Even as Milesio and his team stood in front of the night, blood kept collecting at the top of the tower. The knight alone found he couldn’t do much to stop it, so he decided to go for an all out attack, a dark miasma condensing around him, spreading to either side. From this miasma, hordes of zombies poured out like a flood, climbing atop one another as if there were too many to fit them all on the floor. This began filling me with joy, one, because it meant more blood for phase 2.

And two, because if the zombies were summoned, it meant that they weren’t the people of earth. I’m not sure where everyone went, but at least they weren’t the poor souls in front of me…

Within the miasma I could sense rifts in space and time, where this reality was disjointed and connected to another one. I had about 10,000 SE, and a pocket dimension full of targets to use it on. Poor knight, I don’t think it even noticed that I was still here…

the pocket dimension seemed to act as a storage, zombies just piled on top of each other until they were brought out to see action. Based on what I could sense of the dimension, there were trillions of them in there, and even though I could only reach so many, the fact that they filled every cubic centimeter of space meant I couldn’t miss, and with tens of thousands dying with each shot, I was able to just fire, recover with blood drain, and fire again. By the time the knight managed to forcefully close the portal, I fired around 20 times, each shot destroying from 20 thousand to 50 thousand. As the vaporized remains of the zombies flew up towards the massive sphere, the rest of the blood in the area flowed as well. Soon enough, the city was spotless, and a massive orb of blood hung over the entire base.

The orb seemed to implode, creating a massive gust of wind as air rushed to fill the volume the blood no longer occupied. It began to glow in a plethora of colors, until it finally exploded with light, releasing over a thousand prismatic stars.

Phase 2, collect the blood from all of the enemies and use it to create an army of prismatic stars.

The main body itself seemed to blend in as I gained a new skill to go along with it. This one seemed less powerful than my other skills at first glance, but then I saw its effect…

“Unlocked Sidereal Starfield 1. This skill was gained through the mass creation and use of prismatic star sidereal constructs, and increases their power and use, while decreasing cost to 750 SE. This skill alters the form of the main body

James has leveled up, James has leveled up, James has leveled up”

The main body formed part of the starfield, discorporates into a blurry light near the center of all of the prismatic stars. I could feel each and every single one of the 2800 prismatic stars, and I could see what James was planing. The prismatic stars were collecting their energy in the main body, each and every single one rotating around the core as they fired a Sidereal beam into the core, creating the appearance of a spiral galaxy.

Seeing this, the knight raised his shield, summoning a standard to his hand. Of course, this only heraldry on that standard flag was a pentagram, but you could excuse the lack of artistry with the fact that they used flayed skin as the flag material.

The knight then brought a horn to the opening on its faceplate, sounding a dire dirge as miasma exploded from within the horn, the only thing visible within it was the flag, its pentagram glowing as if it was made with fresh cinders…

soon enough a gust of wind appeared to blow away the miasma, revealing that the knight now sat upon a skeletal horse, with a mane of black fire. At either side, four other mounted hell knights stood, holding lances trained on the main body. Almost immediately, they were all consumed in fire, charging skyward at the main body like fiery meteors, cloaked in hellfire.

Then they were all vaporized by the mother of all lasers…

all the sidereal blasts from all of the prismatic stars were collected and amplified by the main body, fired straight at the hellknights. The sheer amount of stars, enhanced by both sidereal starfield and sidereal egregore, caused the collective power to reach ludicrous levels, on the level of a nuclear artillery shell. It even left a massive crater in the ground…

“Level up x25, sidereal starfield level up, James level up, sidereal blast level up, beginner sidereal affinity achieved

Oh, would you look at that, precisely 100 feat points…”

Of course, I bought the dragonslayer feat, proceeding to “distribute” my new stat points, and take a look at my status table

Name: Aether Cael Species: sidereal plasma Class: sidereal lord Level: 80

SE: 391776/391776 [SQE*level*4*1.1] (1347/hour) [SQE*1.1*1.1]

