I think I’d been in the breach for about 3 hours when I started to get bored. After the fight with the Alpha Wolf, I’d get a few stray low leveled wolves here and there, but apart from that it was a quiet walk.

I’d still been following the mana the entire time, but at some point during my walk it became harder to locate where it originated from. I was stumped.

Sitting down near a nearby tree I looked at my improved status.

Smiling to myself I stood back up and walked forward. I had always understood the concept behind people falling in love with self improvement but it was never quite clear to me until now. Watching the numbers go up on my status just made something click for me. I felt like what I imagined bodybuilders felt like when they looked at their body to see how much muscle definition they had gained.

Smiling to myself I imagined how much stronger I would be in the future, and that wasn’t even counting using my Melomania to my advantage. Without it I felt . . . Parched. The feeling I would get from listening to music was even greater than what I felt when I made progress on my status. I didn’t know what to feel now that I had something that literally told me about my music listening problem to my face and made it part of who I was. But was it problem? I didn’t necessarily see it as such so I put it in the back of my mind and gave myself a reminder so as to find a way to charge my phone.

Shaking my head to try to get a grip on my wandering thoughts I kept walking. Step by step in the blanket of silence provided by my earlier fights my mind once again began to wander.

I had been through a lot, these past few months. Sure I had a small break of normalcy in the middle but It had gone by so fast I was having a hard time even confirming it happened. Not even a day after the first seeds hit, I was kidnapped, then I was held for about 5 months after which I escaped, spent 3 months with the girl, got hit by another wave of seeds that did much more damage as compared to the first ones, almost died, found out the girl I liked was with someone else, ran away, you know, like a coward. I just felt that everything was passing by me and I was just getting dragged along, and the parts over which I had control over didn’t even end up that good. I was indecisive, cowardly, all over the place. Sometimes my emotions and need for attention led me to act like a different person altogether.

I knew I needed something to hold me down, something to help me regain control on . . . me.

I let my head fall back and looked towards the sky, pondering on these points for a second. My mana had long since come back and I was in the mood to go for the sky. Yes, go for the sky. Maybe then I would gain a new perspective to help me find the source of the mana.

Building up the wind below me, I launched myself upwards and forward. The wind was harsh on my face but it wasn’t a feeling I hated. Looking down I noticed that somewhere ahead my breeze domain was interrupted or rather distorted at a certain point in the forest, so I launched myself once again somewhere nearby just in case something dangerous would appear.

In my descent, I noticed three people. Three people I remembered very well. Evelyn, Adam, and Alastor. How could I not remember them. I wanted to just go down and talk to them, but something in my heart told me I shouldn’t. I had literally just promised myself that I would get a hold of myself and I was already thinking of throwing that away.

I knew myself. Whenever I was with a group of people I knew, I felt that I had to be certain way. It wasn’t even something I could control it just happened.

My eyes wandered back to their figures as I launched myself up in the air again, I needed more time to think about this. I could go back down and talk, but what would we even talk about? They’d surely moved on. It would be weird if a dead guy just showed up right? They’d probably recognize my voice right? Ah, no this would be weird wouldn’t it. They probably already forgot about me and here I was acting overly familiar . . . Fuck.

———

The breach as it was called was a more like a pile of bodies, from the moment we entered that’s really all we saw.

Of course the sight of a few dead bodies didn’t really bother me that much, after all what kind doctor would I be if I didn’t see any. No. What worried me were two things.

One whatever had killed these wolves was powerful and overtly so, and two they were still probably here seeing how fresh these corpses looked.

I looked at Alastor and let my opinion be known.

“Hey dude I think we shouldn’t be here…”

Evelyn on my side nodded hastily. She must’ve been thinking the same thing as me. I thought Alastor would agree but instead he ignored my statement, and started speaking.

“These are how we get stronger.”

I was confused for a second but I started to put one and one together.

“Did you kill all of these animals?”

I let some anger seep through my voice. Why would he do this?

“Me? No. I only killed one, but let me ask you a question. Have you ever wondered why we were always at level 1?”

Then it clicked, I understood what he meant immediately.

