With three and a half hours until he needed to meet with Lord Miln, Randidly slipped away from Lady Iellaya’s camp and arrived at a spot he had prepared ahead of time in the badlands. It wasn’t far from the frontlines, but it would hopefully mask his location. It was enough just to take himself out of the spotlight.

Based on some inspiration he had received from Vualla’s effortlessly brilliant Aether Engravings, Randidly created a large array around his chosen location that would mute the reverberations of both Aether and Nether. Because he didn’t want to attract attention to himself with strange amounts of either energy.

Randidly wasn’t quite sure what would occur as he tried to condense a Fate, but he definitely didn’t want to be disturbed. And he had a hard time believing that whatever phenomenon manifested due to his actions would be normal.

With a casual brush of his hand, Randidly eliminated the dust inside his small alcove at the center of the array. Then he sat down and released a breath. First, he spent some time making sure each one of his foci was ready.

The Grim Chimera, its spear and claw spread wide to meet this new challenge, holding at its core the growing potential of the Alpha Cosmos. That dense mass of energy was perhaps the lightest, but it was a developing image. Randidly knew that it would someday surpass the others.

Yggdrasil, the Universe that was First a Tree, standing tall and proud. Its golden boughs and emerald leaves glimmered and seemed to whisper about universal truths. And now, spiraling across its trunk, the seed of an Akashic Record. Possessing the might that Chulroon had left behind in that Dungeon for his successor against the System.

Ignition Essence, now a brash emerald and orange in equal measure, holding all of Illym’s bitterness and sadness. But also her brutal efficiency at killing. The hitless blade reduced to pure energy, ready to fuel the transformation into a Fate.

The three images spun slowly in Randidly’s mind as he continued to breathe and wait for his condition to reach its peak. Although time was relatively short, Randidly didn’t rush to try and start. He would much rather be late than mess up his Fate. Especially when he began to feel the raw potential from the energies that he wielded.

Breathe in, breath out. Let the tension slip from his shoulders and drain from his arms. Slowly, Randidly leaned his head back to lean against the stone wall. The three images wove together as they danced across his body. In flickers and starts, they covered him. The two tails of the Grim Chimera, the constant heat of Ignition Essence, the soft noises of Yggdrasil. All three were one giant image, slowly coming into focus.

All were gathering their flavor for an explosion.

Faster and faster, they flickered in front of Randidly’s vision. Once more, Grim Intuition was slowly turned down to nothing. He didn't need to manage that information right now. He was simply a conduit. Everything flowed through him. Aether and Nether mixed freely in Randidly’s rich inner ecosystem. Within his hands constantly controlling the amounts, Nether surged upward so he possessed both energies in equal measure.

A Fate… is a physical manifestation of the prayer you made with a Class. Randidly breathed in and then breathed out. A dream made physical. A signpost. It is not something sought… but something earned. Both the destination and the journey rolled into a convenient form. It is a focus. It is a source of power and potential.

What is my Fate going to be, I wonder…? My goal… my goal is to free the Earth from the cycle of violence and plundering. To strike back at the System that exploits whole worlds in its strange need for expansion. A revolution… a revolution toward freedom.

And likely the image of that will be drawn from my thoughts and memories… so what… what do I think of when I speak of freedom…?

An easy answer didn’t come to Randidly, but he didn’t force it. He didn’t need a concrete image for the Fate, but it was his own curiosity that drove him to ponder the question as he waited for the interaction between his images to become harmonious. If he really wanted an answer, there was an easy way to get one; he simply had to condense his fate.

So Randidly waited, allowing the momentum to build in his chest. Then, all at once, Randidly knew it was time to proceed. Across the battlefield, Randidly spared a bit of his attention and activated Absolute Grasp of Yggdrasil. A dozen vines ripped out of the ground and ambushed one of the tight grouped Nether raiding parties.

They struggled and fought, but Randidly had no reason to conserve Mana at the moment. And even from here, Yggdrasil’s grip was not gentle. Hundreds of vines ripped out of the ground toward those unfortunate raiders, practically drowning them. The final few points of experience arrived.

Congratulations! You have grown to Level 50! +8 Stats distributed between Vitality, Perception, Resist, Intelligence, and Control, +35 Free Stats! +1 Stat to a Mental Stat. +1 to a Physical Defense Stat. +1 to a Mental Support Stat. +2 Control. +36 Health, +45 Mana, +40 Stamina, +3.5 to all Regenerations! +1 to Health and Stamina Regeneration!

Due to Guidance of the Wraith Adder, +4 Agility and +2 Bonus Stats!

Even as the notification appeared in front of Randidly, his focus was stolen by the changes to the world going on around him. As soon as Randidly reached Level 50, his Aether Detection picked up the abrupt creation of a huge apparatus of Aether that spun slowly above him. Time seemed to slow down as Randidly looked upward at it and did his best to memorize its contents and shape.

Congratulations! Your Skill Aether Detection has grown to Level 173!

As I thought… Randidly’s eyes tightened. This is definitely modeled after Nether Rituals. Big ones… but it isn’t so far beyond what I’ve seen before that I won’t be able to reproduce it.

