Randidly released a hissing breath through his teeth as the red lightning sparking across his flesh intensified. If a normal human was afflicted with a similar level of radiation, he didn’t doubt that they would be roasted from the inside out.

Congratulations! Your Fatepiece the Hierarchy of Burden has reached Level 5!

The prior increases in the drag Randidly experienced had mostly been increases in the severity of the electrical spikes. But this Level was different; after Randidly activated it, he experienced a constant barrage of electrical current through his body. Every moment felt like a spike. He could feel the air around his body ionizing as so much electricity moved through his flesh and polarized his skin.

Randidly had the sneaking suspicion that if he were to touch someone else, he would experience a quite unpleasant static shock. The electrical discharge might be enough to kill someone below Level 60.

But the new permanence of the spasms was secondary: the real problem was that Randidly’s strategy of relaxing his body was no longer sufficient to endure these forces. If Randidly were truly just to let himself go and relax, the constant electrical prodding would very quickly have him contracting every muscle in his body as hard as he possibly could. The interval between these electrical pulses had given him time to recover in the past.

No effort on Randidly’s part would result in him ending up in a truly agonizing fetal position, with every muscle in his body doing its best to squeeze itself into oblivion. But luckily, the past week of familiarizing himself with the Fatepiece had been relatively effective. His mastery of his body wasn’t perfect, but his efforts with Ripple of Amenonuhoko taught him much out more subtle forms of resistance against the electricity.

Randidly spread his trembling arms and legs, keeping them from curling inward. His emerald eyes were bright in the darkness. If my prior strategy was acceptance… I now need something closer to temperance to endure this Hierarchy… and this is only one-fourth of the way through the first layer…

Well, this was never supposed to be a short term project…

Congratulations! Your Skill Stigma of the Stillborn Phoenix (L) has grown to Level 334!

Influence +15!

The crimson electricity was pernicious and ubiquitous within his body. From the starting discomfort, these more recent waves of energy lapped closer and closer toward being objectively painful, even for Randidly. But he didn’t flinch. It was only by exposing himself to forces like this that he would grow.

Once Randidly stabilized his physical state, he spent a bit more of his time carefully observing the way the electricity physically manifested. He watched the visual distortions and sniffed, catching the tang of ozone in the surrounding air. Then, while he still remained under the Fatepiece’s influence, Randidly began to steadily refine the manifestation of his Stillborn Phoenix image. Dark emotions swirled more deeply around him, thickening the very air.

Randidly couldn’t help but crack a smile. This method of image refinement is definitely effective… it’s only been a week, but this sort of ominous aura…

But Randidly soon dismissed those thoughts; the less he thought about how much he had been improving down here, without any other demands on his attention, would just distract him from training. He decreased the sympathy between himself and the Fatepiece so that the electricity wasn’t so distracting and dismissed the Stillborn Phoenix. Then Randidly raised his hands and the image physicalizations of the Grim Chimera appeared around him.

Nether spun around his fingers. With remarkable grace, the Grim Chimera began to weave a massive envelope of Nether in the air. Below him, Randidly could sense the nearest Nether Gatekeepers looking up curiously at his actions; he wasn’t sure whether it was the accomplishment or the speed of his improvement with Nether that surprised it.

Influence +14!

After an hour of weaving, Randidly finished this project and finished the Ritual. The weave flashed and solidified. All in all, Randidly had created an envelope large enough to balloon outward and fill the entirety of the shaft. Based on the sensation of creating it, this wasn’t Randidly’s limit either. The current envelope was about the size of an extremely large city, but he should be able to push himself to make an envelope ten times that size.

However, his current concern wasn’t size. It was structural integrity.

Once the envelope was established outside of himself, Randidly created probes and drills of both Aether and Nether to test the resiliency of the barrier. His earlier failures to penetrate it only lit the fires of his competitive spirit. Ten minutes later, Randidly grinned in satisfaction. His efforts could warp the edge of the envelope, but he would truly need to expend himself in order to break through the outer barrier.

And most of the defensive strength was a result of the woven significance between himself, his Nether Core, and the protected planet. In essence, the current envelope he created without anything of note inside was the weakest the defenses would be. When the significance of a planet was added to the mix, Randidly didn’t need to worry about someone casually inflicting a wound on his barrier.

