I coughed hard while forcing myself to stand. A fireball lit in my hand as I looked around for any potential threats. I couldn’t feel anything around me, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

As I moved, I realized the ground below me was solid stone, and the walls covered in vine were also made out of solid stone. I was in a chamber of some kind, or maybe a basement. I walked to the far side and confirmed it through the dust and debris.

There were shelves with vials, and beakers and even dusty old books… Had I hit the jackpot? This was a basement from Fresey… from hundreds of years ago. The items inside this room… they had the potential to be invaluable.

My eyes darted from every corner as I estimated just how large the area was. From the size and the kinds of items, it made more sense to call it a lab than a basement. The cobwebs and vines were so thick it was hard to make out some of the shelves and desks in the room.

There were candles hanging from the ceiling, now covered in all manner of growth. I began lighting them one at a time as I discovered them. It should have taken me only a moment to do so, but the level of decay and dust was unbelievable.

I was as careful as can be, so as to not send a hurricane of dust in the room and into my lungs. There was currently no way to air the room out, not until the blood-sucking flies were gone from above. I couldn’t tell when that might be and I was resolved to allow a decent interval for them to give up on me.

Only after the room was lit from one side to the other could I see the entire picture. It was definitely a lab of some sort. Beakers, vials, books, and even containers with odd specimens lined the shelves and desks.

I had mostly likely fallen through a wooden entranceway that had rotted over time. Directly below the hole were some broken timbers from what appeared to be a ladder. They had decayed to the point where it was hard to recognize. The wood was brittle and sponge-like and just touching it turned it into dust.

The shelves, and tables, and even the main desk—there was something special about them. Vines constricted and wrapped around them like a snake constricting their pray, and yet they had not deteriorated or distorted.

I reached my hand through a mess of vines and touched the dusty dirty corner of a shelf. The wood was smooth and even the fine ridges and lines could be felt. This… was treated with magic? It was the only explanation that made sense.

Every item of furnishing in this room was enchanted in some way with magic. I had heard of magical weapons and armor, but wooden chairs and desks? Were the people who once used this room gifted in enchanting, or simply rich beyond measure?

My excitement grew greater as I moved from every desk and shelf in the room. The beakers with weird creatures in them were now green and discolored, and whatever they were studying inside had mostly decayed.

Despite the furniture being sturdy and safe, I couldn’t just clear it haphazardly. The breathable air was already putrid. I leaned my head down and pulled my robe up over my head as I started to pick up vials.

The first vial I picked up was covered in a thick layer of grime that obscured the red liquid inside. I tilted it to my face and watch the red film atop the liquid break. The smell made me gag, whatever it was had gone bad long ago.

The more vials I picked up the more I understood that most of the materials hear had not been able to survive the passage of centuries. The liquids had sediment at the bottom and were thoroughly rotten. My disappointment made me want to destroy them but I hesitated. Someone could probably decipher what these liquids once were, and maybe their affects.

There was nothing I could use immediately from these shelves or from the shelves of test tubes. It was time to pry open every desk drawer and see if they contained something of value to me. The rest could be given to Rhea or distributed amongst the guilds: a completely fair arrangement in my mind.

I carefully used Mana Scythe to cut away the thick vegetation before prying open the top drawer of a desk. There were several books inside, and my excitement soared. My imagination told me they were skill books, but flipping them open revealed only notes and calculations.

The Wombar I caught today is clearly different from the Wombar from only two months ago. Somehow, it’s grown larger in size, ferocity, and intelligence.This is clearly represented in the beast’s stats as well, despite the level difference. Tomorrow I will have them fight each other.

I continued to read more entries as the mysterious researcher recounted their studies.

Everything is evolving so rapidly now. The plants have developed carnivorous tendencies. Even sunlight isn’t enough to satiate their hunger anymore. What is happening?

I flipped from page to page and the entries continued on like this. The researcher’s environment was clearly changing rapidly and he or she sounded increasingly anxious. Having skimmed through the journal, I started flipping other books in the hope of getting more perspectives on what had happened to them.

In fact, the next set of books I rummaged through turned out to be Alchemy recipes. I had no use for them but pocketed them immediately. There was no question that anyone but the Valkyrie guild would be getting their hands on these.