“Are you telling me we have to kill to level?”

“Yes.”

“Did you bring us here to kill these wolves.”

“No.”

“Then why?”

“To show you what you’ll need to do. And before you judge I didn’t kill the wolf because I wanted to, I killed it because it attacked me straight away. Take that however you will.”

Evelyn had been quiet the whole time.

“Look Evelyn I don’t want you to take this the wrong way. I’m trying to help us.”

Evelyn looked down and took a deep breath. I wanted to know what she would say. I wasn’t opposed to what Alastor was implying but I wasn’t so sure Evelyn thought the same.

“I’ll go along with it.”

I could see the surprise register on Alastor’s face before it appeared on mine. I hadn’t really thought she would agree, but it seemed I had underestimated her drive.

Happy with the outcome I was about to comfort her on what we were about to do when I saw Alastor’s face turn from a surprise to a frown as he looked up. I followed his gaze to see the sight of what looked to be a man falling down from the sky.

The speed at which he was falling was extremely fast and I had thought for a moment he would get splattered on the ground but his landing broke all my expectations as he merely froze for a second and got back up. His body and face looked to be covered in what seemed to be a gladiator’s armor formed out wind.

My brain took a second to register what happened before I put up my hands. This just went from 0 to 100 too fast. Alastor seemed to have gotten that earlier as his transformation was already near finished. The man in the armor stood still and stared at us for a second as we all stood in place.

Evelyn surprisingly was the first to talk.

“Are you the one who killed all these wolves.”

The gladiator stayed quiet as if contemplating and then nodded. A shiver ran through my back. This person was powerful and knew it. Evelyn’s reaction said it all as I saw her shiver for a bit too. She seemed to be about to talk again when Alastor spoke up the question that had been on my mind ever since the landing.

“Why are you here.”

The gladiator shrugged, made a motion to signify watching us, and shrugged again. He seemed really set on not talking.

Evelyn tried deciphering his message with difficulty.

“You wanna.. Watch us?”

He shrugged.

I glanced back at Alastor who stared back at me and shrugged as he undid his transformation and started talking.

“Did you grow that strong by killing these wolves.”

He nodded.

“Do you know what this breach is?”

He shook his head for the first time signifying he knew about as much as us. Which was of course nothing.

Alastor seemed to think for a second, and asked another question.

“Do you know where we can find more wolves?”

The gladiator paused once again looking at us, one by one. The silence was one second long but it felt like an eternity before he twisted his hand up and down to probably signify he was unsure but had some idea.

I looked back Alastor once again, and nodded. This was exactly what we needed. A way to get strong.

I looked at the gladiator who subsequently met my sight and nodded. Maybe he was trying to help us.

He turned around a motioned us to follow him, and so we did. I noticed that he walked slow, really slow, like he had all the time in the world. Was this what strength felt like? You didn’t wait for the world, the world waited for you. You could do whatever you wanted whenever you wanted. You could protect those you wanted, when you wanted.

I wanted that.

I looked at the man walking in front of us, honest greed in my eyes.

We walked for 10 minutes before we were met with a group of five wolves. They were huge. Seeing them dead had perhaps dulled my view on how large they were as they were dead but seeing them up close refreshed in my mind that things were different now. We were in a crazy world, hither came insanity and closely we followed.

———

I envied their companionship. I wasn’t about to say I didn’t know why as that would quite dishonest on my part but just thinking about it reminded me of what I didn’t have and what I was stripping myself of. The self doubt poured in but I kept it at bay.

Glancing at the wolves I identified their levels.

[ Wolf - lv. 12 ]

[ Wolf - lv. 15 ]

[ Wolf - lv. 13 ]

[ Wolf - lv. 11 ]

[ Wolf - lv. 12 ]

The strongest wolf wasn’t as strong as the Alpha Wolf I had faced before so I wasn’t too nervous. I raised my hand to signify the group of three to stop for a second. Alastor had long transformed back into his somewhat freaky form so I could guess his senses or eyesight were ungodly good.

Adam took the initiative to speak this time, though in a low whisper. “So how are we going to this.”

