“The real reason for this meeting?” Alice asked, trying not to show her surprise on her face.
When she had learned the [King] wanted to see her, she had thought it was related to the collapse of the System. The System breaking had introduced an avalanche of problems to the kingdom. The [King] asking someone who understood the problem t...
2024-03-23 08:38:49 +0000 UTC View PostTwenty minutes after we began to rest, Anise’s {Phoenix's Last Stand} ended. Immediately afterward, her stats dropped two grades. Her ability to control flames and conjure fire dropped to almost nothing. She also suffered a huge amount of backlash. She screamed in pain once the backlash started, and then fell unconscious.
I had prepared ...
2024-03-23 06:27:07 +0000 UTC View PostAs we stepped into the room, I had a very strange feeling. It was very faint - only a little change, but it was something I was so used to that any change stood out. I frowned, and spent a few moments trying to figure out what was different in this room.
Time?
The Zelyrians were capable of manipulating time?
I pushed f...
2024-03-22 04:51:55 +0000 UTC View PostI focused my vision on Anise’s voice, trying to figure out what she had discovered. Anise pointed at one of the pillars, and I felt confused. I didn’t see anything there. It was a solid column of stone.
The others in the group seemed to share my confusion, and shot puzzled expressions at Anise. Anise seemed to realize we couldn’t see...
2024-03-21 06:50:07 +0000 UTC View PostAlice spent the next three days verifying a few things.
Now that she was aware of the small little gem-like clump of mana inside of her and Ethan’s brain, Alice started to check other people for the same thing. Alice wanted to see what the System had done with those clumps of mana. If she could figure out how and why the System made them...
2024-03-16 08:43:24 +0000 UTC View Post“Why did the bloody Zelyrians trap this room?” asked Felix, frowning. I scanned the area around us as best I could with my spatial eyesight to see if I could figure out the answer.
The room was massive - it seemed large for the sake of being large. There were four pillars near the center of the room, and the rest of the room was ...
2024-03-16 07:01:13 +0000 UTC View Post<Is Sallia really dead?> asked Felix, still caught in the same shock as me. The worldstriders raged outside, but for the three of us, the world seemed to have narrowed to a single fact. Sallia was gone.
<I do appear to be dead,> said Sallia.
I blinked in surprise.
<Sallia?> A mixture of shock and relief course...
2024-03-15 06:55:11 +0000 UTC View PostI turned back towards Felix and our parents as they drifted further away. The knowledge that this situation was impossible settled in my bones as I continued to search for a way out.
Anise and Sallia attacked the endless horde of worldstriders, felling them by the dozen. More poured towards us. The interval between each wave grew shorter a...
2024-03-14 05:35:18 +0000 UTC View PostAlice very nervous when the [Messenger] asked her to appear in front of the [King].
She had only met one other member of the royal family so far, and she had been an unfavored [Princess] desperate to get political backing. Alice hadn’t exactly enjoyed trying to interact with her, since it felt like the [Princess] was so… desperate to g...
2024-03-09 09:42:52 +0000 UTC View PostThe void burned as the three of us stood on Sallia’s metal platform. A moment later, Sallia leapt forward.
There were dozens of times more worldstriders in this area than there had been in our first fight, and our essence reserves were much worse. The one and only possible advantage we had right now was that we were near our destination....
2024-03-09 06:41:05 +0000 UTC View PostAs we drew closer to the wall of worldstriders, I quickly explained my plan to Sallia, Anise, and Felix via the friendship bracelets.
I couldn’t communicate very efficiently with the parents of the group, but I still managed to write that I had a plan in the letters of light I had created. The last thing we needed was people panicking. 2024-03-08 07:18:55 +0000 UTC View Post
We ran through endless darkness. The horde pursued us like an unrelenting river, hounding our footsteps as we ran for our lives.
I constantly used alteration essence to activate renewal, keeping everyone’s stamina high. With every single minute, tiny bits of my alteration essence drained away. My keywords, {Duality}, {Ocean}, and {Altera...
2024-03-07 07:00:06 +0000 UTC View PostAfter some hesitation, Alice decided to ask Ethan what to do about the potentially unstable laws of physics. In some ways, telling anyone was a terrible idea, because it would help destabilize the laws of reality. At least, if her theory was correct.
But Alice also didn’t have the information network she needed to verify her theory. She ...
2024-03-02 09:04:32 +0000 UTC View PostWhen I saw the horde of shadow creatures flying towards us, I immediately realized something.
There were way too many of them to handle.
Worse, Felix’s regular attacks had passed through the first creature’s body. My lightning bolt had done nothing to it. Anise and Felix wouldn't be able to hurt them. With two of our fou...
2024-03-02 05:59:09 +0000 UTC View PostMy tarot deck activated, and I saw three cards pull themselves out of the deck and reveal themselves.
The Priestess. Death. Cups.
I had no idea what Cups or the Priestess would do, but Death sounded like a very promising curse to throw at an enemy moments before combat started.
Unfortunately, my attempts to curse the c...
2024-03-01 06:16:44 +0000 UTC View PostAs I watched the pile of rocks animate itself, my hands flicked to the items I usually ignored.
