The rift lay less than a half kilometre from the lookout but Keynes needed to be careful to not rouse the wild bears, which in turn would alarm the hybrid.

Keynes had wondered how the lookout had the vision of the rift until he noticed the surveillance pillar. It seemed that such pillars were spread all over the hunting ground. The wealthy ones didn’t leave much to chance.

Several wild bears sniffed near the rift, blocking the entrance.

Any ideas? Keynes asked.

No, master.

So, what kind of companion are you?

The best one of course, master. She replied, although her cheerfulness was muted.

Once he dealt with the hybrid, Keynes was going to get serious answers from Alice. He had to know what she knew. There must be a reason for the existence of the Spiritual Companions.

Not seeing any other option, Keynes chose simple diversion. He used a solid, palm-sized rock and threw it over the other side. The wild bears reacted immediately, rushing to the source of the noise. Keynes jumped out of the hiding between two destroyed trunks and quietly slipped into the rift.

Rift (Common)

Level

2

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

Another Nature affinity. For some reason, it was the most common affinity from the ones Keynes had encountered.

It’s because the affinities attune to your Celestial Anchor, Alice explained.

Celestial Anchor? Wait… you can hear my thoughts?

I am part of you, do you remember? So yes, I can hear your thoughts. Celestial Anchor is an object in space that has a Spiritual Core.

Are you saying that Earth is a Celestial Anchor?

Yes. Whatever Earth is.

Their conversation ended there though. They were inside the overcharged rift. Having a casual conversation wasn’t a good idea.

The rift was an enormous rocky valley with occasional clumps of shrubs. The sun looked ordinary and hung directly above Keynes’s head. The sky was clear and had a beautiful, rich blue colour.

Alice flew out of Keynes and this time he felt his aura erupt like a beacon. The wild bears roared and growled, turning his way.

“Why have you left?” Keynes asked urgently.

“Master, staying in your core and actively controlling your aura isn’t pleasant.”

“Why?”

“First of all…”

Keynes stopped listening to her as the first wild bears reached him. He noticed that with an increase in mass, the number of rift monsters decreased. The wargs had come in much greater numbers than the wild bears. Guided by instinct and Kaito Ren’s scarce training, Keynes got out of the way of the charging monsters. They were around the size of a grizzly bear.

“We must kill the boss. That’s the only way to stop the rift from spawning the monsters, right?”

“Yes.”

Without a proper weapon and with a quickly growing number of wild bears, Keynes couldn’t fight on the even ground. He spied a steep slope and decided to use it to his advantage. He expected the boss to be at the end of the valley. It was larger than the Level 1 rifts he’d been to.

“This way,” he said and took off toward the rocky ascent.

The wild bears rushed after him.

“How are the rift monsters created?” Keynes asked as he started climbing.

"No idea," Alice replied while floating next to him. “But there is a way to find out.

Keynes reached the ledge, thirty metres above the ground, and stopped there, waiting for the wild bears to catch up. As the first monster’s paws touched the ledge, Keynes killed it with a precise thrust into its eye. As it died, the essence started flowing toward Keynes who decided to keep it inside him without inhibition.

Alice reacted immediately.

“What are you doing?”

“Experimenting?”

She became thoughtful, allowing Keynes to continue his little experimentation.

He moved alongside the ledge where the wild bears couldn’t assault him en masse. This form of fighting had one drawback. It was very time-consuming and Keynes realised that he might be here on a timer. His food provisions were almost used up.

Hours later, he got to the valley’s end. The essence was leaking out of him at an increasing rate. Whatever he was attempting here was clearly beyond his skill. Keynes’s only consolation was that Alice had seemed to remember something about cultivation and was going to explain it to him after he killed the boss.

His descent was harder as he needed to slay over three dozen wild bears on his way there, which took him two hours and a light wound on his back.

“You should not wait for the wound to close,” Alice warned him. “The number of wild bears will be repopulated in that time and you will have to start from square one. You want to kill the boss and reap the reward then leave the rift and return after it is recharged.”

That sounded reasonable.

The boss resided in a small depression surrounded by shrubs. Unlike the wargs, it was alone. When Keynes’s foot touched some invisible line, the large wild bear’s head turned his way.

It was twice the size of the ordinary wild bear. Oddly, it didn’t intimidate him. He found it strange so he asked Alice about it and—what was even odder—she answered him. Yes, he was being snarky at this point.

“There are several things at play here. The Purified Body is constantly removing a percentage of impurities from your body-- including your mind--keeping you healthier, mentally and physically. The improvements of your Mind attribute and Spirit offer some psychological benefits too. And there is Perfect State but I don’t know much abo—WATCH OUT!”