I gave a light shrug before bending down and restraining their scent from going to far. It was a neat little trick I had learned after getting caught off guard a few too many times.

I put my finger on the ground to draw out a plan that consisted of them staying back and me weakening the wolves. I wasn’t sure how exp was distributed but I could only go with the guess that the one with the last hit got it.

Adam’s eyes bore through me, but I didn’t mind it. From what I remembered he was overprotective of his sister who happened to be here so I could understand why he would be wary of me.

Alastor seemed indifferent to my existence but wary as well. I didn’t need to be a genius to tell he barely trusted me.

Evelyn was different from what I remembered, not in a bad way, but I could tell she didn’t trust me either

Observing these things had put a dampener on my mood. I knew there was no way they could trust me without even knowing what I looked like but me revealing myself would pull me into yet another situation I had minimal control over. I was just going to check on them for a second with the now added goal of helping them catch up to me in terms of levels for a little bit since it seemed they wanted to get strong too.

Their reasons were probably different than mine but I didn’t really care.

I guess I wanted to grab hold of these flimsy relationships before they turned into dust, even if only through another persona. However much sense that made.

I glanced at the wolves and got to work incapacitating them. It took less than 5 minutes, but it was worth it as I got to see the trio fight. Adam’s game plan was simple. Punch till they die. It was simple but effective so I had no quarrel, but it caught me off guard as I hadn’t expected someone like him to fight that way. Alastor was even weirder. He turned into some type of werewolf thing but didn’t fight wildly like how you’d expect him too. If anything I could confidently say he could beat me in a fight at this very moment if he wanted too. The wolves simply looked be playing to his tune. Evelyn seemed to be the magician type as every time a wolf would pounce, she’d open up a small portal type hole that redirected it’s attack to itself. Again another person who could beat me in a fight.

Looking at it my only advantage probably really was my higher stats.

Alastor breathed out a sentence as he finished off the last of the wolves. “That was -huff- exhilarating”

The battle was pretty quick and smooth considering they were level 1 which kind of put me off guard for a second but I didn’t think much of it.

I put a thumbs signifying they had done a good job. I wasn’t sure how condescending that came across as but I hoped it wasn’t that bad, as I couldn’t take it back now.

Continuing for a couple more hours they fought until they were all more or less close to level 15. At that point I realized I had nothing much else to do but to intrude on their lives.

‘Has this become a bad habit of mine?’

I had once again inserted myself into someone else's life and was about to disappear just as quickly. I looked at them as they started recuperating from their latest fight, and stood up. Their eyes were drawn at my sudden movement, and stayed there. I could see them tense up.

‘I should’ve known, I’m still too naive . . . And stupid.’

I berated myself for even coming up with the idea of meeting up with them in a mask, like what was I thinking?

My eyes lingered on them for a second before I gave them a wave, and launched off.

“Stupid, Stupid, Stupid, Stupid, What the fuck is wrong with me!”

———

Evelyn was the first to talk. “So . . . That was weird.”

I had to admit, I was confused too. One minute he was helping us level, and the other he launched off leaving them with more questions than answers.

I looked at Alastor and inquired something that was on my mind this entire time. “So what do you think his purpose was in coming here.”

For the first time in a while Alastor looked slightly stumped which was a big thing. Even though I was an aspiring doctor, I could confidently say that Alastor was 100% smarter than I was. Even given his goofy nature at times his insight was always top notch.

Though for this situation I couldn’t blame him, this really was too out of nowhere.

After a second he broke out of our mutual stupor and started talking “I can hypothesize two things.”

Our eyes focused on him.

“Number 1. He’s a psycho that premeditatedly came here to train us, so he can get more levels when he kills us.

Number 2. He genuinely randomly came across us and wanted to to either A. Help us for the fuck of it or B. Scout out the competition.”

As he sited his hypotheses I nodded along. These were close to what I was thinking but what put a wrench in the equation was that it was just so out of nowhere that there was a big chance none of these were right. Things were different now. There were too many variables.

Evelyn was the first to comment. “I think it might be the second guess. I mean if he was so psychopathic wouldn’t he have killed us on sight. I don’t know I know my thinking might be a bit naive sometimes but somethings telling me it cant really be that bad.”

