Not in raw power, mind you; it's just those chunks of raw elemental Mana given consciousness that get into so much trouble if you take your eyes off them. Paying back stall owners after one of my earth elementals destroyed their cart of melons was an amusing hassle to deal with. But if I were going on a long trip, becoming a beast tamer would be a good choice. Having a mount made travel so much easier.
Alex always became a pathfinder in every loop, so I left him to be our dedicated scout and survivalist. The others were less set in stone for their paths, but I should probably check in with them first before making a final decision. I couldn't access the memories they stored, so I had no idea what they told their past selves. They only have a couple of days or so of recollection space in each loop, so it usually ends up being the same set of memories each time, but they've managed to surprise me. This one time, Hazel only imparted a single incomplete spell formula to herself, then spent three entire loops locked away in a room trying to solve it.
Just the thought of trying out new opportunities and exploring places I'd never been to before was exhilarating. I'd been looping through the same actions for so long, celebrating the same milestones, raiding the same dungeons, pillaging the same crypts. Only minor variations, as we found better optimizations in our routes, were worth noting. I already knew all the places to go to get the best drops. It was finally time to change things up.
A crack rippled through the air around me as I returned to the moment I first stepped through the door to Fateswatch, startling everybody who appeared at the exact same moment around me. I turned to my right to look at the guy who'd jumped due to the noise, stumbling backward and landing hard on the ground."Sorry about that, Finn," I said, holding out a hand to help him up."No worries, my guy. Maybe try not to be so loud next time you do whatever you just did. Also, how do you know…" He stopped speaking the moment he grabbed my hand, processing the impartment I just passed down to him. "Oh, that's how. What loop are we on now, Li?”
"Two hundred and ninety, and I think this is going to be the last," I replied, pulling him off the ground.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.“Don't you always think that?" He sighed. "Fine, let's get ready to go at it again.""That may be the case, but this time is different. Because I give up, we're just going to get the fuck out of the blast zone as soon as it's safe to leave." I said, waving Finn towards the front through the crowd.Finn froze for a half-second when I said that. He didn't respond right away, taking a moment to process what I'd just said. His tone was quieter when he finally spoke. "You know, I'm pretty sure Amelia isn't going to like that plan.”"You always choose to remember the strangest things in each loop. Why would you bother storing something like that?" I said in an attempt to change the subject. He was probably right; she was always the most devoted to saving the city. If she hadn't been around, I don't think I would have lasted this long. I would have given up and left to the wilderness by loop thirty. I wasn't looking forward to breaking the news to her."We have you to remember all the tips and tricks, so why would I bother with any of that?" Finn grinned, a bit of his usual joviality returning. "Would you rather I do what Hazel does, completely forgetting each loop of the rest of the party so that she can pack more spellcasting knowledge into her head? Besides, I'm the party’s bard. I'm here for group cohesion.”
"I have never seen you touch an instrument or sing once in the past two hundred years," I replied in a flat tone. "I don't think you’ve ever taken a profession relating to performance either. What did you pick last time? Swindler?" I asked, genuinely curious."Swindler? You wound me, Li. I was more of a... 'strategic transaction facilitator.' I'll have you know not a single one of my clients ever left unsatisfied after I was done with them," he said, dramatically clutching his chest as if I had truly injured him. I couldn't help but roll my eyes. I wasn't convinced anything could actually hurt the guy. "Besides, I meant bard in spirit, not in function.”
"You don't actually remember what profession you picked, do you?”"Nope, not a clue. Not even by accident this time." He said. I could hear the shit-eating grin on his face from his tone. “It's no fun to get spoilers after all. I do, however, remember exactly where and when to go to make the best deals in town.""Obviously, you wouldn't want to miss the chance to make a few easy coins,” I said in the least sarcastic tone I could muster. As we reached the front of the room Nyxie was still sorting through papers in preparation for the welcoming speech but jumped out of her skin as she saw my approach."What can I do for Kairothon's Blessed?" The imp asked, bowing deeply.“I'm here to test out of the tutorial,” I replied, used to this interaction by now. It was far more efficient to skip the tutorial and get a head start on everybody."As you wish, Blessed.” She raised a hand towards the door out of the auditorium, which opened with just the gesture. Another imp was waiting on the other side, bowing as well. “Just follow Fiora and she'll handle the process for you.”