In this world, I hadn’t fought against any major single threat. Humans were only threatening in numbers, and no powerful wild animals existed here. I hadn’t had a reason to fear a single powerful enemy in six years now. The way I fought agai...
2024-02-29 06:24:05 +0000 UTC View PostFor a moment, Alice wondered if she had made a horrible mistake. Perhaps the System breaking down had caused Perks above level 75 to malfunction? Was her brain about to melt down or something? Alice spent a few seconds mentally kicking herself for rushing her Perk choice. She had assumed it was safe because every other Perk so far had been safe,...
2024-02-24 09:38:02 +0000 UTC View PostAs we walked, I constantly shifted from one type of vision to another, trying to keep an eye out for any dangers in our surroundings. To my surprise, when I tried to activate my spatial sight, I realized that it worked in this broken pocket dimension. Since my spatial sight relied on using water vapor, I hadn’t really expected it to work - but...
2024-02-24 06:18:09 +0000 UTC View PostAfter a moment of pure darkness, we were somewhere else. I couldn’t see anything.
I opened my mouth, but no sound came, even when I desperately tried to speak. I frowned, and a shiver of terror wormed its way down my spine as I realized that I couldn’t make a sound. My throat was working just fine - but no sound came out no ma...
2024-02-23 05:43:48 +0000 UTC View PostThe essence in our surroundings quaked and shuddered, like a leviathan emerging from the depths of the ocean. Space started to crackle and pop, and. I could feel adistortion in the world around me grow. There was a sense of wrongness in the air around us that hadn’t been present before.
When we had first entered the mountains, I had noti...
2024-02-22 06:57:16 +0000 UTC View PostAlice found Cecilia first. Checking up on her friend came before a potentially long, in-depth discussion of her Perks and future choices. Alice wanted to make sure that Cecilia was all right.
When she entered Cecilia’s cabin, Alice had honestly expected that Cecilia would look rattled, afraid, or concerned. Instead, the girl seemed… su...
2024-02-17 10:38:25 +0000 UTC View PostThe group was less than pleased to discover that we had somehow managed to run into a battle between the Vernese and coalition armies. Somehow, we had ended up right next to the very armies we had been trying to avoid, and worse, we were now at the edge of an active battlefield where thousands of people were fighting. I seriously doubted this wa...
2024-02-17 06:06:38 +0000 UTC View PostAfter my conversation with Old Mo, to my relief, he seemed considerably more comfortable with me than before. He stopped awkwardly eyeing me from the corner of his eyes, and he seemed less on edge than before. The strange tension in Old Mo’s actions wasn’t something I had noticed before, but now that it was gone, it was abundantly clear that...
2024-02-16 08:47:18 +0000 UTC View Post“Have you ever heard of other dimensions?” I asked Old Mo.
Old Mo frowned, and looked at me in confusion. “Other… dimensions?” he asked. “Like in some of the fantasy stories that have grown popular recently? I’ve read at least a few novels and short stories that feature ‘other worlds’ as the setting for the story, althoug...
2024-02-15 07:24:00 +0000 UTC View PostAfter the battle finished, Alice took one look at the people who were still alive on the boat, and grimaced to herself.
Less people had survived than she had thought.
Maybe a third of the [Guards] and Mages who were combat oriented had died, and as well as one of Cecilia’s [Enchanters]. Luckily, it wasn’t one of the ones that had...
2024-02-10 08:35:28 +0000 UTC View PostWith Anise’s orb and ability potion sorted out, the group continued traveling. Sallia’s father seemed a bit upset over the ‘loss’ of the ability potion, but he seemed to be willing to put it behind him and keep moving forward. Soon, our journey returned to an endless set of footsteps as we marched through the cold of the mountains.
The next morning, we set out on our journey, as usual. We still had quite a bit of territory to cover before we even left Verne, and we wanted to be away from the coalition army and the Vernese army as quickly as possible.
As planned, Old Mo led us closer and closer to the campsite of the ‘scout’ we had found, until after half an hour ...
2024-02-09 06:53:52 +0000 UTC View PostWith Old Mo on board with helping us set up Anise’s ‘ability potion,’ the four of us went to bed for the night. Anise quietly crawled back into the tent with her parents, Sallia did the same, and I quietly tended to my mother, who, according to Old Mo, had stirred a few times during the night, but hadn’t erupted into a full on withdrawal...
2024-02-08 06:35:57 +0000 UTC View PostAlice felt her heartbeat accelerate again as she stared at the rainbow colored blob of mana that stood upon the ship.
Emilia.
The woman who had come to kidnap or kill her, and hurt the people she cared about.
Alice felt the knot in her stomach tighten as she thought of the fact an Immortal had come for her.
And not just a...
2024-02-03 09:57:41 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 202: Anise Awakens - Markets and Multiverses
It took nearly an hour for Anise’s surgery to finish. I spent most of that time worriedly hovering over her shoulder, but I didn’t see anything sinister happen during that time.
During the surgery, I saw a large amount of manifestation essence constantly swarm over Anise...
2024-02-03 06:26:35 +0000 UTC View Post