I shook my head. “I’m gonna have to disagree there are just too many variables in this for there to even be a safe guess. Humans are too unpredictable, and that’s if he was even human to begin with, you never know these days. I think our best course of action is to keep getting stronger.”

I truly thought that if we kept getting stronger who would even care what that person was.

Alastor though, somewhat disagreed. “I think we should stop for now. I think it’s good we know we can use these rifts to get stronger but the fact is we’re still in over our heads. Plus . . . Aren’t we forgetting about someone.”

———

The landing was rough. I didn't mind though. I needed something to take my mind off of the fact that I had no self control.

I punched a nearby tree to questionable results as I fell down from the pain. I hadn’t used any magic, so of course it wasn’t going to break. I wasn’t that strong yet.

Rolling around on the floor. I used my damaged hand to stand myself up causing the pain to multiply. I gritted my teeth as hobbled my way to a nearby tree. I looked at it for a few seconds before slamming my head into the dry bark.

The fall wasn’t any less painful. It felt sharp and it muddled my mind, but it was what was bound to happen after the outburst. I stayed on the ground for a couple dozen minutes after that contemplating my life once again before I stood up.

‘First thing’s first, I’m going to find the mana source.’

I’d been procrastinating by staying with the trio, but now I was going to focus on finding the source of this mana as soon as possible.

So, once again, I launched myself in the air. When I reach the apex of my launch I closed my eyes and spread out my breeze domain. It was drastically thinned and it was taking large amount of mana out of me but I was determined to find that damn source.

My falling body wasn’t a problem for me but an advantage as the way I was spreading out my domain was layer by layer and not a giant dome. I turned out to be more efficient this way as I spent less mana as I spread it out.

Falling for a good ten seconds I realized that it couldn’t have been in the air so I stopped the breeze domain up until I reached the height of the tallest tree. At this point I started slowing myself down so as to resume the domain. Spreading it out once more I suddenly stopped. I lost control over my magic and the rest of the way down. The pain was negligible. What I was truly worried about was what my breeze domain had caught a few hundred meters behind me.

When I had spread out the domain something caught me off guard by staring back. It was big. Very big.

‘Fuck, is this the source . . .’

I was assuming this was another type of wolf, but compared to the other alpha wolf I saw this one looked 3 times bigger. It made the other look like a child.

‘I don’t think I wanna fight this thing, I mean it noticed me from so far aw- and it’s chasing me!’

‘Fuck!’

I launched myself forward putting all safety on the back burner as I put everything to get the fuck away from that thing. It was fast, too fast.

My escape didn’t last for long as I felt it catch up to me now merely a few meters behind me.

It was fucking with me. I should’ve been dead by now, and yet it was keeping up with my speed leisurely as it looked at me like a new toy.

‘Fuck.’

I could tell it was smiling. What kind of scary smile was that?

I tried speeding up but before I could realize what was going on I was flung off my path.

It had head-butted me into a tree.

Congratulations you’ve unlocked [ General Skill: Pain Resistance ]

‘Motherfuckerrr!!!’

I could guess It hadn’t even bothered to just end me because it was messing with me, but fuck. If that was just playing around I didn’t want to stay for much longer. The new skill was further proof that this monster was strong, too strong for me to handle at the current moment.

As my body finally slid down from the tree, I tried putting all of my strength into my body to get out of here. I was outclassed. There was no way I could win. Using the strength I had left I looked up to stare the wolf down.

[ Alpha Wolf - ? ]

This was the first monster I couldn’t fully identify. At this point I wasn’t even surprised. A small bated breath left my mouth as I finally stood up. We were a good 20 meters apart but that didn’t help me relax at all. My hands tightened full force to the point I could barely feel them.

Our eyes met. Prey to Predator, Predator to Prey. In which order that was in was clear, for now. It’s times like these I wish I had charged my phone somehow.

My train of thought of course didn’t stay in that station as the Giant Wolf pounced at me. I didn’t want to die but all of the sudden a crazy idea sprouted in my head.

‘I’m so crazy . . .’