Of course, considering how many enemies Randidly Ghosthound had, the casual tragedies were the least of his worries. But it was a start.

As the sharp fingers and the intense brow of the Grim Chimera faded, Randidly closed his eyes and savored the feeling of his image. In the stomach of the Grim Chimera, Randidly could still feel the seeds of an evolution waiting to germinate. They glimmered like the palpitations of distant stars. But he allowed himself a satisfied smile when he felt how the feeling around these seeds was slowly beginning to change. The repeated actions the Grim Chimera took to ‘create’ were having the desired effect.

Randidly opened his eyes again and flexed his fingers. But after a week of constant training, he paused. Hmmm… I’ve been training rather tirelessly for this week. It might be time for a small break. Besides… I have wanted to go and inspect my Nether Core directly to see how things are developing…

Then again, he had only been training for a week-

Randidly’s stomach rumbled, earning a chuckle from him. As soon as he thought about Kharon, he thought about real food for the first time in quite a while and his body made its opinion known. Randidly shrugged; even if it hadn’t been very much time at all since he started training, having no distractions meant that he was improving quickly. Plus, the time dilation meant that this diversion down to Expira would probably only be a minute or two in the Nexus.

So Randidly sent a message to Tatiana, telling her that he would be returning for a couple of days soon. Then his mouth twisted into a wolfish smile. If he was about to take a break for a while, Randidly intended to make sure he was thoroughly exhausted before he did so. So he found that connection between himself and the Hierarchy of Burden and strengthened it. He reached his prior limit and charged directly past it.

His shoulders began to tremble. His skin was tingling. To forcefully withstand the contractions of his muscles, Randidly activated his Yggdrasil image. His hair turned emerald and his veins began to release a luminous golden light. Those precious veins pulsed with power, flexing themselves to keep his body from curling inward under the grip of the electromagnetic current.

Congratulations! Your Fatepiece the Hierarchy of Burden has grown to Level 6!

Congratulations! Your Fatepiece the Hierarchy of Burden has grown to Level 7!

Randidly’s whole body was trembling. He stood transfixed with his mouth slightly open and bolts of crimson electricity leapt from one side of his mouth to the other. His eyes were blank and unfocused, concerned primarily with the constant war being waged across his flesh as electrical impulses became so constant that they were indistinguishable from his neurological orders.

Yggdrasil’s reliable form manifested above him in the shaft. The rutted bark, the rustling leaves, the looping runes that detailed the secrets of the universe… the image flared with righteous light and suppressed the electricity running rampant across Randidly’s person.

Perhaps the Yggdrasil of a few weeks ago would have bulked before the suppression of these natural electrical phenomena, but several times this past week Randidly had taken long walks through his own image. Each time he had firmed up his foundations, strengthening the core feelings of the World Tree. Now, there was a precious warmth to even the environment around Yggdrasil. And this brilliant sense of peace, growth, and acceptance became a weapon to fight against the rising tide of physical chaos running through him.

Randidly’s shoulders never stopped heaving, but his face gradually eased from a grimace into a stern look of focus. His eyes were blazing as his golden veins fought to earn him a point of balance. Temperance, huh…

Randidly aggressively pushed himself even further.

Congratulations! Your Fatepiece the Hierarchy of Burden has grown to Level 8!

“Sssss….!” This taste of a more violent brand of lighting smashed against his carefully achieved balance like a sledgehammer. Randidly’s brilliant golden veins twitched and struggled against the power of his own body. His obscenely high Stats became the weapon of the electricity against him. Gradually, Randidly curled inward like a shrimp, despite his best efforts.

Congratulations! Your Skill the Golden Roots of Yggdrasil (L) has grown to Level 350!

Congratulations! Your Skill the Stigma of the Stillborn Phoenix (L) has grown to Level 335!

Congratulations! Your Skill the Golden Roots of Yggdrasil (L) has grown to Level 350!

When he had exhausted his mental energy by pitting his image against his body, Randidly banished the sympathetic connection between himself and the Hierarchy of Burden. The electricity vanished. Instantly his body began to tingle. Randidly smiled sweetly and released a relieved breath.

This was his favorite part; the sensation of relaxation that followed pushing his limits with the Hierarchy.

Then he reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. His tail flicked back and forth behind him until he forced the limb to curl innocuously around his waist. “Alright… back to Kharon. Five years, huh… Let’s see how things have changed without me.”