As always when he reached that part of the zone, Tang Feng felt an irritation. The kind of metaphorical itch you can’t scratch. Even if it was an old and familiar itch, it still didn’t get any less irritating.

Transit: Maragueuil – Bolsevain

Integrity: 100%

Active

(409 years)

Stability: 100%

Lairs: 20/21

The Gate was the symbol of the Tier Wall, as everyone had started calling it over the last twenty years.

“It is not going to change,” Gadi Khalef said as the Enduring Perseverant Aerialist watched the Gate descriptor.

“No, and it is still the best chance we have in alpha,” Tang Feng replied drily.

“Well, in theory. Greuqevone also needs a single lair, and the Legend is only fifty levels higher, but it looks nicer,” the Algerian countered.

“Really? Nicer? That’s all you’ve got?” Arnout Paats asked rhetorically.

“It looks more melee-focused. That’s a whole lot better than those full-on magic ones. Those will wipe out your raid when you think you’ve won.”

You could hear the Dutchman’s grumbling about four centuries of lack of judgment, despite the sub-vocalization. Tang Feng was used to it – those two had been shanghaied from the same Gate over four hundred years ago, and had always been on the same team ever since.

All, save for Rosenwyn Connock, were from Earth-802 anyway, attrition to the endless leveling having slowly whittled away their original teams of Lords, merging the four sets until only the hardcore was left. It wasn’t as if they had many choices anyway, the woman’s Earth-1994 was the second one to open to the Labyrinth in the alpha sheaf from Panomekon, and had produced barely a dozen of Lords to the three dozen’s of Tang Feng’s own Divergence.

But when you needed a real Defender rather than an ersatz one as Tang Feng sometimes practiced, and you got a lifelong one like Connock, well, you did not begrudge her origins. If they ever found the right Plaza, she’d be joining them to tier 20 instantly anyway, assuming she survived the Adjustment and didn’t die three times in a row like the last time she added a Profession to her list.

“Well, we’re not going to win that access this time, so let’s get going,” he finally said as he turned away from the symbol of his frustration.

All six of them started in the odd running gait that tens of thousands Agility bestowed you when you started running at speeds at which your feet adhering to the soil was slowly becoming a problem. In lesser tiers or Divergences, you could dig into the soil for better grip, but the higher tiers' ground was strong enough to resist your toes hitting it.

Tang Feng finished setting the various containers on the table, then he flopped messily on a voluptuous chair, one of the absolutely disgustingly comfortable ones imported from late Divergences.

He knew his team would show up. But the quinquennial meeting of the Alpha Progress Society no longer drew the crowds it once did. Who would come? Who knew. Even he wouldn’t dare guess which among the Highest Lords would come to enjoy free booze guaranteed to – as one of the later Divergence crowd said once – knock your socks off, even at 25k Stamina.

Still, that insane alcohol from a mere tier 8 distillery didn’t prevent him from noticing the slightly familiar Presence that flopped next to him.

“Lin Jiang.”

“Thought you’d appreciate the company after that Brawl,” the man said.

“That Brawl was four months ago,” Tang Feng replied drily.

“You don’t compete for twenty years. Of course, it was going to be hard getting back on the saddle. Even if the gamma sheaf is all upstarts.”

Tang Feng finally deigned to turn to look at the indecently sprawled figure next to him.

“Thanks.”

“Truth is always messy, part bad, part okay.”

“Just because you’re born six centuries after me in True History doesn’t make you a better philosopher.”

Rosenwyn popped in, accompanied by Gadi Khalef. Fang had noticed the two spending time together often these days. Like most such dalliances among the High Lords, this was probably going to last a few decades, and hopefully do not cause problems when the inevitable breakup happened.

Romance in the High Tiers was a messy thing. And since you didn’t get kids, because almost none of them were Professionals, well… there was little point to getting married. Some did, most did not, once their original spouse died back in their Divergence.

“To the Wall,” Tang Feng finally said.

“Well, that’s not the best toast, but that’s a toast I can agree with,” Lin Jiang replied.

Two more people entered the massive room. The meeting hall was part of the zone proper – a piece of structure that would endure unless people agreed to raze it and keep it suppressed by constant attention. Tang Feng raised his glass, and the two – tier 18 Professionals, if he remembered right – bowed in acknowledgment.

By ones and twos, more people dribbled in. By the time Tang Feng felt like it was okay, nearly thirty made it, ranging from tier 16 to his three with 20. More than he’d actually expected.

