Chapter 262: A Small Step
The Champion of Ghost Reef would be the first on Earth to step foot in the Underlayer. He had demanded the maiden voyage for himself in a rare demonstration of his authority. Coop was leading the way, not out of a sense of pride, but because he wanted to make sure it was safe before all of his friends arrived. The position was less of a privilege and more of a nuclear first strike. Any ambushes or other deceptions would be met with overwhelming force on his part. Something inside him almost wished they would try something so he would have an excuse to vent.
He had a few moments with his thoughts while the transportation took effect, experiencing an out-of-body feeling similar to his long distance mistjumps from before he became a Mistwalker. Instead of being pulled through a world of familiar mists, passing through the gateway presented his consciousness with simple empty blackness.
There was no light able to reach his nonexistent eyes while he was in between places. Perhaps he just lacked the mana sense to detect his surroundings, or maybe the lack of scenery was entirely due to his own perception. It was possible that time wasn’t flowing at all, and he was simply imagining things while he instantaneously moved to the destination. Either way he was alone with his contemplations.
Strangely, while Coop experienced no sensations for himself, he could feel the desire of Sethrak the Deep Dweller as it lingered far in the background of his existence. Coop had practically forgotten about it, but his Dedication remained. It was only when everything else was silenced that his abyssal benefactor’s cravings to consume barely brushed against Coop’s awareness, and even then, it was like the subtle memory of a forgotten dream.
As Coop touched upon the alien feeling without his own distractions, he had what felt like a small epiphany. The voracity of Sethrak wasn’t an external influence at all. There was nothing alien about the desires that he sensed. He recognized them like the familiarity of his own bed. Sethrak’s hunger was a clear reflection of his own vast appetite for progression. Coop was yearning for the defeat of his enemies. It was like his constant drive for more experience, even if it was always just a little bit at a time, had manifested into an unfillable abyss within himself.
If he could have blown air out of his nose, he would have. He wasn’t sure if he should feel offended that the system was personifying his own fundamental traits by revealing them as inhuman eldritch horrors, but he put the introspection aside, remembering his first priority was to Ghost Reef.
Once the transportation into the Underlayer was complete, there would be two more minutes before the most eager of his allies joined him. He would need to act relatively quickly, but when it came to combat, two minutes was plenty. In the meantime, within the complete nothingness, his thoughts wandered as he tried to be patient and think about anything except his yearning to grind and whether it was healthy or not.
The gateway to the Underlayer may have felt slow, but the distance was incomparable to anything he had previously experienced through mistjumping. Other than his single use of the Champion Projection settlement skill, he had never teleported such a distance. He supposed he had a good idea of how it would go, thanks to his test flight to Empress City, though he hadn’t expected to equate the two. The comparison made him wonder how integrated individuals like Balor were able to accomplish such an incredible feat. They would usually be reserved to the domain of the system.
Balor had actually established a configuration that enabled teleportation. Coop reiterated the thought to himself. The simple stonemason had built a teleporter inside of their settlement. It was genuinely amazing, but given the layout of the galactic community, it was also something that the system had evidently monopolized. It seemed as though the stonemason’s design only worked because of the specific connection between the departure point and destination. The surface and the Underlayer were joined by the little-understood and often theoretical ley lines, apparently flowing through the chasm, but it was still an astonishing achievement.
However, as Coop experienced what he imagined was the equivalent of a coma, he wondered if he should wait to sing the praises of his friend until after his journey was confirmed. For all he knew, he would open his eyes and find himself at the other end of a single blink, standing beneath the tower in the northern courtyard of Ghost Reef’s fort after the transportation failed and nothing happened.
Ideally, the teleport was working perfectly. Coop was hoping that with enough time, humans could harness that power for a wider variety of uses. He imagined Champion Projection without the mana cost and operable for any of their residents rather than the ability being exclusive to just himself.
The grandmaster stonemason had carved several clearly designated areas into the northern courtyard, decorating them with runes of similar intricacy to what Madison had designed in her ritual chamber to remove the Endless Empire’s blood curse. Balor’s project had required the contributions of half a dozen other artisans, but they had finished well in advance of the event, working with the mission to simply establish Ghost Reef’s connection to the Underlayer as soon as they discovered the convenience of their entrance.