"Thanks, Nyxie," I said with a smile. I could practically feel the Joy Mana radiating off her, a reaction to being acknowledged by a Blessed. She was one of the nicer imps, and there was no harm in treating her kindly.
Heading over immediately and ignoring the looks I was getting from the other humans in the room. They probably wanted to know what was going on or see if they could skip the tutorial as well, but none of them knew how to resist the imp magic that was blocking them from pursuing those thoughts. Finn trailed along beside me.
While we followed Fiora to the test room, I opened the bug report window and dumped the knowledge of every bug I'd ever encountered into it. Besides the exploitable ones, some of the bugs were too useful early on to get rid of just for a paltry reward box. Doing this as a batch report wouldn't get me as much of a reward as if I'd been negatively affected by each of the individual bugs. Still, in this loop, I didn't have time to get myself into odd situations that required administrative intervention to resolve. Besides, the further out you go, the more bugs you find. I'm sure I’d have plenty of new ones to report. I just hoped I didn't end up falling through the floor into the void again. That was the worst. The quick teleport used by the team of quality assurance imps couldn't locate me since I was outside the map, and that loop ended in a depressing suicide. I dismissed the bug bounty notification as soon as it appeared. I wasn't going to start opening a bunch of boxes until I was alone.
Next in the routine was getting a few titles relating to basic Mana manipulation. I ran Mana through my eyes with the basic Mana sight formulae, cast a basic Mana pulse, then disrupted the spell formation. Then, I attuned myself to Time Mana.
By the time I finished the attunement, we were sitting down for the test. Despite Finn's reluctance to carry practical knowledge in his impairment, I somehow managed to convince him after the fiftieth loop to memorize the test answers along with the necessary knowledge to get a decent Class assigned.
It was basic stuff, mostly designed to ensure we understood the goals of the beta test and some system knowledge. Apparently, the tutorial would be phased out after the beta, and the knowledge was instead supposed to transfer from old users to newcomers. Like the Tier system, it showed up everywhere: items, titles, Skills.
Basal, Wrought, Emblazoned, Dreadbound, Hellforged... Those were the ones I actually had experience with, and even then, barely. I'd come across a Hellforged artifact once in all these years, a lucky drop from a zone boss. Obviously, it happened in the same loop where I fell into the void. Then there were the Tiers I'd only heard the names of—Tyrannical, Eclipsed, Abyssal, and finally, Eternal. They felt completely out of reach for me until now. You'd need to travel past the Vast Expanse even to begin to understand part of what they represent.
There was this constant push for everyone to aim for Eternal salvation, to avoid an eternity in hell. Most people seemed to think it was the only logical choice, but I never got it. Personally, I’ve always been the type to live in the moment. An endlessly repeating moment…
Not that there would be anyone around to pass down the knowledge. The wipe at the end of the beta seems almost like a rushed decision made due to the politicking going on in the realm of the divine. I tried not to pay attention to that sort of stuff anymore. You could spend hundreds of years poring over whatever bits of information they pass to their priests and still not understand a thing. Unfortunately, I had to learn that the hard way.
Upon completion, I was immediately rewarded with the same Class I'd always obtained since being blessed.
[Class Obtained]
Name: [Time's Witness]
Criteria Met: [Complete the Tutorial while being blessed by Kairothon]
Tier: [Wrought]
Description: [As a being blessed by Kairothon, you have been chosen to follow in his footsteps. Time magic runs through your veins, and every one of your actions causes ripples that distort the past, present, and future in unpredictable ways. This is only the first step on your path as you still have much to learn and master before you can follow in the footsteps of one of the Great Travellers.]
Stats: +3 Might, +3 Wit, +2 Spirit, +2 Fortitude, +3 Arcana, +2 Grace
I chuckled at the system description of the class Class. It seemingly didn't take into account that you needed to be blessed almost immediately. This meant that you would have to either get the blessing during the tutorial, which is basically an impossible proposition, or you would have to activate the blessing once, meaning this wasn't your first step. The imps claimed this wasn't a bug, but I wasn't convinced personally. I'd certainly never heard of any of these gods before dying, so how could anyone possibly be blessed in advance?