The ancient ascenders gathered among the unfamiliar stars. Their gazes distant, their minds vast. The universe lay bare before them, the System stripped to the tiniest part that made up the reality. They had passed the hard Level cap and were granted direct access to the Code—the cornerstone of the System.

They were the ones who sealed all the rifts and crippled the seeds of life, making the universe anew. With the old perils gone, the ancient ascenders went into a slumber hoping to never wake up from it.

Untold billions of years had passed, and yet, for them only a blink of an eye.

A year ago, they were warned about the System malfunction, which shouldn’t be possible as the Code had too many fail safes for such an event to occur. A human received an unlock category Talent. The category that was removed from the System by them.

Now, the System was reactivated for the first time since they had gone into their slumber. It took the human only a year to do it. How long before other planets would have their instances of the System reactivated too?

A year or a thousand, it mattered not as long as there was a number.

The System was never fully offline as it was a part of the reality and they were not capable of turning off the reality. What they managed was hiding the access to the System framework and interface that supported ascenders like them.

With the System, the ascenders would be able to learn more, learn faster, expand and grow. The once abundant universe that had been hollowed, was going to proliferate with life once more.

Not if the ancient ascenders had their say.

And here was the issue…

“All of you have your access to the Code revoked?” Without the access to the Code, they were unable to manipulate the System and while their Levels granted them unimaginable, godlike powers, the direct access to the Code was something else, something deeper and greater still.

“Could it be this Traveller that you met? The timing seems right.”

The Level 75 stayed silent for a long time, his mind calculating every possibility.

“It is unlikely,” he said eventually. They would know if there was a being of this calibre left in their universe. Even so, it did not make their problem any less severe. Quite the opposite, they had to investigate their loss of access to the Code and the galaxy with the ascender who had a forbidden Talent, and the Traveller, someone who had stopped the Level 75 seemingly without effort. All three issues had priority and had to be investigated at the same time. It vastly decreased the amount of resources they could pour into each investigation.

“What are we going to do?”

“We can throw a planet at the ascender with the forbidden Talent.”

“And by the time it reaches the home planet of the ascender, they will be dead or somewhere else, and thousands of worlds would have a fully functional System and rifts. It is only a matter of time before the ascenders discover a way to break through Level 10 and spread across the universe.”

“Then throw a thousand planets at the ascender.”

“No. Time is not on our side. Without the Code and direct access to the ascender’s galaxy, we have only three decades before it is too late.”

“I may have a solution,” the Level 70 joined the conversation. It was rare for him to speak more than a word.

He told them his plan.

“This could work.”

“And we could take it further.”

“Do we have an agreement?”

They did and so the first phase of their investigation started. Killing the human ascender was their utmost priority.

***

Keynes landed on a wooden bridge that connected two tree platforms in the middle of the night. He wore the Cloak of Shadows and used [Spiritual Ghost] making himself extremely hard to see. His visit to the First Tribe’s village was strictly dicted by his need to obtain a sample of the mind mushroom hence he wanted to stay out of the tribesmen’s radar. In Keynes’s eyes, they weren’t responsible for their chief’s betrayal nor Keynes feared any of them. It was unlikely that they were even aware of the events in the Capital.

It didn’t matter. His time with the tribesmen was over.

He silently made his way to Adanna’s place. She lived in the upper part of the treehouse, leaving the entire bottom part to the fungi. Despite their short acquaintance, Adanna left a positive impression on Keynes. But like with everything else in the World Reserve, it didn’t matter. Unlike a person with an ordinary memory, Keynes couldn’t forget wrongdoings. They stayed with him for the rest of his life, reminding him about the vile and wicked people who unfortunately had been a part of his life.

Making a clean cut from those things wasn’t always possible or even good for him. Keynes couldn’t cut himself from every person and community that crossed him in the wrong way. It would leave him alone and ostracised. Even Keynes’s reaction to Bonolo, Hawthorne and Haruka’s betrayal went too far, encompassing many more people than it was necessary.

But his decision was final.

Twenty minutes later, Keynes slipped out of the treehouse and rose in the air and flew toward the north.

***

A couple of days later Keynes walked out of a rift with a smile plastered to his face. In his left hand was a rift orb. Unfortunately, he was out of scrolls of identification and so he couldn’t tell what kind of rift orb it was. And there were many, although Alice didn’t specify what kind they were, not wishing to take away the joy of discovery and all that. It wasn’t as if Keynes wasn’t going to ask Wagner about other types. Sometimes practicality took priority over the ‘joy of discovery’.

The rift orb wasn’t the only source of Keynes’s good mood. With only a few hours left until the weekly ranking was concluded, it was unlikely that Keynes would lose his position in the top 100. He was currently the rank 92 with very little effort, although a personal achievement he’d received for fighting over a hundred dominion monsters alone and killing them all without getting any wound had helped. According to the System information about the weekly ranking, Keynes was guaranteed at least one item with a dominion affinity modifier.

