Windsor Freeman watched the boy collapse in front of him. The usual timid energy of the rift now exploded violently. Many people in the room staggered, a few, bent to puke. Despite his inhumane resistance, Windsor’s mind and body rattled with the invasive energy.

Wax grunted, barely holding himself up, Croft dropped to his knees and vomited.

“Mr President,” Pizzaro’s weak but concerned voice came from behind. “Danger’s… coming.”

Pizzaro’s Talent detected danger and warned him. Very useful man to keep around, although Pizzaro’s Talent was adjusted to his power level and most threats reported by Pizzaro couldn’t harm Windsor.

Windsor believed this warning to be the same. Whatever lived inside the rift had to be Level 1 and couldn’t pose a threat to Windsor’s monstrous strength. He felt fine facing it on his own.

“I’ll deal with it.”

Windsor brimmed with confidence. It couldn’t be any other way. He was the strongest man in the solar system. Though some exotic Talent could challenge him if they reached Level 7.

The flickering light changed colour, becoming a mix of black and violet, then, it started to cut the air in two directions – up and down. A portal is forming. Croft and others were right after all. His most trusted division, Hidden Hand worked on the Rift Theory for a very long time. They’d predicted the existence of rifts before they found this one here. Now that they had a key, Windsor glanced down at the boy, they’d start looking for more rifts.

“Wax, get the boy out of here.”

The lights stopped moving and spiritual energy began vibrating. It was less potent than the explosion but his enhanced instinct warned him of the incoming danger. That showed how much quicker Pizzaro’s Talent was.

Wax moved and grabbed the boy, at the same time shadows exploded out of the rift. Many of them. The shadows turned out to be wolves. They looked angry. Wax evaded their bites with ease as his Level 5 body should have. He also scooped Croft and moved away.

Soon, Windsor realized his mistake. Wolves either ignored or feared him and dispersed in all directions. Most Low-Level staff present in the cavern didn’t manage to get up yet. They posed easy prey for the enraged wolves.

“Soldiers! Help the staff!” Windsor boomed, for a short second, wolves froze.

They had more squads prepared in the corridor. There was a good chance that they weren’t affected by the spiritual explosion.

The wolves shook off Windsor’s shout and roared. The rift spat them out endlessly.

Soon, bullets flew in the air as the soldiers began their offence. Windsor didn’t move from his spot, mesmerized by the fact that none of the wolves approached him. There had to be over a hundred of them out of the rift. They jumped on the desks, pummeled through the equipment as if it didn’t stand there.

It was time for Windsor to take action. He waited for this. He moved. The first wolf died under Windsor’s opened palm, not even knowing what killed it.

Warg

Level

1

Abilities

-

Details

Basic dweller of rifts

Not a wolf then, but a warg. Such an animal didn’t exist on Earth. Windsor immediately moved again, killed another warg barehanded. He started slaughtering the rift beasts, one after another. But there were too many of them. Even with the soldiers gunning them down, the rift produced wargs with unending maliciousness.

Windsor turned his head to the slit in the air. If the beasts wouldn’t stop coming through, his soldiers would run out of bullets eventually.

“Pizzaro! Moonbane!” he shouted.

His voice boomed louder than the scream of weapons, cries of pain and rage or roars and growls of wargs. The answer didn’t come and he turned his back to the rift. He noticed his two adjutants near the entrance, shooting the wargs. It seemed the bullets weren’t very effective against these beasts. Windsor took a better look at the cavern, almost everything was destroyed, wargs rushed toward the defenders, avoiding him. Dozens of wargs lay dead, he also noticed human bodies strewn all over the floor. Not everyone managed to escape. He didn’t dwell on this. Sometimes sacrifice was necessary.

He checked his progress status toward Level 11 and what he saw put a smile on his face. The essence started adding up to the progress bar. Level 10 wasn’t the cap after all. Windsor knew that in his bones. It would have made little sense. There were ways to upgrade Talents and Level 10 didn’t even scratch the surface of what was possible.

Leaving his adjutants to their own devices, Windsor moved toward the rift. He didn’t really need Moonbane and Pizzaro in this fight. Their Levels were too low anyway.

Rift (Common)

Level

1

Status

Open (Ruptured)

Requirements

-

Modifiers

-

Details

This rift contains a higher number of basic monsters and a boss (overcharge effect).

Affinity

Nature

Special Status

Overcharged, Unexplored

The wealth of information surprised Windsor. The last report failed to mention changes in ‘Special Status’ or ‘Details’. The last version of ‘Details’ said that the rift contained only basic monsters. This time around, there was a boss. And what was the Overcharged status? It looked like the spiritual interface of the rifts wasn’t set in stone. Windsor wondered what else it hid. Well, it was a musing for another day. He needed to stop the flow of the damned monsters.

Researchers of Hidden Hand had several hypotheses as to the nature of the rift. Was it a one-way portal only for the monsters to spawn here endlessly or could they enter it? The debate was heated, often full of details and branching arguments exploring the nature of the world. Windsor wasn’t interested in such discussions. He just wanted to know what lay beyond the rift. And now he had a chance to finally uncover the biggest mystery of the world.