SQE: 1113 Unused stat points: Status effects: Skills: fire immunity 1, pain resistance 4, radiation resistance 8, mana bolt 1, poincare restoration 3, ki boost 10, autokinesis 10, cosmic elemental manipulation 5, illusory stealth 5, sidereal blast 10, hidden presence 1, runic enchanting 3, blood manipulation 5, mana shield 1, aura shield 3, James 11, cosmic flight 4, sidereal starfield 2, Feats: Beginner regeneration, monster hunter, friend of trasgu, vampire, kissed by the faerie princess, reality programmer, sidereal quintessence, beginner sidereal affinity, cycle of sidereal essence, first base, Cid Campeador, dragonslayer Feat points:

James explained that the dragonslayer feat increased all of my abilities by 10%, as well as increasing the hidden LUK stat. Hidden stats were extremely hard to raise, being things like luck, comprehension and inspiration, and apparently even things like gene dominance.

Either way, I felt that all of my powers where much greater now, so I decided to try something with my nearly doubled stat total. I began to meditate, trying to focus on the vacuum between atoms. I focused on the space where there was supposed to be nothing, and I willed something to pop out. This actually successfully generated a burst of quantum void fluctuations with such vigor that you could actually sense it, feeling as weak elementary particles and negative elementary particles came into being, removing the energy and mass of nearby particles and replacing it with free flowing elementary particles that I willed into existence.

“Unlocked void entropy level 1, consumed by cosmic elemental manipulation”

This barely took any SE, less than the passive use of cosmic elementalism. Once I knew I could cause quantum void fluctuations, I decided to try breaking the balance, willing only the positive versions of the particles in, and trying to remove the negative ones. This took a bit longer, as I tried to use the energy of the main body, forcing it upon the space above the base until…

“Cosmic genesis unlocked, subsumed by cosmic elemental manipulation, cosmic elemental manipulation evolves into cosmic elementalism”

I felt only a few particles appear without their negative partners. Well, maybe felt was the wrong term, it was more like prognosticator ran the calculations and found that there was a nanoscopic bit more mass than there was before. Soon it became much easier, as I took the extra mass and began to form atoms with it, forming hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, etc…

I formed grams of diamond dust in my hands. It may have looked like I was just holding dust that collected in my hand, but this was a serious power.

I’ve always wanted to give the first law of thermodynamics the middle finger.

Now the couple thousand prismatic stars began to zoom around the area, using cosmic elementalism and poincare restoration to slowly rebuild the area. Watching them work was magical, buildings being restored and shifted as the stars passed over. I watched as walls were moved and erected, as their molecular structure was modified, strengthening them at the molecular level. The place where the tribe and the settlers were staying became a great keep, becoming similar to a modern condominium. I could feel them using magic to simulate things like electricity, plumbing, heating, and other amenities. I saw countless parts of the castle being rebuilt, storage rooms, armories, smithies, courtyards, even the area where the elder nephilim lived was fenced off, with rock seeming to have a conversation with the nephilim. I watched as they went beyond the base, out to where the hell knight was first found, filling in and clearing the traps we made earlier.

The surrounding architecture began to mesh between modern and fantasy, massive interconnected towers rising up, forming a web of stone arches and bridges between them. By then end of the night, the ruined area was rebuilt.

Xana used the large amount of renovations as an excuse to explain last night being so very loud and explody. When asked how the renovations were carried out so quickly, she responded with “magic”. Note to self, in a fantasy world, because magic is almost always a plausible excuse…

“You know, while repairing the place I found a couple of spellbooks. They were in tatters, a few of them burnt, but with poincare restoration…”

“Where…”

While Aether was busy perusing his newly acquired tomes of magic, José was meeting with the representative of the people from the hospital.

“Haz visto lo que puede hacer y lo que ha hecho por nosotros, como puedes decir que simplemente lo tratemos como un hombre común? Esto es su castillo y nos ha invitado a nosotros adentro!” (you've seen what he can do and what he's done for us, how can you saw we simply treat him like a common man? this is his castle and he has invited us inside!)

José was unimpressed. He held out his machete, which began to glow with a multihued tinge.