In fact, I swiped every book from the whole place and closed up the last draw. The research included Enchanting, Rune Crafting, and Alchemy. There was even a book entitled, Best Magical Blacksmithing Materials. I filled my bags with everything.

I would need to explain where I been and would no doubt have to show this underground lab to all the guilds. The vials and beakers would be enough of a discovery on their own. Hopefully, that would be enough to satiate everyone’s desire for new and potentially powerful knowledge.

Was it obvious that there were missing books? I brushed dust across any rectangular outlines I had left behind. I could imagine other guilds arguing for a share of the books and that they might to question me, but the Adventurer’s Guild Master and Rhea would shield me from that. As long as it wasn’t blatant that I’d removed the books, I should be okay.

The entire endeavor took about an hour to complete and I found myself back in the middle of the room. Every desk and drawer had been scoured clean. Only the shelves of unusable liquids were left.

The Glacial Spike I had summoned into the opening was still there. But a new sound had been added to the nearly silent chamber: a constant pitter-patter from dripping water. My makeshift barrier wouldn’t hold for much longer.

Now was a good time as any to check what the situation above looked like. I backed up a few steps to gain speed before jumping up towards the dangling vines. A maneuver like this would have been impossible for me back on earth, but now was effortless.

I pulled myself up by the vines before reaching the now melting block of ice. Fireball lit in my hand as I carefully melted it further from below. I made sure to spread the area so as to not go through immediately, but instead created a dome-shaped hole in the ice big enough for my head to fit into.

Water constantly ran down my face and neck. My robe was becoming drenched in mere moments as the layer of ice above me became see-through. That there was a fog still, beyond the thin ice that remained, was obvious. More than that I couldn’t know without a peek beyond my protection.

In one push I punched my hand through the thin ice before sticking my head up. It was hard to see the extent of the fog while inside of it, but it was no doubt still present over a wide area. Blood-sucking flies hovered in the vicinity in swarms. I had not waited long enough.

My eyes continued to scan the surroundings only to come up empty. Could this phenomenon last longer than the morning? If I was stuck here for longer than that it would become troublesome, and then life-threatening.

My presence didn’t go unnoticed for long. Blood-sucking flies raced in my direction by the thousands and I completely underestimated their speed. There was no time to be careful, and I let myself drop down the vine as if in free fall, grabbing it just at the end and swinging around wildly.

The force of my fall sent me hurdling towards a stone wall like a wrecking ball. The impact itself was fine, except that the wall cracked and crumbled like stale bread. The front part of my left foot got caught in a crack, while the rest of my body flopped backwards.

Unfortunately, none of this was as important as recasting Glacial Spike. My hands could not even cushion my fall as my back smacked directly onto the rotten wooden ladder, “Ugh!”

The hole above closed as the water stopped dripping. I reinforced the ice barrier with multiple casts before uncomfortably rolling to my side and dislodging bits of partially decayed wood digging into my spine. It seemed I wasn’t getting out of here anytime soon.

Dislodging my foot from the wall sent stones crashing into the floor below. They didn’t shatter as I had expected and instead were incredibly sturdy. Why then had the wall given way in such an odd fashion?

There was an opening there, in the wall where my foot collided: a pocket behind the stone wall. Could it be purposeful? Or just a cavity that had been created naturally over the past three hundred years? Bubbling excitement flooded through me as I jumped up and stretched to look into the opening.

I lit a fireball and illuminated the pocket not much bigger than a human head. It was square, and had almost no plant life protruding inside. The inside of the pocket was empty, and it looked anything but natural. The dirt was too flat, the pocket too square. The only problem was it was empty.

Had something been resting here? Or perhaps something was buried below? My hand dug into the dirt several inches down. I touched only more and more packed dirt until I felt something hard: a wooden box.

The careful way in which I was digging was abandoned in my excitement, as my hand pulled at the box with incredible force. Dirt exploded from the cavity and onto the lab floor. At first glance the object that emerged looked like a skill book, but it was definitely made of wood. The height was a bit larger than I would expect for a book, but it was the right shape.

I wiped the box clean after dislodging the dirt encasing it. Just like the rest of the furniture, it had been treated with magic, and even after three hundred years showed no sign of rot or decay. My hands shook as I pried open the lid and revealed the contents inside.

