Chapter 43

Wes stared blankly in silence after the Rift vanished. He never expected Keith to store it away like some item. It was a Rift, for crying out loud, not some handheld toy. The thing was as large as a town.

Looking over at Keith, although Wes knew it was impolite to inquire about another person’s innate gift, he couldn’t help but ask, “Lad, what are you going to do with the Rift? Don’t go placing it in the middle of a city.”

Just as Wes finished speaking, Keith’s knees buckled underneath him, and he fell backward. Alarmed, Wes reached out and caught Keith before he hit the ground. “What’s wrong?”

“Ugh.” Keith’s vision spun as all sorts of sensory information overloaded his brain. Red became redder and blue bluer, while his hearing and sense of smell magnified. An overwhelming surge of strength coursed through Keith’s body, so much that he couldn’t control it.

However, Keith quickly adapted compared to the last time he experienced sensory overload. Only after half a minute passed did he regain the ability to control his body. Wes raised an eyebrow and accurately guessed, “Sensory overload?”

“Mhm. Second time that’s happened,” Keith sighed helplessly, still feeling a little panicked.

“Hah.” Wes shook his head. “Many people don’t even experience it once, and yet you’ve already gone through it twice?”

Even though Keith knew what sensory overload was, he still didn’t like the abrupt feeling of powerlessness it gave him. It was similar to getting the wind knocked out of you several times in a row, extremely discomforting.

Now that the crisis was over, Keith suddenly realized why it happened. Eyes shining, Keith pulled up his Grimoire’s interface and checked his CV and CP before sucking in a mouthful of air.

Holy slimeballs!

If Keith saw things right, his CV and CP jumped up by a little over one hundred million, resulting in a massive windfall of stats. Astonished, Keith quickly opened his status and gawked at what he saw.

[Keith Walker]

Level: 412

Age: 21

Titles: Philantropist, Born With A Golden Spoon, Troublemaker, +10 others

Health: 63,400/63,400 -> 94,600/94,600

Mana: 101,100/101,100 -> 138,300/138,300

Strength: 2130 -> 3192

Agility: 2243 -> 3211

Intelligence: 4201 -> 5189

Vitality: 2593 -> 3562

Endurance: 2612 -> 3578

Skills: Sensory Link, Mind Enhancement, +245 others

Apparently, the System graded Rifts much higher than any other item Keith had collected. Just the stats alone made the 300 million gold investment worth it.

“Looks like your gamble paid off. How about giving me a bonus for my incredible services?” Wes asked in amusement after watching Keith’s expression change continuously.

Keith laughed awkwardly. “Uh, I have nothing to tip you with, sorry.”

“Haha, I’m just messing with you.” Wes suddenly turned stern. “Seriously though, don’t withdraw that Rift anywhere you please.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not planning on taking it out,” Keith replied, much to Wes’s relief. Little did Wes know, it would cost over a hundred million gold to withdraw the Rift from Keith’s Grimoire. Doing so would be a colossal waste of money.

Wes looked at the sun and gave a satisfied nod. “Alright, I’m glad everything worked out. I’ll take my leave.”

Keith watched as Wes teleported away before opening his Grimoire’s function shop. Low and behold, a new function called Rift Simulator appeared, costing 150 million CP, far more than the farm did. Thankfully, Keith had enough CP with some to spare. Without hesitating in the slightest, Keith purchased the new function, spending two years' worth of CP in one go.

Imagination running wild, Keith went to the minigame tab and saw a new box labeled ‘Rift Simulator.’ At this point, Keith was so excited he had to stop and calm down. Two years of hoping led to this moment, and now that it was happening, his emotions were overflowing.

After Keith took a breather, he opened the Rift Simulator and spent the next few minutes going over its rules and functions. What Keith learned unnerved him to no end, and he couldn’t help but wonder how something like this could exist.

To summarize the essence of the Rift Simulator minigame, Keith could passively gain resources, gold, and experience from a Rift he collected. It was like a clone with Keith’s equipment, stats, and skills fought in his place. The acquisition rate of the items and experience depended on Keith’s combat power. However, this didn’t come without any cost. Keith would need to make sure his Grimoire had enough Health and Mana stored to fuel the clone fighting for him.

What this meant was, as long as Keith had enough Health and Mana stocked up, a clone with his strength could farm monster drops, gold, and experience for him 24/7. To make things even better, the Rift Keith collected was level 400, so the passive income would be mindboggling.

Thankfully, Keith always had a few Mana Arrays generating Mana in his Grimoire over the past few years. Every time their durability ran out, he purchased a new one, so he had plenty of Mana to spare. The only problem was his Health reserves. There was no Mana Array equivalent for Health, so Keith could only slowly accrue Health by collecting the surplus from his natural regeneration.

After some quick calculations, Keith determined he had enough Health and Mana to run the Rift Simulator for two weeks. If Health wasn’t a factor, he had enough Mana for a year. That result left Keith distressed. Not having the Rift Simulator up and running meant Keith would lose out on a tremendous amount of resources and experience, making him uncomfortable.

The question was: how could Keith generate enough Health to maintain the Rift Simulator’s consumption?

Once Keith returned home, he spent a few hours browsing through the magic network, searching for solutions. Among the many answers, you could raise your Vitality stat, level up certain skills, or rely on some Health-focused equipment.

Unfortunately, none of these methods worked for Keith. Skills focused on regenerating Health took a long time to level up, while Health-focused equipment was incredibly expensive. The only surefire way to generate Health was to find someone with an innate gift based around healing, but people with those were one in a million.

Wait a minute.

Keith suddenly realized he knew one such person, his very own sister, Elora. All it took was a few swings from her spiked club to heal someone to full Health. The only downside was the incredible pain felt by the victim, ahem, recipient of Elora’s love. Keith shuddered at the thought.

Now, one question remained: should he ask for her assistance and descend into hell? What awaited was endless loot, gold, and experience– he just needed to bear a little pain, a small price to pay.

Keith could handle that.