“El ha aprendido unas artes mágicas, pero eso no es algo que es exclusivo a él” (he has learned some magic, but that isnt exclusive to him)

“Dices que tú tienes la capacidad de hacer lo mismo? De levantar a un castillo en una noche? De sanar a los terminalmente enfermos como si fuera nada? De ir en contra de olas de cuerpos podridos y destrozarlos como si fuera un juego? No digo que el es una persona que simplemente tiene poderes especiales, digo que el es una persona que puede sobrevivir un mundo endemoniado como este. Digo eso porque es pudo adaptarse, él pudo derrotar a los monstruos, y él pudo construir una casa mientras el mundo caía en pedazos… sabes que te dije que mi nombre es Lázaro? Yo estaba en soporte vital cuando el mundo cambió. La luz se fue, y sin electricidad… yo vi muchas cosas en el otro lado, mundos enteros. Varios de esos mundos eran como el de nosotros, la gente siguiendo con sus vidas normales, otras eran mundos de fantasía y magia, yo estaba en camino a un mundo brillante, y pasé por encima de mundos dominados por diablos y demonios. No se que me esperaba en ese mundo brillante, pero se que si no nos esforzamos a llegar a su nivel, este mundo será dominado por diablos y demonios también” (You say that you have the ability to do the same? From raising a castle in one night? To heal the terminally ill as if it were nothing? To go against waves of rotten bodies and destroy them as if it were a game? I am not saying that he is a person who simply has special powers, I am saying that he is a person who can survive a devilish world like this. I say that because he was able to adapt, he could defeat the monsters, and he could build a house while the world was falling apart ... you know I told you my name is Lazarus? I was in life support when the world changed. The light went out, and without electricity ... I saw many things on the other side, whole worlds. Several of those worlds were like ours, people were following with their normal lives, others were worlds of fantasy and magic, I was on my way to a brilliant world, and I passed over worlds dominated by devils and demons. I do not know what awaited me in that brilliant world, but I know that if we do not strive to reach their level, this world will be dominated by devils and demons too)

José was dumbstruck. He couldn’t have imagined Lazaro wasn’t his real name, but if that was true… it would explain why he wanted to form a more structured society…

to be honest, when Lazaro approached him asking about communal responsibilities and division of labor, he was quite frankly annoyed. How the hell was he supposed to know what to do with so many people, he just wanted to live with his family. Lazaro walked to the door, stopping just before exiting.

“Voy a discutir esto con Xana… sabes, un machetero como tu probablemente harías mejor comandante que un viejo como yo” (I'll discuss this with Xana... you know, a machete man like you would probably make a better commander than an old man like me)

Xana was actually walking towards the settlers quarters along with Milesio after having a discussion with the elder nephilim, so they bumped into Lazaro pretty quickly. Lazaro interposed himself in their way, stopping them from going forward and then bowing to them

“Perdóname, Xana y Milesio, pero necesitamos guía. No conocemos cómo funciona este sistema, ni cómo sobrevivir en este nuevo mundo. Perdóname por seguir pidiendo y pidiendo, pero necesitamos enseñanza” (I'm sorry, Xana and Milesio, but we need a guide. We don't know how this system works or how to survive in this new world. Forgive us for asking and asking, but we need someone to teach us)

Xana and Milesio looked at each other for a moment and stifled a chuckle. They just came back from convincing the nephilim to share its knowledge.

“Esto es una universidad, no?” (Its a university isnt it?

And so began a period of grueling study and training.

James managed to level up enough for another avatar, while he used the main body to create “sidereal nebulae”, a sidereal construct with the runic enchantment, James and cosmic elementalism skills, at a cost of 300000 SE. this sidereal nebulae would then spawn a single prismatic star every day, who would then go out to hunt zombies and occasionally find more survivors hiding in wholesale stores, grocery stores, or even in their houses.

Aether dove into studying the magic tomes they found, and James used the other two avatars to give classes on how the system worked, teaching the residents what they knew of the system so far. This included how affinities worked, how each of the known resources worked, how to gain skills, how feats worked, etc…

of course there was still a lot of things that were unknown, so they were encouraged to experiment outside of classes. Speaking of classes, it was found that it could be pushed back until the twentieth level before you stopped leveling. Of course classes tended to give more benefits with them than without them, so why would one want to wait to get it? Well, the classes you could take depended on what skills and feats you had, so the more of those you gained, the better a class you could get. So of course several of them worked hard on their favored field, some training hard at physical combat with the sidereal trasgu and rock, some studying magic under the elder nephilim and Xana, and some just experimenting.