This is what I was looking for this entire time. It was a skill book, and seeing it left me with absolutely no doubts as to its magical nature. The cover wasn’t covered with even the slightest speck of dust. Not only that, there was clearly something below it as well. Another skill book perhaps?

I sat down in the center of the room and rested the box on my lap before digging my fingers inside and removing the book. My intention was to open it immediately, but what lay below made me pause.

It was not a book, but instead a beautiful glass container, and inside that container was a sphere. The sphere was perfectly see-through, and yet looked like the galaxy above, the entire universe, in fact.

This was something I’d never seen or heard of in all of my time on Yetera. It was fundamentally different from the stones an MVP dropped. I had seen one of those on Eastrath, and while it looked otherworldly… this was different.

A surreal feeling filled me as I gazed into that galaxy. The feeling that this object should not exist—could not exist. Despite that, I had absolutely no idea what it was. Carefully, I opened the glass container and touched the ball.

Suction like nothing I’d ever felt immediately started draining every bit of MP in my body. I wanted to release the sphere immediately, but as if being electrocuted, my fingers would not leave it. My mind grew fuzzy as I became lightheaded—everything went black.

I was out for only an instant—at least that’s how it felt to me. My eyes scanned the ceiling above and could not find the frozen barrier protecting me from the blood-sucking flies outside. Somehow or another ice had gone.

My attention shifted inward as I checked my own condition. The sphere had drained me of all my MP, but somehow I was sitting at full MP right now. My period of being blacked out could only have been a few hours at most, as I could see the sun trickling through the opening above.

I spotted the sphere just two or three feet away from me, looking exactly the same as before. Draining my MP hadn’t brought about any change in appearance in the item. There was no way I would grab it by hand this time, though.

The glass container that originally held the sphere still rested on my lap, and so I picked it up and carefully scooped the magic items away before holding it close to examine it even more carefully. The sphere held a mysterious quality that I couldn’t fathom quite yet. No doubt it held extraordinary power.

Trying to Inspect the sphere or read any details brought back nothing at all. It clearly wasn’t a piece of equipment, but surely it must have a use? I was scared to grab it again as the feeling of being sucked dry of MP was not a pleasant one at all.

I put the item into my inventory with no intention of revealing it to anyone else and then focused my attention onto the skill book. It looked coarse and well worn, but there was one difference that made it stand out from other skill books I had seen.

The edge of each page was coated in a light golden foil that gave it a majestic quality. I was even more excited to flip the covers open and take a look. The decrepit cover turned like an ancient book revealing the title.

“World Cutter” Just those two words were revealed. Probing the skill to see the contents, and MP cost and other information bore no fruit. Everything was displayed as ?? Absolutely no useful information was presented at all.

Was this safe to learn? That was the first thought that went through my head. Someone had been given the opportunity to learn this before me, but chose not to. I corked my excitement for a moment and shifted my attention to the wooden container.

There was an inconspicuous booklet at the very bottom, originally under the glass container. It wasn’t a skill book, but more like a diary or notebook. I took it out and started to read the contents within.

As I had hoped, it held an account of the skill book, and then of the mysterious sphere. But the information on the skill book was completely useless. The owner had traded for it, and had no idea of its origins. He didn’t dare learn the skill as he was not versed in combat, but research.

The sphere, however, held a remarkable backstory. I couldn’t be sure if it was embellished or truthful: there was no way to verify it now. The writer claimed it was a god’s item—or so he was told.

The sphere was a gift to the author from a very powerful magician. The magician had exhausted all of her resources studying it and had come up with nothing to show for the effort. The author of the booklet, however, was a renowned researcher who had devoted his life to studying magic.

The magician had sought out the author and presented the sphere to him, thinking that if anyone could discover its uses it would be him. When the author asked where the sphere had came from she gave him a simple response: “It is a gift from god.”

“An item from a deity?” This fascinated him to no end and the only information she left him with was that it sucked MP endlessly. He spent every day fiddling with the sphere. The MP absorption was a problem, but he discovered a way of making use of it.

The author would only handle the sphere at night before bed, and because of that his nights ended with his being drained of his MP and passing out. Despite doing that for over a year, the orb had not changed at all.