“Welcome to the 52nd meeting of the Alpha Progress.”

The whole assembly raised their glasses and stomped on the ground. Thankfully, it was powerful enough to withstand the antics of a bunch of high-tier Professionals, so the only consequence was a deafening sound that would probably have broken some eardrums if any mundane had been around.

“It warms my liver to see so many of you around. I know we are not anywhere close to mustering the required force to break through the Wall, and it’s not going to happen for a few decades, even if not everyone at the high levels is here. But every time, we get closer. Every time, the necessary force to deal with those Legends in our way becomes closer to reality.”

“Hear, hear,” the Norman Aetherwalker, Hasculf, yelled.

“With this, let’s hear about our growth,” he added.

Tang Feng found himself again with Lin Jiang, as a tier-seventeen described esoteric speculations on the newest trunk linkage. Tang Feng might not have checked all of it yet, but like all of those, it abutted at tier twenty, with a Stone Gate – a stone sculpture of a proper Gate at the upper end of the trunk zone instead of a real one leading further. The supposed reasons why the unmapped tier sixteen zone might be the key to linking to beta sheaf – of all things – did not interest him in truth.

Shortcuts between sheaves would be found, or they would not.

“Stop looking so glum, Feng. If I didn’t know you, I’d say you were moping about some mundane Divergence’s fate,” Lin Jiang said from behind Tang Feng.

The Aerialist snorted back.

“Bah. I have patience. It will not happen for twenty, thirty, fifty years? But in the end, there will be a team ready to down one of those Legends that bar the way. Then, we will see what lies beyond tier twenty.”

“Ah. For one moment, I thought you’d be seized by the ennui like so many.”

“Never. Tang Feng is not a man that shies from the seemingly impossible.”

The two men sloshed their glasses, drinking to the distant future.

Most of the Lords were gone, leaving only a handful still finishing their drinks when a different face showed up.

“Delan,” Feng said, surprised.

“Honored Uncle,” the man said.

“What brings my valorous nephew to this part of Panomekon on this day?”

As usual, Tang Feng felt regrets about his nephew. He was a Professional, and a good one. In four centuries, he’d climbed the ranks, slowly and with endurance, earning his own admission to Panomekon, and was poised to get tier thirteen in a couple of years.

Because he was not a Lord of the Labyrinth. After the youngest of his father’s brothers vanished in the explosive opening of the Great Gate on Earth-802, he’d refused to accept that Tang Feng could have been so torn, not even a shred of cloth remained. And he had been able to enter the Labyrinth to pursue his quest. He’d pushed and pushed, until the day they were reunited.

Then, they were separated by the gulf that Adjustment made, as leveling speed erased the grinding weight of Professions.

“News on the wind.”

“Oh? Someone found a new trunk?”

“No. There hasn’t been a high trunk found recently, and you would probably know before me, uncle.”

“Maybe I’m losing my edge. Who knows.”

Tang Delan laughed.

“No. But scholars in Zitrakon have finally compiled and checked carefully the relative timers to compare. Earth-802’s Gates predate the ones from Earth-96 by two days.”

“Really? So… we are still the first ones?”

“Of all the sheaves that are known, yes. Ours is the first Divergence to open.”

Tang Feng found his glass magically full again and raised it in a toast.

“The Timer on the Gates has always left a margin of error,” he finally said, after half the drink was gone, leaving a fiery mark that regeneration was already erasing.

“All the Gates change time at the same moment, save those that were disturbed, and of course the Great Gates,” Delan said.

“And the best estimate is two weeks.”

“It is accurate to an hour, as measured by expert Lords. The Timer counts its years in 365 days of exactly 24 hours, not the exact duration of the Earth’s rotation. Thirteen days.”

“Thirteen days and seven hours, between the moment all the Gates opened within, and the first Great Gate opened to Earth.”

Tang Feng slowly gathered all of the discarded bottles. He’d put them out at one of the Gates, to be thrown out into the Labyrinth by departing teams, to be thrown out and erased by the Labyrinth returning to its pristine state when humans did not pay attention and walk around, keeping their works intact.

To be restored to the state of the thirteen days and seven hours, between the moment the Labyrinth became, and the entrance of the First Lords of the Labyrinth. Or so it seemed.

He found the last drop of alcohol at the bottom of one, swallowed it, and rose the bottle in the last toast, alone in the gathering hall.

“First to the Labyrinth… First to the Wall.”