He pushed his hand through the wound in the space and without a prompt, the world around him shifted. His spiritual sense went haywire for a second, then he felt it. A faint pressure of essence. It was so delicate he wondered if it was real. His other senses required more time to adjust to the change and when they did, Windsor couldn’t believe his eyes, or nose, or ears.

He stood in the middle of an autumn forest. The sky overhead was clouded, hinting rain…

HOWLS…

Wargs were everywhere and unlike inside the cavern, these here didn’t seem to fear him. The closest ones darted at him, baring their canines and ploughing the leaf-covered ground with their claws. Windsor stood, motionless, watching, mesmerised. A few seconds ago he was in a cave, a step later and he appeared in the middle of a forest… He’d used portals before, the World Government employed many such Talent users. But the rift took him from Jamaica to somewhere in… Eastern Europe? No one in the world had this kind of range though. Where am I?

Wargs bit into his thighs, calves, forearms. Their attacks couldn’t shave even a sliver of his HP. It was mostly because his Level 10 body possessed innate damage reduction or rather as scientists described it, each level had a new damage reduction threshold. Tests had been done and some serious numbers crunched, Windsor didn’t know the details, but he wasn’t an idiot to ignore the stuff that could save his life if the current Level 7s decided to turn against him. In simple terms, higher-level materials were stronger and they proved it by comparing bones, muscles and skin of people from different Levels. If the same was true for the materials from the rifts… it meant the beginning of a completely new economy. Once they found high-level rifts, even simple things like wood or stone would be worth a lot more.

Finally, he focused on the wargs that attacked him ceaselessly. In that second, they stopped being monsters to him but sacks full of essence he desired more than anything.

Talent

Type

Categories

Details

Essence Thief

Active

Essence

Ability to steal essence from living beings without killing them. Mana cost depends on Mind attribute. Speed depends on Dexterity attribute. No cooldown.

Level 5 Upgrade (Minor)

Essence Thief gains increased effectiveness against lower-level beings.

Level 10 Upgrade (Major)

Essence Thief has no cooldown.

He wouldn’t reap too much benefit from Level 1 wargs even considering his Level 5 Talent upgrade. Obviously, it’d add up to something with so many wargs in the forest. A glance told him that there had to be over five hundred beasts in this part alone.

He turned his Talent on and started syphoning the essence. It felt different from the essence stolen from humans. He couldn’t place the difference but he liked this essence better. Windsor began laughing like a madman. Soon, the world would truly belong to him. Once he crossed Level 10, his rivals and enemies would crumble. With exclusive access to the rifts (his researchers predicted the existence of higher-level rifts), he’d grow while the rest of his rivals slowly trudged forward until they stopped at the non-rift level cap.

Windsor shook his head, realizing that he was getting carried away. He had a job to do. He looked down at the wargs, the monsters stumbled around. The effect of losing essence wasn’t pleasant. Despite Windsor’s efforts, both upgrades (at Level 5 and 10) didn’t make Essence Thief unnoticeable or add range to the Talent. These things were on the Talent tree, somewhere. Sometimes, he had been having moments where he could see farther into the Talent tree due to his high Spirit attribute. But it clearly wasn’t high enough to see it without obstructions.

After thirty minutes of standing motionlessly, Windsor started to grow bored. The amount of essence stolen by his Talent was pitiful, unfortunately. He didn’t see the point of wasting his time. Stealing essence from the wargs gained him 10% of the amount he received for killing a warg, and the process wasn’t instant.

“Stupid.” I should’ve brought a sword.

Windsor moved and killing began. It indeed was a pain to use bare hands to kill the monsters. All Windsor needed was a single punch but the issue was, the wargs numbers seemed endless.

Perhaps, I have to defeat the boss to stop the wargs.

It sounded like a reasonable idea. The rift’s details mentioned the boss.

Windsor continued killing, while essence was pouring into his body. It was a refreshing feeling. For three years, Windsor hadn’t experienced it. Human essence couldn’t go beyond Level 10 for some reason.

Minutes turned into hours and though it seemed like days, the time of a day didn’t change inside the rift. Windsor strolled through the forest, wargs attacked him from all sides.

Almost with mindless glee, Windsor came to a stop. A clearing opened before him. Those wargs that remained didn’t approach him. Curious. Soon the explanation presented itself in a form of a large warg. It stood twice as high as others, its red eyes glared at Windsor with hatred.

Growl.

Windsor smiled. Even if the beast was twice as strong as a normal warg, it wouldn’t make a difference. The level damage reduction was a boon to the high levels making them extremely hard to kill by the weaklings.

The large warg didn’t mind it though, it charged. Whatever Windsor expected from the creature, as his fist sailed toward it, didn’t materialize. His attack connected with the large warg’s head, splintering the skull and making a sickening dent in its head. Instantly messages popped out.

The rift’s boss has been killed.

The Overcharge effect is removed.

The monsters will no longer spawn.

You gain a single instance of the Explorer buff.