“I’m so fucking insane.”

The wolf seemed confused by sudden rambling but only for a second as it continued it’s pounce. I could only dodge near the last second. These were the ramblings of a measly human on his last feet.

Our lopsided dance continued to my detriment as I tried to pierce it’s skin with no result to show for it. The plan currently brewing in my head was insane. Granted, it was this kind of insane I was going to need to get out of this sequence breaking dickhead of a boss.

One wind slash after the other I exhausted my mana trying to keep the wolf away just waiting for the chance to enact my crazy plan. The wolf of course didn’t give me that chance as it continued. It’s arrogance was clear but it would be his downfall as he continued to play with me. Then, it came, the opportunity I was looking for. The wolf, finally tired of our little dance pounced a final time as it held it’s mouth wide open ready to munch on my bones.

Unfortunately for it though, this was what I was looking for. I launched myself inside it’s mouth, holding my breath for this crazy plan to work. I gathered wind similar to how I did when I imploded some wolves heads. It was crazy strong and what I was hoping for was for it’s insides to not be as strong as it’s outsides.

Its insides resisted for a couple seconds before I got the notification I was waiting for.

You have defeated [ Alpha Wolf - lv. 27 ]

[ Class: Wind Mage ] has reached level 15 ( 10 stat points awarded)

Congratulation of being the first on your planet to close a breach.

Title Granted: [Planetary Trailblazer]

Breach will fully collapse in 1 hour.

The now dead wolf’s slimy insides collapsed on me as I fell along with it’s now limp body. My chest rose and fell for what must’ve been a million times before I finally calmed down.

‘That was too fucking scary!!’

‘If luck was a stat right now mine would be at least 100!’

I had almost died right then and there so obviously my reaction had some basis. I was too freaked out to think so for a while I just laid down.

After a what was about 10 minutes of staring at the sky laying down in dead wolf guts, I stood up as the smell was starting to get worse.

I looked down at the clothes I was wearing and was met with the aforementioned smelly guts.

“Aish, I just got these clothes too.”

Now looking at the notifications I had gotten after the wolf’s death I noticed I had reached level 15 and another title.

[Planetary Trailblazer]

I looked at the info

[ Planetary Trailblazer ]

As a newly initiated planet in the system trailblazers are to be expected and you are one of them. Having been the first to complete a significant task that has never been done before, you speed ahead of others as you pull the development of your home planet along with you.

-Experience gained is increased by 10%

The experience increase seemed like a pretty big deal seeing it was on a most likely uber rare title. My increase to level 15 was also pretty cool, and counting the number of unused points I hadn’t used yet brought me up to 40.

I had no Idea what a breach collapse was but I assumed it wouldn’t be good if I stayed around to find and so I walked away from the wolf. Before I could really the wolf for good though I turned back to take one last look at this monster that had almost taken my life.

My hands squeezed as I silently steeled my resolve once more.

———

As soon as I walked out of the breach I felt what the system meant by collapsing. The strong mana that had attracted me here was disappearing by the droves. What would have happened if I stayed in there any longer wasn’t something I was sure I wanted to find out after all that “excitement”.

Luckily for me there didn’t seem to be many people around so my bloody clothes were going to go unnoticed for a good while. Taking advantage of that fact I made my towards a nearby store and snatched some new clothes fitting myself with a new hoodie, and some presentable pants that I saw out of the corner of my eyes.

I wasn’t sure what to do now that I had made that breach collapse.

Sure I had my general goal of getting stronger and finding my brother but what the fuck was I going to do in the middle?

I stopped walking briefly to look around me. It was kind of crazy that everything was reset to what it used to look like. The scale of power these things operated on were entirely too . . . godly for me to wrap my head around.

Did I want that type of power? Sure who wouldn’t. It was something you couldn’t even dare to dream about.

Maybe reaching that far could be a long term goal but I didn’t want it to envelop all my life. I’d seen to much media where the protagonists were watered down into battle driven maniacs.

Battle was fun. I could understood that, but I honestly didn’t think I wanted to become a battle crazed junkie. If it happened, cool. If it didn’t, cool.

