By combining the newfound insights of with the cold logic the Modicuit, Jude took a new route to advancing his skills. It wasn’t as spectacular as his previous advancements. gained a massive power boost when he ranked it passed Rank III and gained unique qualities that it didn’t have before. But when Jude ranked passed Rank III he only gained additional object durability and complexity.

At first, Jude thought it was a limit in , but when he started working on it was the same way. gained more HP for less MP, there was no additional effect. This surprised Jude to no end.

The most amazing gains were the unlocking of new skills. was now Rank VII. This unlocked two new skills and . was a semi-intelligent attack spell that created a short-lived ghost to perform a single attack at Rank I. at Rank I gave a short burst of speed in any direction. Theoretically, at higher ranks, he would be able to use it to fly!

Out of curiosity he then started working on the two new skills. He got up to Rank V but at most, it could only make five attacks and exist for only a short period of time. , however, advanced from having a short burst of speed to a short flight at Rank IV.

It was already the morning the next day when he had gotten to this point. Theodwin had shown up as Jude had made arrangements to meet with him. Today they would go out and try their luck with the world node that controlled the Allur Forest.

Part of Jude wanted to stay and continue to work on skills, but he knew that understanding the world nodes was just as important. He quickly brewed himself some Gib Dei to wake himself up. Then he and Theodwin headed off for the forest.

***

From the inside of an undisclosed building, a long tunnel stretched from the surface at a downward angle towards the Lords Citadel. At the end of this long tunnel was a small room. In the center of the room existed a root of the Town Stone from above. The root looked like unworked obsidian and was about a foot in diameter. It was glossy and jagged and twisted and turned.

The room was filled with about 20 slaves. Each one sitting around the root of the Town Stone chanting. The strange language was not the ancient language, nor was it any language spoken by any of the races of this . It was a strange and archaic language that sounded harsh and cold.

A black mist flowed out of each slave. The mist would combine with all the others and slowly make its way to the obsidian root. Once there, it would slowly absorb into the stone turning it even darker.

“The progress is going a lot faster than I expected,” Lord Merek commented from the side.

Guudnash was there as well, “It was only because you already had this tunnel prepared.”

“Yes, but to see the crystal clear root become this dark was quite astonishing,” Merek replied.

Guudnash said, “Maybe, but remember that this is only a small portion of the Town Stone. The whole thing spread through the entire town and a mountain size portion of it exists under your citadel. While this little bit is fully corrupted, it will still take some time to corrupt the rest.

“If we had started with the control stone it would have been much faster and the Switch would have been corrupted as well. A corrupted Switch would be a formidable . But now the best that can happen is that she will be severed from her connection.”

“I never liked that Stone Witch,” Merek said, “So losing her is not a concern to me. In fact, her slowly dying sounds much better to me.”

Guudnash sighed, the that would be created from corrupting a Switch and its Town Stone was no small matter. A demon like this would be much more powerful than even himself, even if she was stuck in one location. It was a pity that the future was so short sighted.

“The chant should be reaching the next level,” Guudnash said looking at the central figure. “The power from the other sites should be connecting to this one soon.”

The central slave wore a red robe while the rest wore white ragged robes. The red robed slave’s chant was becoming louder and louder becoming a crescendo. As this happened the slave’s skin slowly melted away. His height began to shrink and the new skin turned red. His ears grew pointed and long, his eyes turned black, his teeth became sharp and all his hair fell off. He was now an , a type of that lead other .

were not much different than , except that where created by the while were a creature that was inserted into the much like where. After all, were just a lesser type of . were taller than a regular but still not as tall as a human.

Guudnash smiled, “It shouldn’t be long now. A few more days perhaps.”

“You don’t know for sure?” Merek asked with an arched brow.

Guudnash laughed, “Even I have only been a for a short while.”

***

Jude and Theodwin arrived at the control node for the Allur Forest. Even knowing where the node was, it took a while to find it. Sites like these were hidden in areas that were naturally confusing and disorientating. The site they were going to now was surrounded by thick fog and covered in thorny brambles. Only by using Theodwins contraptions were they able to successfully find it again.

When they arrived, Theodwin set off to do his own experiments while Jude performed his . Now that he had to reach Rank III in he was able to easily cut through the thick air mana and was finally able to see the whole structure of the node at once.

What he saw before him was truly amazing and only reinforced what he had just learned about ranking up his skills. The node was the perfect fusion of the cold logic of circuitry and the organic nature of wood. The result was beautiful. It was like an art form that spoke of life and living. The exuberance and abundance that life had to offer and the trials one had to go through to overcome it.

After his amazement was over, Jude began focusing on his task. But after an hour he was already exhausted. The node was simply too complex. He had to figure out a way to simplify it. All that he had done so far with the Modicuit and this node were on the machine code level. What he needed was a second level language like assembly or a third level language like C. But since he was wishful thinking, a user interface would be even better.

