Chapter 306 - 306: Scaling a Peak
The sky had finished screaming its planetary announcement, but the hum of urgency vibrated through Bastion like a plucked bowstring.
Two out of ten.
"We knew it was a race," I muttered to myself, standing on the balcony of a Tower, watching the glowing trams of the Lattice-Line ferry people through the sprawling metropolis below. "But hearing the starter pistol go off for someone else changes the tempo."
I didn't order a martial law lockdown or pull the adventurers from the rotational harvests with their guilds or anything like that. Fear is a terrible foundation for a fledgling civilization.
"Jeeves," I initiated the mental link. "Maintain current extraction schedules. Try to see if you can boost the output on the localized atmospheric scrubbers by 10%. And tell Leoric to triple production on the automated Sentinel Golems for the farming zones. If we're entering the Great Crucible, I don't want any hands tied up pulling weeds or guarding caravans. We want to make sure we will have the stocks for a protracted war, we can also have them working Sanctuary at the same time since the terraforming—".
"Ferraforming..." Anna interrupted. "Sorry, not a good time, go on."
"—ferraforming... should be complete."
"Already am, Master," Jeeves responded smoothly. "Shall I also accelerate the Academy's training curriculum?"
"No. Do not break their foundation to build a faster wall," I said firmly. "Let them learn to resonate with the [Crucible Core] naturally. Forced progression is what built Roadin's hollow crown. And what I need to do is…"
I retreated deep into my personal Sanctum.
The external world was prospering, fueled by my proxy [Echo] systematically deleting Floor 100 Bosses on rotation and pouring ungodly amounts of essence into the [Void Star]. I possessed more liquid capital and raw materials to play around with and improve our chances.
But the core problem remained: Raw mass does not equal absolute lethality in the Ascendant tiers. I needed methods to bypass Conceptual Authority. And I still had the Mythic Five to think about.
I sat cross-legged in the absolute, sterile silence of the deepest meditation chamber, pulling my consciousness inward.
My Inner World was an evolving landscape of antinomic Essence. The violent, blazing white-gold of my Flame clashed continuously with the suffocating emptiness of the [Void-Star] embedded in its center.
"The Vault of Sylvaris," I willed mentally.
The immense, floating crystalline library hovering at the periphery of my soul-space shuddered. For weeks, I had been battering against the complex, iridescent 'mana-locks' sealing the higher-tier magical theorems inherited from the dead World-Soul. I had tried brute force. I had tried the precision of [Apex Mana Authority]. It was constantly changing too which made it feel impossible. Sometimes it was like trying to pick a microscopic lock with a sledgehammer, other times it was like trying to use a pool noodle to move a boulder.
"It isn't a lock to be broken," I sighed, frustratingly repeating the lesson I had learned many times. "It's a harmony to be matched. But how can I even try to match this stupid harmony when it changes five times a second."
I activated my uncatalogued zeroth skill: [Symphony of the Animus Arch].
I still didn't fully understand how it worked. There was the fact that I couldn't just 'activate it' with mana or Will. The way it felt like it was always on but I wasn't 'aware' of it and every time I tried focusing on it, it became completely inert. It also felt like it was… adjusting my internal posture.
I visualized the impossibly complex, multi-layered geometric runic structure guarding the 'Middle-Era Lattice Schematics' section of the Sylvari archives. The lock required the user to simultaneously perceive gravitational flow, synthesize a specific spectrum of ambient starlight, and mentally reverse localized entropy.
Instead of pushing my Will against the lock, I have also allowed my intent to bleed into it.
I let my [Void Perception] passively trace the gravity lines. I sparked my Flame, dialing the intensity down until it matched the required conceptual wavelength of 'creation'. And I pulsed [Syntropy], gently urging the locked state to 'un-happen' just enough to loosen the tumblers.
It felt agonizingly delicate, like defusing a bomb made of glass inside a spinning washing machine.
