Keynes’s mind was dropped into a maelstrom of colours and sounds. Before he realised what was going on, tendrils of otherworldly substances reached out and entangled themselves around Keynes’s immaterial body.

Then they pulled him down into chaos. Keynes resisted but everything he did was futile. He had no control in this world. He tried to use [Flight] but his skills were disabled.

He understood why…

Where am I?

***

With a start, Keynes jumped to his feet, his heart was hammering in his chest. The vision was finally over.

It was a dreadful experience and he felt miserable about his inability to do anything while there.

“Keynes, you okay?” Vivena came over.

“I am okay…”

Keynes wasn’t. He was exhausted, his vision swam.

Vivena caught him before he fell to the floor.

“What’s wrong with him?” she asked.

“It will soon pass. The mind mushrooms have a short withdrawal period. Give him a minute or two.”

The withdrawal effects vanished without a warning, leaving Keynes clear-headed.

“Woah, that was unexpected.”

He still felt exhausted but his stamina was recovering quickly enough. Keynes checked his attributes.

Attributes

Permanent

Temporary

Total

Strength (MAX)

24

1

25

Dexterity (MAX)

24

1

25

Will (MAX)

24

1

25

Mind (40%)

24

1

25

Perception (80%)

24

1

25

Vitality (92%)

24

1

25

He stared at it for a good moment, unsure what he was seeing. This couldn’t be right.

“Can you see how many percent you have gained?” Adanna asked.

“Seven in Mind attribute.”

Adanna frowned.

“Are you sure? A gain from a single session is usually one or two percent. Once our chief managed to obtain three percent but took a larger dose and obviously regretted it.”

“I am sure.”

It excited Adanna and made her wonder if the fungus he’d ingested wasn’t some mutated version of the mind mushroom.

It wasn’t as the system window told him the same thing it meant to say:

Mildly affects mind inducing hallucinations.

There was a glimmer in Adanna’s eyes. She was clearly into the fungi. Keynes took out a sample of a Level 3 fungus he’d taken from a swamp rift and another one from a colourful cavern abundant in glimmering mushrooms. This made Addana lunge at Keynes.

Vivena appeared in Adanna’s way.

“Back off,” Vivena growled uncharacteristically.

Adanna sheepishly backpedalled and apologised immediately. Her eyes glowed with unsatiated curiosity and Keynes of course understood what was going through her head right now.

“It’s okay, Vivena.” He held out the fungi toward Adanna who slowly reached for them. “Just be careful with them, they are Level 3. If Level 0 can mess you up pretty badly, I don’t want to know what kind of mess Level 3 can unleash upon our sorry minds.”

Adanna was nodding, causing her locks to jump all around her head.

With that done, Keynes and Vivena left the mind training house or whatever they called it. Before they returned to delving, Keynes wanted to visit one more person. He contacted Haruka and asked him to show him the way.

The blacksmith’s workshop was on the ground with several rooms, located underground. Haruka’s uncle was a large man with a mane of black hair. He wore an apron.

Only an apron.

Vivena turned her head away, her cheeks reddening. Keynes ignored the blacksmith’s antics. He wasn’t here to discuss the cultural differences.

“Uncle, this is Keynes and Vivena. They wanted to meet you.”

“Outsiders,” the blacksmith murmured then without looking at Keynes and Vivena added. “I don’t have time right, Haruka. Take them away.”

“Uncle, they are my friends. Please, treat them with respect.”

The blacksmith sighed.

“What do you want?” he asked them.

“Items with mana properties,” Keynes replied without hesitation. “And a lot of Vitality or general regeneration.”

The blacksmith started to laugh, his voice throaty. Keynes didn’t like his attitude but mana was crucial to him if he wanted to cross any sensible distances.

“That is some good joke but unfortunately it doesn’t work like this. You tell me what item you want: weapon or armour and I make you one. I don’t make things with properties you fancy.”

Vivena was ready to walk out of the workshop but Keynes stopped her.

“We can help. We will deliver raw materials so you can experiment.”

The blacksmith turned to his nephew.

“Who are they, Haruka?”

“If Keynes says he can deliver, then he can. You can trust him.”