Vivena on the other hand was currently placed third, behind Sandman and Eric Eragon. Neither name was known to Keynes so he didn’t know how they managed to amass 1521 and 1388 respectively. Vivena had 1200 points and it dwarfed Keynes’s 244. But at the same time, it wasn’t as if Keynes even tried to win this. His focus was elsewhere for the last week.

Firstly, he needed to advance his spiritual stage. With the knowledge from the grand insight, the task didn’t seem daunting anymore. The issue however was an essence, or more precisely its lack. He needed a buttload of essence to kick off the transformation of his core.

He’d already learned how his spirit core allocated the essence within his core. It was a very easy process once you knew what to look for, which wouldn’t be possible without the orb of grand insight. It was kind of like winning a lottery, once you know the numbers, it was easy.

The last phase of the advancement though required more essence than an average ascender needed to level up to Level 4. Plus, the essence had to be compacted in a certain way to initiate the transformation. That was the hard part and so Keynes was hunting down every rift monster he could find.

With his stamina and HP recovered, he ruthlessly used [Chaos Aura] to deal with hordes of monsters, both rift and dominion. The common rarity rift he just cleared was barely an afterthought to him, presenting him with no challenge.

He considered staying for a couple of days and delving the rift but a common rarity and stable type rift granted him only 1% of his total essence required to level up, which was very little. He had no business here. The other Level 3 rift he had currently in his dimensional pouch was too precious to be deployed in the World Reserve. Especially now when he was leaving it for the unforeseeable future.

A few hours later, a system message pinged informing him that the reward for his rank 92 was ready. Keynes accepted the item and it appeared in his hand.

Amulet of Slaughter (Uncommon)

“Even a dominion must fear something.”

-

+1 to all attributes

-

5% increased damage against dominion monsters

-

[Amulet, Dominion]

Level 3

One look at the item told Keynes that it was nothing spectacular, although stacking items with a similar modifier might prove useful against dominion bosses. I will keep it then. I may push for the top 5 in the monthly ranking. Plus, +1 to all attributes was always welcome.

Keynes put the item on his neck, the strain on his spirit was lessened by his recent aggressive essence cultivation. One point to attribute was very little but when each of them was raised at the same time, the effect was noticeable.

The next day Keynes reached the wall. The city on the other side didn’t seem to be attacked by monsters but the security detail was insane. Towers with machine guns were everywhere. The coast was divided into smaller sectors with each sector having its own wall in construction. The place looked vastly different from when Keynes and Vivena had crossed it. Nonetheless, Keynes didn’t waste time here, he flew toward Geneve at full speed.

***

“Vivena?” Bill asked. “What are you doing here?”

Vivena stood at the entrance to the Level 3 rift Keynes had found a long time ago. The surroundings were transformed into a small walled village. Hundreds of people bustled around. It wasn’t the same place Vivena had left. In some way, that worked for the best. With the infrastructure in place, the cost would be much smaller.

“Vivena?” Bill asked again, growing wary. “Are you alright?”

“Who’s in charge of this place?”

Bill narrowed his eyes. Vivena sensed his hesitation but it wasn’t time to be gentle.

“I don’t have time for this, Bill. I need the answer.”

“Lumo from the Capital. He arrived a week ago.”

“Thank you.” She turned to go.

“What happened there?”

“The usual happened.”

Vivena left Bill confused at the entrance to the rift and went on to find this Lumo, which wasn’t hard. The overseer lived in the largest hut in the village. The guards that were posted around the hut confronted Vivena as she approached them. Hostility was plain on their faces but they asked no questions, simply barred her way to Lumo’s hut.

“Need a word with your boss.”

No one moved.

“Vivena, wait!” Bill arrived and stepped next to her. “What are you doing here? Where is Keynes? Where is everyone?”

At the mention of Keynes, Vivena grimaced but didn’t answer Bill’s questions.

A man walked out of the hut, he wore a grey robe with some elements of armour. He was tall and well built, his yellow eyes bored her with contempt.

“What’s the meaning of this? What is the outsider doing here?” He said in a baritone voice.

“I came to claim this place,” Vivena simply replied. “And built my dominion here.”

The stunned silence lasted until Lumo interrupted it with his laugh.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, outsider. Leave now and I will—”

Vivena surged forward faster than any of the guards or Lumo could react and stabbed Lumo in his throat. Before the man hit the ground, she swapped her weapons and used her unidentified mace to take care of the guards.

Bill didn’t move from the spot, he was in shock. She left him alone for now.

First things first.

Would you like to use the Orb of Dominion?

*

Yes/No

*

Warning: upon usage, the item will be irrevocably consumed.

She picked yes.

Congratulations! Your Dominion has been created!

Name your dominion…

“House of Poison.”