After many grueling hours, trying many different methods and failing multiple times, I felt a conceptual 'click'.
The iridescent barrier shivered, shattering into a million tiny, singing shards of green light before dissolving completely.
A torrent of ancient, resonant knowledge flooded my frontal lobe.
I gasped in the physical world, my hands gripping my knees as I processed a millennia of alternative mana development in seconds.
"They didn't weave mana into shapes," I whispered, blood trailing from my nose from the sudden data-upload. "It's an entirely different dimension. They folded it. Layered it. But how… It's like a stick-man drawn on a paper trying to somehow create a three dimensional ball…"
I projected my [Echo] into the chamber. It materialized, buzzing with the customized runic sigils I had successfully integrated previously — glowing lines that redirected kinetic waste into continuous stamina regeneration.
I grabbed one of the newly unlocked theorems: The 'Ouroboros Fold'.
"Let's test if this works," I ordered the clone.
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Instead of having the clone simply punch the wall to test impact, I instructed it to cast a basic Void-Lance.
But, using the newly acquired 'folding' technique from the Vault, I mentally layered the output. Instead of one thick beam of condensed [Hunger], the clone fired five infinitesimally thin, microscopic needles of Void, folded conceptually inside each other.
When the needles struck the reinforced adamant target dummy, they didn't just pierce. They unfurled inside the target, rapidly expanding outward. The dummy was cleanly vaporized from the inside, leaving no debris, no explosive backwash. Total, localized erasure.
"Incredible efficiency," I marveled, sensing the incredibly low mana expenditure required to cast it. "By letting the target's own internal pressure expand the folded attack, it drastically cuts the energy requirement."
A month passed in this manic rhythm. Managing a prospering, healing planet by day; aggressively dismantling and reinventing magical theory by night.
My sessions with Kaelen and Bennu in the open training fields of Bastion provided crucial insights.
The massive Glimmerfox, now radiating a healthy Peak Tier 6 aura stabilized by the glowing green ley-lines granted by Sylvaris, sparred daily with Bennu.
"Again," I encouraged, leaning against the fence while eating a nutrient-dense void-meat skewer.
Kaelen snapped a spatial tear mid-leap. But instead of jumping through it, he used it to momentarily swallow an incoming volley of aggressive plasma fire from the tiny, wildly fast Phoenix.
Bennu, shrieking happily, didn't try to outrun the sudden spatial closure. He simply increased his localized conceptual temperature, completely flash-boiling the moisture in the surrounding air to create a violent steam explosion that pushed Kaelen backward.
"Fascinating," I analyzed, activating [Void Perception]. "Kaelen's using the Void not just for movement, but as an active, localized intake valve. He's instinctually learned how to apply a lesser version of my [Hunger]."
And Bennu's casual disregard for structure, using raw conceptual heat to overwrite his disadvantages, was a mirror of my Flame.
They were developing in parallel to me, teaching me as much as I was trying to teach them.
But as I sat alone later, staring at my 11 skill-slotted Interface, the overarching problem crystallized.
"The Mythic Five," I mused aloud in the quiet of the Sanctum.
I had the room for only one more Mythic skill before being Called into a Cosmic tournament of Scions and whatever else that entails.
I had [Syntropy], [The Void-Star's Hunger], [Domain of the Ashen Phoenix], and [Prime Axiom's Nullifying Veil].
The ongoing project of forcibly combining my four Legendary skills: [Void Walk], [Void Perception], [Vault of the Void], alongside [Apex Mana Authority] into a single, cohesive Mythic conceptual action was maddeningly slow, so I wasn't worried about 'accidentally' creating it. I had laid the foundational blueprint within my Inner World utilizing the Sylvari resonant runes, but achieving true System-recognized synthesis required an 'Epiphany' I was still far from.
"Even if I achieve it…" I though, bringing up a map of the known integrated clusters Kasian had decoded from the auction data.