The Explorer buff grants +30% to find a higher rarity item or skill from the reward chest.

The system messages made Windsor pause. So this was the rift’s boss? Seriously?

Lesser Warg Pack Leader (Boss)

Level

2

Abilities

-

Details

Basic dweller of rifts

The moment Windsor killed it, a new message popped in his spiritual interface that showed the basic information about the creature. It was a Level 2… but apart from the higher level and larger size, it seemed not much different than the average warg. It didn’t possess any abilities. It was a disappointment.

“I should’ve stolen its essence first,” Windsor muttered to himself. All this time in the rift and the progress toward the next level didn’t even reach 1%. The rate of essence gain was frustratingly slow. How many times would he need to return to this rift before he gained another Level? He wondered. And what was the Overcharge effect? Now that it was removed, how would it affect the rift? He still was excited about the Explorer buff though. What truly piqued his attention was the mentioning of skill. Could it be that all the Talents that they believed to be useless because they referred to skills and skills didn’t exist… until now, were no longer useless?

With that thought, Windsor killed the remaining wargs that were trying to bite his legs. His clothes were shredded but his skin was undamaged by the weak fangs of the wargs. Then he approached a knee-high chest at the other side of the clearing.

“An ordinary chest in a rift that perhaps exists outside of time and space? How curious.”

The chest wasn’t locked in any visible way. Windsor flipped the metal flaps open and whistled. Inside he found a scroll, a crystal and a rusty sword. He didn’t immediately reach for the items laying at the bottom. This was a moment he’d dreamed of when he’d become the President and the Head of the World Government years ago. Deep down, Windsor Freeman knew the world was incomplete. The system seemed designed by an intelligent being, a god most likely. Why then were so many aspects left incomplete? Attributes didn’t make sense. The damage reduction gained with each level was such a powerful tool while the attributes gain was pitiful in comparison. The Spirit attribute was the clearest example. At Level 1 people could see nothing but basic information about their Talent. As the Spirit attribute increased more and more of the spiritual information was released but there wasn’t any logic to it that was present in the rest of the system. Windsor’s scientists did great work researching it and their conclusions backed up his instinctual predictions.

“I was right.”

The first he picked up the rusty sword.

Rusty Sword (Common)

???

Level 1

This was what the system had to say about the sword. The system obscured some information and Windsor was unhappy that his Spirit attribute wasn’t high enough to reveal it. He put the sword aside. It’d be handy while clearing the rest of the wargs.

The next thing Windsor picked up was a crystal. It looked like a pearly icicle, no larger than a thumb. The moment Windsor touched it, he felt the power roiling inside it.

Skill Shard

???

(???)

There was even less information here. But who cares? This was a skill shard. This was the missing piece in the system. If this was what Windsor believed it to be then they’d gained the first proof that the system had hidden functions. It raised another, more serious question – was this a natural phenomenon? If not, why and who sealed the rifts?

Windsor hid the skill shard inside his jacket’s pocket. It was in a far better state than his trousers.

Finally, he picked up the scroll.

Scroll of Identification

(Common)

Level 1

This time information wasn’t withheld and Windsor gained knowledge about the scroll of identification. It was the cornerstone of the rifts. Without it, most items and all skills couldn’t be used. This thing is important. It must be tightly controlled. And it is a consumable item.

And at this moment, the first seed of a new monetary system was thus born.

***

Waxilium Earl huffed. Hours passed since the rift had been opened and the wargs had started pouring out of it. Their number was mind-boggling. They ran out of bullets an hour ago and had to revert to using knives or hand combat.

Even with the stamina of Level 5, Waxilium felt his strength begin to waver. He’d have sealed the cavern if not for the President who had entered the rift. Waxilium had tried to send a squad into the rift to check on the President but a group of Level 3s and 4scouldn’t get through.

Waxilium, soaked with the blood of the wargs, left the corridor right outside the cavern where they made a stand. He needed to talk with Croft about the available options. Waxilium couldn’t wait for the President for eternity. Regardless of whether Freeman needed their help or not, Waxilium had to send a rescue party. Both Freeman’s sidekicks accused him of not trying hard enough but they, too, couldn’t make it to the rift. He ignored them for now and strolled to the control room below the cavern.

It was in a state of chaos. Croft didn’t react when Waxilium entered the room nor did anyone else. Some researchers sat motionlessly and stared at the computer screens, while the rest shouted at each other like madmen.

Waxilium considered slamming the door to let everyone inside know that he entered. He didn’t like being ignored. On the other hand, Waxilium got where he was now because he learned to not throw tantrums each time those below showed him a lack of respect. His siblings were like this and none of them was a Lord or Lady.

It didn’t take long for Waxilium to make sense of the situation. He initially suspected that they were worried about the President. But without Moonbane and Pizzaro here, such devotion among this lot would be unnatural, then he thought that maybe something about the data from the rift’s opening got corrupted. But they wouldn’t be behaving like chimpanzees.

One look at the closest computer screen dismissed both notions. Waxilium froze. They were watching the news, the world was on fire and monsters were everywhere.