Keynes woke up to eat another ghost cherry. It was the middle of the night. Tomorrow was going to be the sixth day of Keynes’s stay with Hugo and Sophie, the elderly couple running a seemingly innocent gardening business.

What Keynes came to learn was that he’d known nothing about the world. There was another, hidden layer where people had plants with magical properties. From this new perspective, it seemed laughable not to expect this. People had truly crazy Talents that didn’t obey the laws of physics. They crafted and invented miracles. What was then so different about magical gardening? The answer, unfortunately, remained out of Keynes’s reach.

In the last five days, Keynes had memorised every recipe, method and ingredient Hugo had shown him. There were some areas where Hugo didn’t venture in his explanations. For one, he didn’t want to explore the harmful attributes even though he’d grown such plants in the past. Another topic he was reluctant to talk about was inedible plants. He argued that Keynes should leave that branch of gardening alone as there were nothing but issues.

Keynes hadn’t pressed the man, he didn’t really need to. What Hugo had given to him was a wealth of knowledge Keynes could expand further by himself. Obviously, there were fundamental issues Keynes ignored for now. For instance, to start gardening he’d need to find a place and build a garden, which he didn’t plan to do at the moment. But something in his conversations with Hugo had made him curious. Was there a glyph of rapid growth? Keynes’s father had never mentioned one but it meant nothing, Keynes had found his father’s job boring and had avoided him whenever he’d talked about glyphs.

But if there were glyphs like that, could Keynes use his dimensional space to keep the plant in the pre-growth phase, take them out, use the glyph and get the results he desired? This could be the way to go until Keynes would find a better solution. The gardening was too valuable to not use it.

Keynes ate the ghost cherry and sneaked out of the cottage. There were hundreds of thoughts swirling in his head. Somehow, Vivena, Fen, Ren and Christopher Wolf had banded together and were on the run.

What about my parents? Have they found and rescued them? If they haven’t, then it is a matter of time before Freeman makes an announcement and threatens their lives. I need to find a way to contact Ren.

While the discovery of magical gardening was one thing, the larger picture where someone was actively suppressing the groundbreaking information was another. It indicated that there could be other things hidden from the world.

Maybe not every nutter from the dark Web is wrong.

But figuring out what was the truth and what was the lie seemed impossible.

Then there was the matter of his training, progression and cultivation. Perhaps cultivation was the most important of the three things. The spiritual message stated that without it humankind couldn’t get strong. Unfortunately, cultivation required essence and the closest rift was in Freeman’s hands.

France had 27 rifts after the second outbreak. It wasn’t an impressive number when taking into account how many people lived in northern France. The entire northern coast of France was one supercity with 3 billion people.

The only viable place was the Alps where many rifts were still uncleared because of the difficult terrain.

That’s a long trip but there is nothing else to learn from Hugo here.

Keynes strolled through the orchard, occasionally picking and eating an apple. They didn’t possess any magical properties except for the divine flavour. Keynes stopped at the edge of the orchard and glanced at the lake that was lit by something luminescent at its bottom as if a miniature sun was kept there.

Keynes still had spiritual messages to read from the rift opening, though the first words made him dismiss the messages for now. Not that they were unimportant, they terrified him.

The last thing he worried about was tracking Talents. When he’d made his plans in Scotland, he hadn’t taken them into account. A glaring mistake on his part.

He sat down, leaning against an apple tree and his thoughts returned to the Orb of Perfection. He’d never heard this term before advancing to Level 2. He didn’t know what it would do and perhaps the sensible way would be to wait until he could increase his Spirit but he’d left sensible paths behind him. As he played with the orb in his mind, he learned one important thing. He could apply the orb to almost everything: his attributes, technique, buffs and even his Talent, which was surprising. Spirit and debuffs were the most prominent things he couldn’t apply the orb to. The same was true for his items, the ring and the pouch.

Using it on one of his attributes seemed like a no-brainer. But so it did with enhanced learning, purified body or photographic memory. Any of these choices sounded good.

He dismissed his Talent out of hand as he didn’t see a good outcome. Perhaps, he was being foolish and shortsighted. It was entirely possible but he came to the realisation that he wasn’t some omniscient being that would always choose the right thing.

But he didn’t need to, mistakes were part of the journey.

Keynes knew what he wanted and what he needed. He had to become a ghost, a man unshackled and free. Freeman didn’t seem like someone who would stop chasing Keynes, ever.

The ghost cherry was amazing but it only lasted for an hour and soon its toxicity was going to kick in. Even if Hugo was wrong about the time frame and Keynes’s maxed-out Vitality and the purified body could postpone the harmful effects, it wouldn’t solve Keynes’s problem. Eventually, he was going to lose the untraceable buff and Freeman’s trackers were going to find him.

And that was unacceptable.

Keynes picked the only choice that could take him closer to his goal.

Would you like to apply the Orb of Perfection to the Untraceable buff?

Yes/No

-

System Warning: the effects of applying the Orb of Perfection are irrevocable!

-

System Warning: the effects of applying the Orb of Perfection are unknown!