Don’t forget about monsters’ body parts, Alice reminded him. And I am not only talking about things like claws or furs but also bones, brains, eyes and so on. Also it matters what kind of skills the monsters have.

Are you okay, Alice? It is awful a lot you’re giving me here.

She sniffed, already annoyed and then vanished.

I meant to say thank you, Keynes added feeling bad about the way he’d responded. And sorry.

She didn’t reply, which was rather normal for her by now.

Keynes’s attention returned to the workshop, the blacksmith was complaining to Haruka, Keynes interrupted him.

“We should start with monsters’ parts.”

“What?”

“Use monsters’ parts when you craft items,” Keynes explained.

“How?”

Hm. How exactly? Keynes had no idea about crafting items. When he asked Alice she remained radio silent. But then Haruka said something about carving items from the bones of the monsters and adding rift materials on top of it. That prompted a reaction from Alice.

He is looking at this from the wrong side, she said. Keynes didn’t interrupt her. Randomly using materials may take years before you find the properties you desire. You have to look at the spiritual energy of raw materials. This is where you start when you wish to craft items.

She didn’t explain more than that. Haruka’s spiritual companion said roughly the same thing. Neither Vivena’s nor the blacksmith’s spiritual companions could tell them even this much. It wasn’t enough.

They spent the rest of the day trying to figure out how the spiritual energy of raw materials differed and to their disappointment, they couldn’t tell the difference in most cases.

The next day, their visit to the rifts started. Hawthorne and Haruka were accompanying them. The idea was to have the four of them delve the seven rifts for another few months. It wasn’t a perfect plan as the tribesmen needed essence and none from the party really cared that much about the essence. Vivena and Haruka received a double (50%) penalty for delving Level 2s and a triple one for delving Level 1s. Keynes had even less use for the essence as it was too thin to cultivate his core. All of his attempts to learn a technique without Alice’s assistance failed.

Out of seven, only two rifts were stable. Five were variable and their rarities ranged from uncommon to rare. Haruka explained that the common rifts were left uncleared so they could spawn monsters for hunting. That obviously restarted an argument between Haruka and Vivena. To Keynes’s surprise, Hawthorne took Vivena’s side. Keynes shared his thoughts on the subject, describing to them the hunting ground in France. It was a neat idea of keeping the population of rift monsters in a controlled environment without inflicting damage to the wildlife.

“I will speak to Chief Bonolo about this idea, Keynes. I really like it but I’m not the one with the power to make it happen.”

“It sounds quite good but won’t be easy,” Haruka added. “The area around the uncleared rifts would have to be contained first and then the ground lowered and walls erected. That requires a lot of resources.”

“Building a stone wall is a problem,” Hawthorne agreed. “No stone anywhere near.”

“What about the rifts?” Vivena asked. “Aren’t there any with stones that could be used?”

There was one rift, a rare one with an entrance at a steep slope of a mountain. Everyone except Keynes had to be careful to not fall some five hundred metres down. Even a Level 4 wouldn’t survive it. The rift had two types of monsters: a flying gargoyle and a stone elemental.

Hawthorne said that the rift was usually left alone as they had no weapons to efficiently kill the rift monsters. Rungu fared poorly against the stone elementals and did nothing against the flying monsters that dropped boulders on their heads.

It took them a few hours to clear the rift and upon leaving it, they knew they needed better weapons. Something with a blunt damage type. Well, except Vivena who had her unidentified mace.

Keynes and Vivena gathered remnants of the monsters, one each and moved on to another rift. There was nothing unremarkable about any of them. Unlike Level 3 rifts, Level 2 and 1 rifts didn’t possess any natural treasures, like eggs or gemstones.

After the first week, Keynes longed to return to the Level 3 rift. With exception of the mountainous rift, the other ones were quite easy, even though they changed daily. It took them around 6 hours each day to clear the seven rifts and return to the village.

Upon returning, Keynes always went to the blacksmith, delivering him the monsters’ parts. Unfortunately, he hadn’t found a monster with skills that affected mana in any way. But their effort wasn’t in vain.