Thousands of hostile, violent empires, grinding through a multi-system death game.
Should I enter the Mythic Five before the Great Crucible kicks off? It would also give me the option of pushing into Tier 8 afterwards if I survive... which would greatly help with ensuring Ferra's safety during the Integration War.
But... being removed from Ferra to participate in a cosmic tournament exactly as the quarantine veils dropped? It would leave our planet completely vulnerable, guided only by my proxies and Anima during the most chaotic, vulnerable hours of interstellar collision.
"Another defensive paradox again," I growled softly. "If I stay to protect them, I might not be strong enough to repel a coordinated Imperial strike. If I leave to gain the absolute power necessary to win, I risk returning to a smoking crater."
This time, thought, the question was a lot more difficult to answer.
Either way, I knew I couldn't rely purely on the localized versatility I had spent the last two years developing. The incredible flexibility of manipulating time, space, and gravity was phenomenal against local Warlords and fractured System copies.
I needed to integrate more into my arsenal, maybe an overwhelmingly powerful skill to truly turn the tides. I was very versatile, but I lacked an exclamation point. A single, defining, overwhelming answer to the question: What do you do if the problem is simply much, much bigger than your capabilities and tricks?
I looked at my unholy, continuously inflating balance of raw, processed Essence stored safely inside the bottomless belly of the [Void Star]. Gluttony, combined with the incredibly high density harvests of my clone and our global Tower dominance, meant I essentially had a planet's worth of liquid magic gathering dust in my pocket.
And this time, I didn't just need a tactical nuke. I needed a Death Star.
"What if…" I whispered, an incredibly dangerous, manic idea blossoming.
The Sylvari 'Ouroboros Fold' technique emphasized recursive compression. My [Vault of the Void] emphasized holding infinite volume within null space. My [Hunger] consumes essentially endlessly.
If I were to create a completely new, fundamentally simple conceptual Skill matrix… a container explicitly designed solely for raw, unfiltered energy saturation…
A generic attack spell scales linearly based on the caster's Spirit, or their mana Core output limits. An arrow becomes a bigger arrow to a limit. A fireball has a maximum size for it to still be a 'fireball'.
But what if the Skill's primary function wasn't 'Make Fire' or 'Create Mana Sword'?
What if the Skill's entire foundational structure was just… Hold More?
"An escalating discharge channel," I sketched a glowing rune in the air.
A base-level invocation that dealt almost embarrassing, laughable amounts of damage at baseline output. Say, barely enough to scorch a piece of paper.
But if the core logic of the Skill completely lacked a predefined 'cap' or structural limitation regarding input scaling?
What if the attack exponentially amplified its own conceptual lethality not based on my stats or a systemic rule-set, but strictly, purely, entirely by how much liquid essence I forced down its throat right before firing?
I paced the room, the conceptual blueprints clicking violently together.
A spell that costs a sliver of mana to barely deal any damage. But once you flood that same spell with an ocean of mana... All of this while integrating Durability and Conceptual properties so it uses the abundance of mana itself to reinforce its structure and bypass the Authority of Domains…
I have access to practically infinite, condensed cosmic fuel stowed inside a sentient void pocket that enjoys spitting it back out. If I forge a specialized cannon capable of channeling that specific hose… I wouldn't need to win prolonged brawls of Authority against stronger, Ascendant enemies like Vasud or whoever ruled the other nine integration nodes.
I — or my lovely suicidal copy — could just point a finger, empty the entire galactic treasury in a microsecond, and violently erase their coordinates in space, annihilating multiple Layers of Reality.
I grinned widely, the frantic anxiety of the impending Crucible warring beautifully with the obsessive, hungry thrill of breaking another physics engine entirely over my knee.
I cracked my knuckles, activating the holographic projector connected to Jeeves.
"I'm gonna be indisposed for a few days, old friend," I commanded, eyes blazing. "Don't let anyone into the Cradle's training hall. I'm building a very loud toy."