-

System Warning: the Orb of Perfection will be consumed. Gain Level 3 Perfect State to gain another Orb of Perfection.

Keynes didn’t hesitate and picked ‘Yes’.

His body was jolted by a powerful bolt of spiritual energy. He stifled a grunt as spiritual energy worked through him. Then the pain started and it got to the point where Keynes’s vision blurred and he tried to scream but his body didn’t listen to him.

It lasted for an undefined amount of time, the stars moved a little bit but Keynes didn’t know how to calculate that nor did he care. He just returned from hell where his spiritual core had burned mercilessly.

Untraceable buff (medium, temporary) perfected into Untraceable buff (medium, permanent).

-

New Skill acquired!

Spiritual Ghost (active)

What the… a skill? I received a SKILL? But how…

Keynes immediately focused on the skill and was rewarded with its description.

[Spiritual Ghost] (active)

Conceal your spiritual presence for 60 seconds. Cooldown: 1 hour. Mana cost: 35.

This skill comes from the Untraceable buff and cannot be levelled up. It scales with levels and the Spirit stages.

“This is nuts.”

***

Lawerence Lowe was woken up by his personal alarm. He scrambled off the sofa on which he slept and checked the monitoring system. One of the spiritual arrays picked up a powerful outburst of spiritual energy in southern France.

He quickly rearranged the satellites the Institute had available but found nothing of interest there. The burst of energy was short but much more intense than the second outbreak. What could it be? Since the first outbreak, they’d encountered seven such bursts. This one was eighth. Lawerence and his scientists had concluded that some ascenders established a strong spiritual connection and hence the powerful spiritual energy transfer. But the question was what did they do? All the expeditions to find out what had happened failed.

For a brief moment, Lawerence considered reporting it to the President but then he thought better of it. Nowadays, President Freeman wasn’t in the best mood. Something to do with one of his subjects running away. Lawerence didn’t know the details even though he was the World Government Chief Scientist. It didn’t bother him though. His mind, roused from the sleep, returned to the Helios Protocol. The last attack on the Institute and the loss of many key scientists might have moved the breakthrough away for several years. It was baffling that some ancient minds had concocted such a spiritual superstructure that couldn’t be decoded by the current level of expertise and technology.

***

Keynes finally got proper sleep. His body didn’t need more than four hours to get refreshed. When he got downstairs to eat breakfast, he found Sophie staring at him suspiciously.

“Do I have something on my face?”

“You look different,” she said.

Keynes panicked a little. Did the orb change his face?

“How?” he asked more urgently.

“Refreshed, relaxed. Although this frown does take my initial impression away.”

“Ah.”

With relief, he slumped on a chair.

“You still have two days with us?” she asked.

“Y—” He stopped. It’d been his ill-thought plan to stay with the couple for seven days, learn from Hugo and leave. Obviously, he’d missed one important detail. Once he stopped taking the ghost cherries it’d be possible to track him down. But the problem was solved. “I may need to leave today.”

“Oh, why?”

“I think Hugo taught me everything he wanted to.”

“I understand,” Sophie said, noticing Keynes’s discomfort. “Whatever your circumstances, I wish you the best of luck, Brandon.”

Keynes had an ugly urge to tell them his true name but that would be dangerous for them and him. What if the World Government decided to sweep the area and question every person? Not knowing the truth was better than lying.

“Thank you, I will never forget your hospitality.”

She smiled, then called her husband to come downstairs.

Hugo came a few minutes later, grumbling and complaining. A hangover was plain on his face. The leaves he liked to chew might be the culprit but Keynes bet that Hugo knew this much himself.

“What’s the matter? Brandon has free time until the afternoon.”

Sophie looked at Keynes expectantly.

“I think about leaving today,” Keynes said.

“Today? Why?” Hugo scratched his slowly developing beard. “I still haven’t evaluated what you had learnt. So far it was me talking and you listening, with a few questions here and there.”

Keynes had to hide his shock. He didn’t expect Hugo to care about him leaving but the man looked stricken because of Keynes’s decision. It didn’t change anything except for Keynes’s opinion about Hugo.

“I need to be on my way. I have to find a rift.” He needed to start cultivating to increase his Spirit and unlock the Spiritual Companion.

“A rift? Why?” Hugo asked then had an ‘oh’ moment. “You’re going to sample the soil. Good because I need to talk to you about something. Do you remember when I said this isn’t exactly a charity, right?”

“Yes. I guess you need a sample of the rift soil?”

“Not exactly…”

“Hugo!” Sophie snapped. “You don’t mean to ask Brandon to do this.”

Hugo squinted at her then tsked annoyed.

“He can refuse if he wants.”

Sophie walked out of the kitchen leaving confused Keynes and determined Hugo.

“So, the thing I was going to ask you about… isn’t the rift soil. There is that gardener in Geneva…”

Okay, I know where it is going.

“I want you to go there and learn from him.”

Keynes blinked. Learn from him? That was a bizarre request.

“Why?”