Quite quickly, they discovered that parts of the monster corresponded with attributes. Using bones as the part of an item, had always added Strength-related properties. It was a very interesting find and while they hypothesised about the other parts, they didn’t know how to use them in an item. A hide was easy to use in boots or clothes but the tribesmen didn’t wear them.

The only pair made with a rift monster hide was too small for Keynes and it went to Vivena. The rift monster’s skin added Dexterity attribute.

Despite the progress, the blacksmith who introduced himself as Hadr, remained an unpleasant person and Vivena stopped coming to his workshop. She had used her free time fiddling with [Create Poison]. She was hoping to find a way to force the poisons to be less lethal.

Hadr and Keynes spent each day an hour or two going through the monster’s parts brought from the rifts then Hadr showed what he’d made earlier. After that, the blacksmith asked Keynes to leave him alone.

On the eighth day, Keynes returned to the mind training house. Eating the mind mushrooms caused the body to acquire a temporary resistance buff to the effects of these mushrooms.

With the second attempt, Keynes brought his Mind to 46% and his Perception to 81%. Adanna was over the moon with his results and told him that the fungi he’d given her were already growing in a separate room to not contaminate the mind mushrooms. She couldn’t wait to find out what kind of properties the fungi would develop.

That same day, Keynes met with Chief Bonolo on his terrace.

“Keynes, I’m glad you found time. I have heard about your cooperation with Hadr. I also wanted to apologise for his behaviour. He wasn’t always like this. He once lost someone to the hunting party from beyond the walls. He’s been healing since.” Chief Bonolo turned and leaned his weight on the wooden rail, staring into the distance. “I also talked to Hawthorne about the hunting grounds to keep the rift monsters contained. I very much like the idea and asked my people to start working on it.

“But that isn't why I invited you here. I know you like gardening. I wonder if we could work together. My Talent makes plants grow many times faster. Who knows what we could achieve… Obviously, if you have time.”

“I will always find time for gardening.”

***

The rifts spawned hidden doors between 16 to 24 instances. It looked like the type of the rift affected the spawn rate but they couldn’t be sure having only one stable Level 2 rift. The Level 1 rifts didn’t spawn the hidden door at all. That prompted some interesting ideas. Was there something else appearing at Level 3? Alice didn’t deny it but neither confirmed, so they were positive that something else started to appear at Level 3.

Hidden compartments’ spawn rate was double of the hidden doors’ which indicated that the next hidden reward tier must spawn at least between 32 to 48 instances. That only made Keynes want to return to the Level 3 rift more.

After two weeks, Haruka was replaced by Bill. While neither man said it, Keynes suspected that Haruka and his sister had returned to the Level 3 rift. It didn’t matter. Without Keynes, they couldn’t open the hidden doors.

From the Level 2 rifts, Keynes pulled several interesting items. Though they were more often than not confused. The issue was that some of the items or skills were desired by all of them.

They came up with a rotation system. Each of them had a first, second and third pick. It rotated so it was fair to anyone.

Altogether they found 12 hidden doors in three months. Twelve rewards for each of them that proved one thing – the hidden rewards were more than wealth. They were power.

One night, Keynes took to the sky with a phone and called Wagner. Their conversation was brief as the phone’s battery was at 10%. The battery wasn’t drained in the dimensional space but Vivena had been regularly calling Wagner to give him reports.

It was already over four months since Keynes had left Geneva. He wasn’t ready to return yet but he needed Wagner to add a few assets to their company. The first thing was crafting.

He and Hadr had made some headway with the parts of the monsters. They managed to categorise all attributes. Even though these items weren’t really useful. They still proved their theory about monsters being in some way connected to ascenders’ attributes.

One discovery though was greater than others. The monster’s part that was linked to Will came as a shock and it was a magical gland not present in any non-rift animals.

The next thing was fungi. The mind mushroom’s ability to train Mind was broken. Even though no one could come close to Keynes’s results, the method was safe and easy. Keynes asked Wagner to add fungi to his gardening project and extend his methods to standard.

Lastly, Keynes mentioned rift meat and cooking techniques and why they are important.

Wagner was speechless the whole time and Keynes told him that there was more but the rest would come at a later date, when they meet in person.

First he needed to ascend to Level 3 now that all his attributes were maxed out.