Congratulations! Your Skill Aether Detection has grown to Level 174!

Even as Randidly’s mind was spinning with the possibilities, the heavy apparatus of Aether that likely would create a Fate lowered itself toward Randidly. Although he felt a tingle of trepidation, he simply allowed it to approach. After all, seeing the way it would engage with him would be admittedly helpful in understanding the way it worked.

Randidly could intuit a lot by looking at the structure, but he wasn’t a miracle worker. The more information he gathered, the better.

Some part of him worried it would latch onto him and Randidly would need to burn it away with Nether, but the more Randidly looked at the apparatus, the more it appeared clear that it was going to use the connection to the System Aether as a fixture point.

So Randidly watched silently it slowly descend. As it neared, the mechanisms activated and the legs of Aether shuffled down to attach to Randidly. They thrust forward and pressed toward the substance of Randidly’s Aether.

….and nothing happened. They slipped across the exterior of Randidly’s inner world without finding any purchase. There was a pause. The huge mass of Aether appeared to be trying to understand, in its limited way, what had happened. It adjusted its positioning and tried again. Once more, the arms couldn’t find the place where Randidly received Aether from the System.

Congratulations! Your Skill Aether Detection has grown to 175!

Obviously, because such a connection didn’t exist. And with the tool to condense a Fate closer than ever, Randidly didn’t stop studying it for a second.

Slowly, it was becoming clearer what sort of thing a Fate truly was. Because Randidly had always been somewhat confused that such a powerful tool as a Fate could be acquired without much cost. Was it really just a natural result of reaching Level 50?

Of course not. As Randidly’s eyes traced the shifting sigils of the hapless mechanism, he could see how it was designed to mortgage the karma and images you’ve built up so far in order to condense something that had the weight of your past accomplishments behind it. It was less a prayer and more of an offering.

The drawbacks of this were obvious; if you abandoned the Path of your Class, you would lose everything to the System. You would be bound by karma to the point of impotency. But honestly, Randidly was pretty impressed with how deftly this bit of Aether wove principles of Nether, threads of karma, and the building components of raw Aether together into a cohesive whole.

In a way that Randidly hadn’t really felt since seeing Vualla work her finger casually through the orange dirt of the badlands and draw energy conversion sigils, he looked on at the core of the tool to condense a Fate and felt wonder at the mind who invented it.

So for a brief moment, Randidly offered a short mental bow to this distant stranger. Truly, there lurked extremely powerful and capable individuals within the hidden depths of the System.

But that didn’t mean that Randidly felt any qualms about stealing such a tool for his own uses.

Just as Randidly was preparing to push away this unfortunate tool and begin his own work, a voice whispered in his ear.

“You… what are you…?”

Randidly froze. The delicate balance he had maintained between his images swayed dangerously as his mind frantically tried to understand what the voice could mean. And where it came from.

Even worse was the horrible sense of being completely seen that Randidly experienced in that elongated moment. Grim Intuition was shouting that whatever this being was, it was studying him intently. It appeared that this apparatus of Aether that gave a Fate was not just a random mechanism, but something that someone operated.

More than anything else, it was the deftness and lack of intrusiveness of this stranger’s frank study that gave Randidly the shivers. It didn’t overwhelm him, those eyes were just too clever to fool. It felt like it could see everything.

Then it spoke again, the tone light with amusement. “Interesting. When you make it to the Nexus… look me up. My name is Nathaz Eloise. I think… our dreams might lead us to the same place.”

Then the voice, the gaze, and the tool all disappeared. Gritting his teeth and clenching his hands, Randidly began to spin his images once more, building back up to the momentum that he needed. Although the voice was important, it hadn’t threatened him, which was a nice change from most of his interactions from beings with the Nexus.

So Randidly focused on the problem at hand: his Fate. He was rattled, but the detailed nature of the activity meant that a lot of the sense of pressure Randidly felt vanished as the process of condensing a Fate on his own consume him.

With an unhealthy fervor, Randidly began to weave Aether and Nether together to create the base that he wanted. Just like the typical Fate, a mortgage on what had come before to create a focus for what would follow. An offering. A knot of karma: he would follow this Path to the end or he would follow none at all.

As opposed to a normal Fate, there would be three spines for Randidly’s. Not a tower… but a pyramid.

The sense of fear toward what that voice implied was pushed completely down for the moment. Instead, Randidly turned his attention inward and allowed the energies of his three images to flow freely. He could feel their joyous harmony. With a deft touch, Randidly began to rapidly shape three sets of the Aether to accept the offering and funnel it inward.

His initial attempts were rather clumsy, but Randidly soon grasped the knack of working Aether in the manner of Nether and rapidly created the mechanisms he would need. Then, based on some of the principles that Randidly learned from Vualla, he created a central point where all of the energy from these offerings would be brought together and combined to form his Fate.

An apex where all the energy would gather. The top of the pyramid.

Then Randidly leaned back and allowed everything to grind into lumbering motion.