Thinking about my circumstances a bit more would most likely scare the fuck out of me. I had almost just died and I just walked most of it off like it was nothing. Humanity really was scary.

I decided to walk along to see if I could spot anyone that had notice the breach collapse, but from what I could see either no one saw, or no one cared.

Though, walking in the middle of the crowd I suddenly remembered something that I had felt was missing, and it came back to me that I needed to charge my phone.

‘How stupid of me.’

I went back to the general store where I had gotten my clothes and started searching for a phone charger replacement which I soon found. It wasn’t long until I reluctantly sat somewhere and charged the damned phone thinking about what was to come, and what the fuck I was going to eat tonight.

After a while though, it finally turned on. I had missed my dear phone, and the niceties it brought me. A lot of places had started restarting surprisingly fast considering what had just happened, but what were humans if not adaptable.

I walked in no particular direction, and pulled out my phone. The perfect mood for some music.

[ Thy Mission ]

-| Silence | debuff is removed.

-Intelligence temporarily increased by 30%

-Dexterity temporarily increased by 30%

I had some things I wanted to see.

———

It was now 2 AM in the morning.

Laying on my right was an actress who’s name Id forgotten. Laying on my left was the [ Gen 0 Seedling ] who I’d gotten to know better after an . . . Unfortunate first impression.

You could call it kidnapping, but I thought of it as a temporary relocation. They were pretty pissed at first, but after a couple months of talking, and connecting with them we got pretty close. The fact that I also had the same power as them now made it clear to me that my investment was all worth it.

My subordinates were surprised as to why I would interact with them directly. After all, I was a multi-billionaire. I could pay someone millions and earn it all back in a couple days. It wasn’t even a sweat off of my back.

I’d done this many times for many of my, projects, but even at first glance I knew this was different than any thing I could have ever done in my life, and if I wanted it done right I would have to do it myself. I made myself vulnerable to someone who could potentially kill me in the future, opened myself up to them, and grew them up myself.

Brainwashing was a mean word, I wouldn’t think of it like that. I thought it could be better described as sympathetic influencing. I never had liked these curt ways of describing such circumstances.

They were in a position in their life where even if I let them go, their life would be in a less than favorable position.

They had no living relatives, their job outlooks were spotty at best, and they felt as if no one cared for them. Which was were I came in.

I could be their new family, with me they didn’t have to worry about job options, I was a billionaire. With me they could feel as if they were loved, and at each step of the way I would be their shining beacon.

Sexual relations with a man wasn’t something I was averse to. Sex was sex, and pleasure was pleasure, what difference did it make for me if it was with a man or woman. He enjoyed it when I invited women, which we would proceed to “share” as he called it, but for most of these sessions it was between him and me. I enjoyed it.

He saw me as his partner now. Someone to confide to, someone to love, and I was all the satisfied with it. After who wouldn’t love to be in a relationship with a future power of the world.

There would’ve been more than him too if not for the incompetency of my subordinates in the Georgia branch. That batch had been fascinating but It seemed their powers grew too fast for me grasp on to. I lost the opportunity to form relations with them the moment they escaped.

Though finding them again proved to be easy, I couldn’t just try to form relations after what they went through. They would be instantly distrustful of me. Their lives were normal so there was nowhere I could insert myself into.

A sigh escape my lips as I lifted myself off of the bed. I put on my slippers and walked towards my bathroom. Once inside I walked towards the mirror.

Brown hair, perfect teeth, perfect eyes, nicely shaped nose. I could be seen as perfect in the eyes of a lot of people.

How boring.

I walked back to my bed as I heard I buzz coming from my night-stand. A notification, I rarely got those as I only kept a couple apps, and the only notifications I got where texts that were deemed too important for my subordinates not to take care of it.

I checked it, and to my surprise, It was one of the escaped seedlings. Though I couldn’t see his face I recognized the back of his head from the many videos I had saw of him from the Georgia Branch. The video displayed him saving a girl from falling debris. His speed so fast he barely even touched ground, and magic so strong he was capable of lifting such a large looking rock.

I must’ve replayed the video about a hundred times.

How interesting.