I receive a message from Alex as I’m walking in the village.

“Nash, I need to see you.”

My perception field that covers every square inch of the village after its growth in the last few months filters out the thousands of people moving around until I find him. It takes me less than 2 seconds to pinpoint him in the guildhall, already attending to something else, though I didn’t pay too much attention to what as he shuffles paperwork.

The entire village goes about their business within parameters that don’t call me to pay attention to anything specific.

I soak in the feeling of hard packed dirt on my bare feet before walking past caterers, accountants, warriors and mages, all engrossed in their work. My mind whirls on the future barely concerned about what Alex wanted to talk about, that I will find out that soon enough.

“Nash,” he calls out from the other side of the building taking me out of my revelry as I head straight for him.

“You wanted to see me?”

“Of course, you are leaving in an hour or two right?”

“We should be seeing each other soon enough, from your perspective. Now, why did you call me?”

“I thought that you would take another few minutes to arrive, but I think things will work out just the same.” But as he speaks something is hiding behind his words.

I almost let the connection as I pear at him establish itself. I wouldn’t even need a word of him to understand the gist of his ask. But somehow doing that without a real need, felt wrong, a small violation of his privacy.

Still, I couldn't miss his elevated heartbeats, the furtive glances at my back and the way every single person in the building seemed to be looking at me from the corner of their eyes.

“Something is up.”

“Maybe.” He says with a developing smirk. “And normally we wouldn’t go to so much trouble, but…”

“But?”

He lets the silence build, only speaking when I’m about to force the issue.

“But…”

“Come on….Tell me already.”

“Nope.” I just stare at him and try to control myself. Until I no longer want to with his next words. “I think I won’t tell you. I will keep it as something of a…”

“SURPRISE!!!” A screaming crowd yells all around me.

Qi rushes out as I jump back and my perception field goes in full action. Ready for whatever the threat is, but even before gravity pulls me back to the ground realization hits me.

I see every single one of my friends streams in as a pair of holographic projectors mimicking goodbye banners.

The world halts for a moment. My mind can’t comprehend why is happening, how they managed to pull the wool over my eye to pull something like this.

I look for what I expected to see at a goodbye party and in moments I find the cake and drinks.

“You… I will get you back for this.” I say patting Alex on the back as my heart slowly comes down.

“We know that you have to leave soon, but we wanted at least a quick get together.”

“I appreciate it. Though you have less than that given a last minute addition plan.”

“Ohh, what is it?”

“Nothing too big,” I say with the largest smirk I can conjure up.

“Hahaha.” Merlin spews out even as he can’t contain himself. “I told you. He may not lie, but he is a Matrioska doll. He can always pull another rabbit out of the hat.”

“Ohh, and before I forget, here are a few stat rings and amulets I made for everyone,” I say dumping boxes of enchanted silver and gold ornaments that on second thought I could have probably sold for an exorbitant price, maybe even enough for me to pay for another month’s stay. Then I take a smaller box containing a few pouches meant for specific people and use gold alloyed with a very small hint of Mithril.

I extend my stay until the very last second, enjoying the comradery that so often was missing after having moved out of the village and concentrating on my projects. Friends that I would treasure like no others, that I knew would be there when I needed them. Friends that I would do just about anything for.

When I can delay no longer without derailing my tight timeline, I climb the stairs even as the cacophony of the party keeps on going.

The hint of strain in my soul comes back as the rocket slows just short of the Mithril deposit, though much weaker than during acceleration. But I would need more testing to confirm given that my impressions were mixed with an accelerated time frame.

Though even after confirming what was causing it, the reason still eludes me. Instead of letting this consume my time, I rocket through and drop the seed in the small hole opening the cut off points to stop anyone from using the hole without my ‘blessing’.

The seconds for the Automaton’s visit tick down and I can’t be here by them.

Minutes later the seed arrives at the bottom so I push a few hundred points of Qi and all my attention to the surroundings.

Everything I can, I drag to where the action is.

The chorus of seeds, now a thousand strong, a good portion third generation as the seeds that Aspen spawned grew and wanted to add to our family.

Their enormous pool of willpower drives behind me and I open a 1 meter wide portal.

Something buckles.

I ignore it and push harder, driving the portal down and growing it to encompass the stone sphere. The attention of the system arrives eminently displeased which shouldn’t be possible for a machine, but the impression is unmistakable.

The system tries to kick me out and nearly succeeds in taking the stone out of the faux inner world, but I just keep pushing it down with a thousand of my friends.

I double and triple my efforts, claiming what is already inside the extension of the inner world. The attention just grows until I can’t advance a single inch. With a little more than half inside an Idea pops up and I let the portal loose and let it close on its own adding a fraction of strength to our push and breaking the stalemate.

Getting half the stone is probably the best I could hope for, but I won’t settle for that when I can take it all.

My gambit seems to ‘surprise’ the system or at least delay its next response. But by then it is too late as the edges of the portal roll over the stone like a rubber band gaining momentum even without much strength from me.

A backlash arrives, almost like the system is not an immensely powerful but composed being, but instead, a two year old god throwing a tantrum. With a thousand beings weaved together in a single tendril of will, we advance unstoppably and I let a smile peek through my face.

The stone is fully encapsulated, and little of my attention needs to remain on the seed carrying the pocket of space. The only critical point being when is it crosses ground level. But with enemies still a mile away given the brief time frame that I needed to get the stone in the space bag, I don’t even sweat it.

These were the most profitable five minutes of my stay in the instance.

With swagger I didn’t know was within me, I walk downstairs and everyone’s expectant faces stare at me realizing that I think I’m a cat and that I just ate the canary.