… a user interface…

Jude vaguely remembered that in the Digital Plane he would directly interface with it using his Modicuit. He had accessed many User Interface like connections while he was there. How he did that before he wasn’t sure. But now he had powerful skills so surely he could do something similar. This node was not like anything he had seen in the Digital Plane, but it was also more similar to it than anything else in this world. If he tried to connect to it like he did the Digital Plane, there could be bad consequences. But he decided to risk it anyway.

In the Digital Plane, there were no inputs and outputs like his Modicuit or even this node. However, it was not simply two-dimensional circuitry, the Digital Plane’s circuitry was truly three-dimensional. The higher the level the finer those circuits became, while the lowest level, the floor, contain large circuits. However, this node didn’t have that same structure. Comparing it to the Digital Plane, it was very 2D.

But if he could use directly, why couldn’t he use directly? Jude attempted to do so, but after a few hours, he found that he was missing something. He tried to use directly, then a modified version of from what he learned from using directly. Then he tried using at the same time as but he forgot that he couldn’t use two skills at the same time.

This made him remember . It not only linked two skills together but essentially worked while he also used . Somehow, was able to bypass the restrictions of using multiple skills at once, which made sense because that was what the skill ultimately did for other skills. Why wouldn’t it do the same for itself?

Jude had never thought to use with before and what he was about to do might be beyond its capabilities. But the theory of what does should apply to this situation as well.

He wasn’t going to back down and the possibilities, if this worked, were too wondrous. Slowly and carefully Jude began using threads to connect his Modicuit to the node. He remembered that in the Digital Plane he had used certain core processes for this connection. Back then, the Modicuit was much smaller than it was now and he had nearly forgotten about this area of his Modicuit.

As soon as he started making the connections, it was like he had returned to the days he was in the Digital Plane. With quick practiced hands, he made one connection after another. Instinct and muscle memory took action as if he had done this thousands of times.

He wasn’t sure how long it took by the time he was done making the connection, but it was already getting dark. This made Jude wonder just how long it took him to make the connections in the Digital Plane. After all, this was a relatively simple connection compared to the ones he had to make there.

Theodwin had been trying to talk to him for quite a while now, but Jude had been unresponsive. Only now did Jude open his eyes, but Theodwin didn’t know that Jude had made a success.

Theodwin said, “It’s getting late, young friend, let us head back.”

“Are you sure?” Jude asked. “I’ve just made the connection to the node!”

“You have?!” Theodwin sounded surprised. “What can you tell me? What is it like?”

Jude waved his hand and large interface popped up in front of him. Apparently only Jude could see it, so he had to describe what he saw. On the screen, there were a lot of toggles, settings, and values for running Allur Forest. There were also different views for seeing the area map to camera views similar to . There was also a datasheet of all the characters and mobs in the zone.

The more Jude looked the more he found, eventually finding some interesting options to allow Theodwin to see something. A three-dimensional map like a hologram sprung up across the large root structure that made up the node. The root structure of the node was already very large and this projection covered the entire thing. The map showed not only general characteristics but also pinpoint locations of everything in it. Using it they were able to find the other two nodes that made up Allur Forest.

The Undead Caves, previously known as Grimwar Caves, were not included. This didn’t surprise Jude as it had its own node of sorts.

Theodwin was quite excited and continuously asked Jude questions. Jude answered them as best he could, but there was a knowledge gap that wasn’t easy to overcome.

While discussing things with Theodwin, Jude changed a small part of Allur Forest. He walled it off with thick brambles and a fog much like one of the nodes. Then he had the area to spawn progressively leveled mobs that ranged from 15 to 20. Each day they would start off at 15, but once killed a certain number of times they would go up a level after respawning.

Because this area was a higher level, he was then able to also spawn higher level resource nodes. They would now be able to get better wood, ore, and herbs that could only be found in level 20 zones. It also seemed that Allur Forest could only support up to level 20 mobs.

Then he bumped up the respawn rate for both the mobs and resources to the max. This would make the area fairly dangerous for most people, but he was confident that Heroic Retribution could handle it.

When he told all this to Theodwin, he was both excited and concerned. “Once you level up your Mercenary Company and get all the resources out of it that you want, it would be best that your lower that area back down.”

“Why is that? No one should easily find it, so I’m sure it won’t be dangerous for other people.” Jude responded.

“That is actually the problem,” Theodwin replied. “If a spawning area isn’t regularly cleared, the mobs will eventually leak out. These leaked mobs, if not killed, can become quite a nuisance. Since there are so many low-level people around here, it could be rather dangerous for them.”

“Okay, I will change it back once we are done with it,” Jude said agreeably.

“Good, it’s already dark,” Theodwin said. “Let’s head back.”

“I have one more thing to do,” Jude said as he waved his hand. Over the root that he waved his hand, grew a knobby structure. After a bit, it broke off and Jude picked it up.

“What is that?” Theodwin couldn’t help but ask.

“Think of it as a key, otherwise how else would Heroic Retribution get to the special area that I made?”

As they returned to town, Theodwin discussed all his ideas on experimenting with the node. Much of it had to do with Theodwin’s special devices, so Jude didn’t understand it all. But he would occasionally throw out an idea for Theodwin to think over.