“So you can return here and tell me everything you have learned from him. He’s an old fool who refuses to sell his discoveries even though he’s at death’s door.” And to think that Hugo was complaining about going out of business in several months. The old man clearly lied at one point or another.

“Alright… I’ll do my best.” At first, Keynes wasn’t convinced but knowing more wouldn’t hurt, right? “Do you need the rifle back?”

“No, although, I’d like to know if that was your Talent or something else. Since the first outbreak, we’ve heard many strange stories.”

The rifle appeared in Keynes’s hands and he explained what the dimensional space was. Hugo was practically drooling when his wife returned with a small white pebble. She placed it in Keynes’s hand. It felt magical but it didn’t have a spiritual interface so Keynes asked.

“What’s this?”

“It’s white agate. When you ever run into people that call themselves the Old Blood, show them this and tell them you’re from the Beauforts. It should get you out of a pinch.”

Keynes thanked her, mesmerised by the happiness his acceptance of the white agate gave her.

“Let’s have a farewell breakfast,” she said and started preparing it while Keynes and Hugo sat down by the table.

“Do you have any books about wild French plants?”

***

Hugo and Sophie sat in the orchard on the same bench Hugo had told Keynes his story. It was the evening of the day Keynes had left them.

“I am surprised you gave him your white agate.”

“And I am surprised you gave him your secrets.”

Hugo snorted, taking a bite of an apple.

“Hardly. I taught him the basics of the craft. If I dumped the secrets—”

“I’d have had to kill you then.” A voice from behind said.

Hugo and Sophie froze, they knew the voice.

“Sophie Beaufort and Hugo Horta,” the voice said. “I have to thank you though. You took very good care of the boy. Your cherries saved him from Windsor Freeman’s sniffing nose.”

“Are you here to finish me off?” Sophie asked, her voice trembling.

Hugo cursed himself for giving away his rifle not that it could harm this man.

“No. Your family broke the pact. They understood the consequences and met their demise. You weren't part of their foolishness. Now. I want you, Hugo Horta, to use the vines and tell Wagner Zimmermann to not accept the boy. Keynes Kid has grander things to attend to than your little farming dream. He has the world to save.”

When the silence stretched for over a minute Hugo slowly turned around finding nothing. His hands were shaking.

“He’s gone.”

Sophie’s only reply was tears streaming over her cheeks.

***

Keynes didn’t immediately leave Emerald Lake. The untraceable buff filled him with confidence and he wished to see what exactly was so special about this town before he travelled to the east, where the uncleared rifts were supposed to be, and later on, to Geneva to learn from Hugo’s rival.

To Keynes’s disappointment, most of the facilities and shops in Emerald Lake were closed. The disappearance of the residents around the town turned it into a place of ghosts. Keynes slinked about for a couple of hours until he decided to move on. The last place he wanted to visit was the hunting ground. It was easy to find as a wide road led there with large welcoming signs on each side.

The road ended with a parking lot and a massive gate. Ten metres high wall surrounded the hunting ground. The gate was locked. Judging by the appearance, no one had been here for days. Keynes found a door. It was locked. But to Keynes, this was an afterthought. His Talent opened the metal door. It was surprisingly sturdy, five centimetres thick. He entered a room that looked like a reception. The other end of the room had two metal doors and warnings all over them.

Keynes checked the room and decided it had to be a prep room. The empty racks had to hold weapons in the past. The only seats in the room were situated far away from the two doors and were near the wall. There was a coffee table as well and on it, Keynes found a catalogue.

“The Hunter’s Guide.”

He opened it and was surprised with a detailed description of the specimens available in the hunting ground. Except for a small detail, these animals and plants shouldn’t exist. Two-tailed panther, red-fur lion, tree-climbing crocodile? What were these things? Hugo had mentioned that they had DNA-modified prey here. However, these creatures looked and sounded nothing like prey.

Keynes put the catalogue into his dimensional space. It was getting a little crowded with stuff given to him by Sophie and Hugo.

He double-checked the prep room for the weapons but found nothing.

This is a bad idea, he reminded himself as he unlocked the door that led to the hunting ground. The door was as thick as the previous one. Keynes stepped outside and his breath was taken away. The door led to a twenty-on-twenty metres balcony with a view of the hunting ground, which lay a hundred metres below the balcony. Keynes looked to the left where the gate was and saw a large structure that resembled a lift.

Had this depression existed or had they built it? It was getting dark and details disappeared in the distance but the outline of the entire depression was quite visible. This couldn’t be a natural formation. They’d built it and the effect was stunning.

“The rich truly don’t know what to do with money,” he humoured himself then spied lifts that could take him down. “Should I be doing it?”

The forest beneath didn’t look anything like the French flora. It even smelled of damp moss. Most of it was drowning in shadows and Keynes decided to wait until the morning. The animals from the catalogue had many nasty features.

As he turned around, he heard the roars from below and his body shivered. It didn’t sound natural. Could it be? The French rift map didn’t have any rifts marked in this region. Oh. It didn’t have the exotic rift marked either. I missed that…

In this case, if a rift was down there, sleep would have to wait.