There were a few changes, though. Keeping the sphere close to you increased your MP regeneration. Besides that, he started to have weird dreams and visions. Originally, they were of his early life, but then of moments he had never been witness to.

The author chalked his dreams up to imagination until an incident from a dream reminded him of one he had once read about in a history book—an event that had happened two-hundred years prior. His suspicion that maybe the sphere’s origins were dubious disappeared. It was surely a fantastical item.

The author continued to have visions, and a peculiar figure showed in many of them. This was a deity, probably the former owner. The researcher never saw the visions as a problem, until one day which he wrote about in detail. His friend had come to visit him.

“Jaque where have you been? I was expecting you four hours ago!” his friend shouted.

“What do you mean? I saw you just yesterday. We will meet on Friday like planned.”

“Have you lost track again? Today is Friday.”

The author’s heart had sunk into his chest. He felt as though he had only woken a few hours earlier, in the morning… but given the words of his friend, the only logical answer was that he had been asleep for three days.

The author’s physical condition felt fine—actually better than ever before. He was used to being tired and exhausted but that had changed. His attention shifted to his calendar on the wall and his face grew dark.

He had been losing days for the past two months. The life of a researcher was secluded, and so it often went unnoticed. His markings on his calendar told a different story. He had been skipping days regularly without realizing at all.

That was the moment he sealed the sphere away, sealed the skill book away, and considered it a cursed object.

The first thought that crossed my mind after reading this account was to recall Spectre Andino. He had found a marvelous object that eventually trapped him in his dreams. Was this sphere something similar to that? Should I throw it away?

I started to wonder if this was a fortuitous encounter or if I had just obtained two cursed items that would haunt me. World Cutter was a skill and shouldn’t harm me—at least not without me approving any negative consequences for obtaining it. I’d only heard of the seer ability taking levels away as a cost. That was a choice to be made.

My mind rocked back and forth as I debated on what I should do. In the end, I couldn’t resist the temptation and flipped the cover before thinking that I would like to learn the ability. Maybe after learning it I would gain some more information on it.

I followed the prompt before hesitatingly accepting with a ‘Yes’. The ability showed up in my skills tab among all the others. There was nothing special besides the ?? for each skill description.

World Cutter: ??

Cast Time: ??

MP Cost: ??

Distance: ??

There was also no EXP progress for the ability. Suddenly, I felt excited at the prospect of discovering the possibilities. I raised my hand to attempt to cast before stopping myself. What if it was a massive explosion and I blew myself up?

I jumped up towards the opening and latched onto a vine. My head ascended through the shrubs like a groundhog: the fog was gone, the blood-sucking flies were gone. I pulled myself up and out of that tomb-like room and breathed the fresh air.

I gripped my Mana Pulsing Rod before taking in the surroundings. Fortunately there was nothing in the immediate vicinity posing any threat. I wasn’t completely clueless as to the direction of camp either. My path was clear, but I wanted to test out World Cutter first.

It should be fine to try it out here. I held the rod firmly in my hand as I raised both arms and looked into the distance. A strange feeling swelled inside of me and power started to form from my core.

This was how it should be I thought. A rare skill should be powerful, and the power kept coming. Somehow though, I couldn’t stop it. The feeling continued to swell and things got wildly out of control.

Power raced through my body and towards my hand like a ready to be thrown fireball. I felt as if I would explode if I didn’t get rid of it, and so I urged it through my right hand—the hand holding the Mana Pulsing Rod.

A crescent that looked like glass materialized out of my hand and rushed into the distance like a silent assassin. It took me a moment to realize the extent of what had happened. All of my MP had gone in an instant.

My mind started to grow fuzzy as I stared at the Mana Pulsing Rod in my hand. My trusty rod… my prized possession… had split into two halves like rotted wood. I could only just make out the sliding trees and the sound of falling timber as I collapsed onto my back.

“Joseph!

“Joseph!” The voice was distant and slowly grew closer as I opened my eyes. A fuzzy image of Rhea and the Adventurer’s Guild Master appeared in view. They were crowding around me.

“Huh?” I asked muddle-headed. My head turned as best as it could to see the compound’s earthen walls around us. Somehow or another I’d been dragged back—that or everything I had experienced was merely a dream.