Keynes heard the boss run his way and waited for it to get closer. Keynes attacked first but the boss surprised him by deflecting his knife thrust. That thing was strong and fast.

Keynes checked its spiritual information and of course, the boss was Level 3.

“Do the rift monsters have attributes?”

“No,” Alice replied with confidence. “Only ascenders have attributes. The rift monster strength follows a different set of rules.”

“What set of rules?” Keynes asked between dodges.

“I don’t know—HIT IT HERE!” she pointed at the monster’s eye.

Keynes knew it, he’d been doing it for hours but the boss’ face was out of his reach and that made it much harder. Keynes danced around the boss until Alice advised him to use the rifle.

“You’re joking, right? I need to train my attributes.”

“Oh, snap, is this what you’re doing, master?” He could feel her ‘facepalm’ through their spiritual connection. “You’re doing it all wrong. You won’t have enough time at higher levels to max out your attributes and level up this way.”

Keynes really wanted to learn more about that but the boss was in the way of this conversation and Keynes grew tired of not knowing things. He took out the rifle from his dimensional space and opened fire. The bullets hit the Level 3 wild bear and even though it didn’t have any abilities because of its common rarity it still was a Level 3 monster.

Keynes emptied the magazine into the monster’s face then threw the rifle away. The bear had covered its face and Keynes exploited the monster’s momentary blindness. In three quick steps, Keynes got under the bear then slammed the chef knife into its throat. It went up to the pommel although with much resistance. The knife slipped out Keynes’s hand, staying in the monster’s throat.

The boss tried to roar but the damage to its throat prevented it from making a sound. It began drowning in its own blood but it didn’t go down. It lunged at Keynes who could only dodge as he didn’t have any more weapons. While Keynes evaded the boss’ attack, he tried to figure out what Alice had meant about his training. Was there a different method to train his attributes? Perhaps through a scroll like the lesser cultivation? That sounded plausible.

Eventually, the boss succumbed to blood loss or lack of oxygen and died.

“You understand that at some point such tricks won’t work, don’t you?” Alice said.

“I do,” Keynes said, then focused on the system messages.

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

“The message is different from a normal rift.”

Alice's attention seemed to be occupied and she didn’t react to his words until he mentally touched their spiritual connection and jolted her. He didn’t even know he could do this.

“Hey! That’s not nice.”

“Sorry,” Keynes replied. “For a minute, I feared I might lose you.”

“Lose? What—no! No, that’s not it. But I am kind of updating my knowledge.”

“You’re saying that killing the boss allowed you to update your knowledge?”

Alice landed on the boss’s corpse, she looked as if she stood on a mountain peak so minute her body was in comparison to the monster.

“I guess… yes. It seems like there is some sort of the companion system through which I gain knowledge but it is not free. There are tasks to finish and challenges to face in order to learn.”

Keynes nodded, feeling a little overwhelmed. The sheer amount of information he’d gained in the last two weeks shattered his understanding of the world.

“What have you learnt this time?” he asked, staring at her standing on the boss’ corpse.

“That the Explorer buff is very important and we should chase it.”

“Why?”

The extra 30% chance to get a higher rarity sounded fine but this was only a common rift. At best, he’d find an uncommon item or a spell. Once again, Keynes could be wrong but he didn’t see anything amazing about the buff.

Alice left the corpse then beckoned him to follow her to the reward chest.

“There is more to the Explorer buff than the system message says. I don’t know why that is though. Your world seems to not function properly on a spiritual level. I don’t know why but I do know that the Explorer buff gives more than a chance for higher rarity things. There’s something called a hidden room.”

“A hidden room?” No matter how Keynes tried to wrap his head around this, he couldn’t understand what a hidden room could be. They were in a rocky valley… “Please explain.”

“Remember, master, I only know things the system shares with me. I have a feeling I should know more but…” She noticed his stare. “Alright, so, I know that from Level 2 it is possible to find a hidden room and it is possible to find a key that you need to open the hidden door.”

“So the door is locked?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t—”

“—know, alright, I get it. What else?”

“The Explorer buff seems to boost the chance to find the door…” Her voice trailed off for a second. “I think I should rephrase it. The Explorer buff seems to boost the chance to find a rift encounter.”

“A rift encounter… unless you can tell me what it is, I may start to run out of space for questions.”

“Really?” she asked, surprised not sensing his delicate sarcasm. “In that case, you should train your Mind attribute.”

“Never mind, Alice.” He shook his head, weary after hours of fighting. He found a rock and sat down, leaning his back against it. The weather didn’t change inside the rift. Despite the sun high in the sky, the temperature remained around twenty degrees Celsius. “So, what is the rift encounter?”

Alice landed on the ground in front of Keynes. There wasn’t much in terms of details in her appearance made out of light. He knew what she focused on mostly because of their connection.