“Don’t you worry, just a small gift flying back. It should arrive in less than 2 hours.”

“So just after you have left?” Charlie asks.

“Ohh, yeah. I promise a coincidence, though a delightful one given this surprise party.”

In less than a minute, I take my leave as the Titan steps down from the tree and I give him farewell. He already made his choice to stay, and I agree with him. I head out with Merlin and his retinue to the place where we prepared for the next step.

But before I cross the edge of the village, another dozen people call to me for entry in the enter the inner world so they will return early if I succeed in my gambit.

Calls go out through the network for hundreds of mages and each team with the prepared equipment starts calibrating for our attempt.

Nearly 15 Mithril coins in materials and labor to prepare for this attempt.

The one real chance that I have to go back is now, every other conceivable plan would rely on luck with too many unknowns. This was my only real shot, but at least there were contingencies in case I failed.

Each step is both heavier and lighter than my last. I had all the preparations in place and now was the time for action. I had spent months, no, years building and learning for this single purpose and there was nothing else to it, just to trust that I prepared properly.

I sit in the middle of a formation of roots reaching nearly a mile wide. Thick and developed compared to anywhere but very few select places, space seems ever so slightly more stable.

Years of practice riding close to the edge with the black goo monster just on the other side of a thin veil of space taught me a lot and it gave me all kinds of ideas.

I’m not jumping off a plane with a wingsuit and trying to safely land, I’m trying to flap my wings and fly. But with the unwitting help of a creature like that coupled with my knowledge and help from a thousand of my seeds, maybe I could bypass the need for giant wings, tree trunk arms and superhuman dexterity.

Sitting in the middle of the formation, it all enters my mind.

The most precise real time data on the state of space that runic sensors could measure overlayed on my own spatial sense and perception field.

A hint of knowledge streams through my brain I let a few points of Life flow throughout my body.

Even from thousands of miles away the knowledge of how the ripples of space were acting was useful and I didn’t include even more because this was already right around my limit.

In near meditation, I connect with everything. All my actions come into sharp focus. Everything just flows naturally as I have no need for conscious thought.

The world is an extension of myself.

I recover some of the state I achieved that helped me attain the last step with blacksmithing and any regrets of mixing other endeavors these last few days puff away in the wind.

I start warping time and making the edge of space thinner and closer. Disturbances grow all around as teams of dozens of seeds instantly analyze each new perturbation and add it to the consensus of our mind link. I reach with my will and grab space effortlessly. For all the hindrances and arbitrary limits of the system, at least its classes seem to be the real deal and I deeply connect with the world achieving several fold what I could have managed without its help.

Without it, it might have taken me decades or even centuries of a concerted effort to get even a fraction of this knowledge and connection.

I pull with everything I’m while trying to keep my strength under control.

The exercise isn’t treading a needle but popping a wellie without taping the rear brake on a chopper. Not just developing a lot of strength in a burst but hitting a narrow range in a single shot with no feedback until it is too late either way.

Although I know that the acid likely good couldn’t melt my skin effortlessly as it could with my clothes and the dirt, that was when just a droplet touched me for a moment. Falling into a pit of boiling tar pit is not the same as surviving a droplet hitting your skin.

When the time is perfect, I let out a breath. I grab control of the reigns and yank with all that I’m.

That edge that I could ride on shows up distorted and I let go.

A minute before it comes again but in a shape too hard for me to match and I fail to achieve the balance once more.

I burn my brain and Life absorbing the world and preparing for any possible counters and then it comes for the third time. I twist mentally into a feat of acrobatics to make the greatest gymnast envious.

My flesh is barely an afterthought as a thousand forces of will meld into one and I become that which can survive a hurricane, an avatar of root and flesh that controls space.

The buckling that I came to expect after jumping is nothing compared to this, but I had grown a lot, in stats, will and cooperation with my friends.

I fight with everything crossing the boundary and it seems to last hours on end for little progress but up and outward I travel, wriggling out of the instance.

A tiny dinghy in the deep ocean fighting against a storm that would have sunken even a dreadnought.

Squeezed between realities and the monster trying to eat me. I climb Mount Everest with a single finger as everything else I’m fights off the being on the other side of the skin of reality.

I let the task completely consume me.

----------------

Merlin’s POV – seconds before Nash’s departure.

“God dammit, don’t run in,” I scream at one of the newer additions to my retinue of mages running to Nash to do something. Moments later I sense what he is trying to do running to Nash and well inside the 200 meters safety area. The closest we felt comfortable getting should the test go horribly wrong.

Brilliant little kid, but occasionally even more reckless than Nash without his vitality stats or the thousand other trick that Nash could pull.

He spins his hands as he tends to do when wielding mana and the ripples of space that hits one of the four main trunks of the engraving hold against something that might have destroyed it.

Then everything goes wrong.

The creature explodes into our realm and droplets of the black substance it is made of splash out before it turns and trails Nash’s disappearing form.

I stare horrified as even through a nice and solid mana shield they hole needle thin holes through the kid like a super acid right out of a cartoon.

My will extends out and I shut down the space warping capabilities making sure to lock the creature away from our instance even as a thousand runes spring around me and I fly at top speed to help the kid. The droplets always disappear from our reality, like they are a nightmare standing against bright sunlight, but the effects they leave are very much real… just like nightmares.

But a question screams in my mind and I realize the danger was even greater than we imagined.

How the hell did Nash avoid this same fate last time around? He barely got a red welt when hit by one of these droplets with no defenses in place. So it wasn’t the system protecting a system user. Perhaps we were a bit over our heads with this business.

I just hope that Nash won’t suffer the same as this kid if he gets enough of that goo on himself.