“A rift encounter is for example a boss, a hidden compartment, a hidden room.” She hesitated and Keynes felt her annoyance at the fact that she couldn’t remember anything else, which she should have judged by her instincts. “There is more, master. But I don’t … have the information at the moment.” She quickly added. “But we can find out more.”

Keynes smiled and nodded, sharing her frustration. He’d love to know things, and the more he thought about his situation, the more he wondered what could be done to change it.

Could he find other like-minded people with important knowledge and pool it together? Should he do it? What were the reasons to suppress knowledge in the first place?

“Alice, do you think we should share what we learn with others?”

Her attention was drawn back to the reward chest, which Keynes hadn’t opened yet.

“Master, you’re misunderstanding my role. I am here to help you advance, and your current dilemma is beyond my understanding. I don’t understand human concepts.”

Keynes hoped for some sort of help from Alice. She was a part of him after all. But at least, he knew where he stood now. I have to get back to this issue later on.

“You said you will explain cultivation to me,” he reminded her. After the fight with the boss, most of the essence he’d been circulating inside his body, had been inhibited or lost and he was left with very little to work with.

“Oh, that’s right,” she perked up, leaving the reward chest alone. “I can see you have the lesser cultivation technique already. That’s a good start but if you wish to advance to the next stage, you will need a more comprehensive technique.”

He stifled an urge to ask why and waited patiently for Alice to explain.

“There are three fundamental pillars of cultivation. First is your Spirit Core, second is Spiritual Connection with the system, and the last one is the level progression. The system allows you to have freedom in the way you wish to progress. You can advance your Spirit, you can simply level up without extra steps. But.” She lifted her tiny finger. “Levelling up without making your Spirit stronger or maxing out your attributes, will never make you powerful, and will close some doors for you.”

He'd seen the benefit of maxed out attributes already. His fight against the Level 3s was a good example. They couldn’t defeat him even though they had a level of advantage. Kaito Ren spar with Samuel King had been less about maxed out attributes as both of them had some of their attributes maxed out, Ren had maxed out his Strength twice while Samuel maxed out his Strength and Dexterity. In their case, the near stalemate was the consequence of Ren levelling up with the human essence instead of the rift one.

“That is why I always must max out my attributes.”

“I don’t know about that.” Alive waved her hand. “At the higher levels, maxing out attributes becomes extremely difficult and before you will ask me why, master, I must tell you that I don’t know the exact reason but the system rewards those who try hard and beat challenges.”

Challenges? Huh. That actually made sense. It was an easy explanation of why maxing out attributes slowed down the absorption of the essence. Is the system trying to tell us something?

“Okay, we can return to the attributes later. You were talking about cultivation."

“Yes, right. So, cultivation. There are two ways about it, find a superior technique of cultivation or learn it.”

“I don’t know about finding it, but I’m happy to learn it. Show me how.”

“First things first, master. The reward chest.”

Yes. She was right. He needed to get the reward. Maybe he’d be lucky enough to find a cultivation scroll?

Keynes checked the reward chest for the hidden compartment, which was there. He asked Alice if the hidden compartment and hidden door could appear simultaneously and her answer was yes. That was progress.

“How do I find the hidden door?”

“With your spiritual senses.”

Keynes’s hands froze on the rim of the reward chest.

“What do you mean?”

“If you have fine control of your spiritual aura, then you can use it to detect the hidden rift encounters.”

“In that case, jump in.” He pointed at his chest.

“That is wrong, master,” she said but did as he said. With Alice controlling his aura, which was a rather unpleasant experience, they circled the boss area but found no hidden door. Once they finished, Alice shot out of Keynes’s chest.

“You must learn the aura control first, master. Cultivation can wait.”

“You sure?”

She nodded with a burning conviction. He didn’t mind that. Learning to control his spiritual aura actually seemed important, especially taking into account the hybrids prowling outside the rift.

Before they sit down to the aura control training, Keynes had to empty the reward chest.

It didn’t look the same as its Level 1 counterpart. It exhibited differences on physical and spiritual levels. But these were minute variations, not worthy of any serious thought.

He opened the hidden compartment and took a cloak out of it.

The Cloak of Shadows (Uncommon)

“Shadow loves you.”

-

Decreases visibility in darkness by 10%

-

Obscures the wearer’s face

-

{Enchants: Self-repair}

[Cloak, Shadow]

Level 2

Like the previous items from the hidden compartment, this one also was already identified. Keynes asked Alice about it but she couldn’t tell him why it was the case although she added that the loot from the hidden compartment seemed to be delicately tailored to whoever found it.

So, the system thinks that I need the Cloak of Shadows or does it react to my needs and wants? Either way it was a nice find.