69

Alignment III

World 3-3 Complete!

You have gained experience! (+40000)

LEVEL UP! (Lv. 39→40 [MAX])

You have learned a new skill: Mirage: Piercing Wave (Lv. 1)

Mirage: Piercing Wave (Level 1 [MAX])

400 MP

Cooldown: 60 seconds

Activation cost: 1 Colorless Tesseract

For 60 seconds, each strike that the Monk connects will create a shock wave that extends for 4-40 feet beyond the target, dealing 10-100% damage to everything behind it depending on severity of the hit. (Mirage: Piercing Wave cannot trigger itself.)

Rian had done it. Level 40. And there was his prize for reaching the level cap: another Mirage skill. It was an area-of-effect attack on every hit, something that would make wiping out large mobs of enemies much easier. But the skill wouldn’t be useful in a 1v1 situation. It wouldn’t even increase his damage at all against a single target. It was actually kind of a shame.

His final subclass skill, on the other hand, would certainly be helpful for its effect on Vital Strike. He didn’t hesitate to spend the last gold tesseract he’d get through leveling, bringing all his prior skills up one level as well.

You have learned a new skill: Combo Attack (Lv. 1)

Combo Attack (Level 1)

(Passive)

Tapping into the flow of combat, a Monk performs each strike with increased vigor. Consecutive hits within 0.5 seconds of each other are granted +5% damage. Performing a Vital Strike after a Parry will now inflict critical damage and a critical de-buff (multiplier: 1.25x).

Zeniyon lay there in the shallows, his body broken but still breathing. He started to move his remaining arm and reached for something on his chest.

With sudden deja-vu, Rian hurried over to him and grabbed his hand to stop him. Wait, where’s this feeling coming from? Why did I just—

Zeniyon’s mecha-hand detached from his body, and in Rian’s hands it split into two identical mirrored pairs.

You have obtained (1) Zeniyon’s Mecha-Gauntlets!

Oh, that’s cool, Rian thought. It’s just like the Rune—

So much blood everywhere, staining the waters blue to crimson.

When Rian looked again, Zeniyon’s body wasn’t just battered. It was blood-soaked and mangled. His bones had shattered beneath his skin, and he was screaming in pain. His hand had been violently torn from his wrist and blood was pouring out.

Rian's punch hadn't blasted through his mechanical side. It had torn open his flesh, his bones, his organs—

“Rian,” Corvis said.

Startled, Rian looked over at him, then back to Zeniyon.

The blood was gone.

Zeniyon’s missing hand was just a just a mechanical socket at the wrist, and he was simply lying there, breathing, watching, as if waiting to see if Rian would finish him off. Only the mechanical side was missing now.

What the hell was that? Rian shivered, his stomach churning. What just happened?

“Allow me to show you something, Rian,” Corvis said, gently turning him away from Zeniyon and removing Rian’s hand-wrap with him hardly noticing. “I think this will be of particular interest to you. There are two hidden ways of crafting items beyond the tesseract method. One is simple but requires a large amount of Endurance. The other is complicated but only requires possession of certain items.”

“Corvis, I…I think I’m starting to lose it a little. Something’s not right.”

Steam exploded behind Rian, followed by the sound of a rocket taking off. It was Zeniyon—he’d activated a hidden jet pack and was already far, far away in the sky—retreating, somewhere, to rebuild himself into the eventual king of Pyce.

“It’s okay,” Corvis said. “That was supposed to happen. Now, then. This is the Goam crafting method.” He took the gauntlets from Rian’s grasp as well.

“You know,” Rian said, “I’m starting to feel like you’re ignoring me. I just saw some messed up stuff, and I’d really like to—”

Corvis brought Zeniyon’s Mecha-Gauntlets and Rian’s Ethereal Silk Hand-Wrap near each other, and then gritted his teeth as he pushed them together.

The amount of force he was using was staggering—Rian could see waves of energy rippling through the water and even across Corvis’s body.

Rian stepped back as the air warmed. The waters at Corvis’s feet were turning to steam. The items in his hands began to glow red with heat to the point that his gloves were vaporizing, revealing his scarred hands.

Then something clicked as if all the pressure had reached a breaking point, and Corvis’s hands came together. A massive explosion consumed him.

You have taken 1201 damage! (HP: 2890/4091)

Rian braced himself against the heat and the wall of steam that swept past. It was so violent that it had even taken a chunk of his HP with it.

As the steam and subsequent rain dissipated, Corvis was merely floating there with shining gauntlets in his grasp. The explosion had blown away the upper half of his suit, leaving flaps of black cloth around his arms and shoulders.

His arms and chest were about as muscular as they could physically be, but all of it was lean and contained. Rian had never really thought about it before, but all that muscle had always been there beneath Corvis’s outfit.

“Excuse me,” Corvis said, and he opened his inventory to retrieve a fresh suit and tie. He equipped them instantly.

Then he hovered up to Rian and handed him the gauntlets. They were faintly glowing with the same heavenly light of his old hand-wrap.

Ethereal Voltaic Mecha-Gauntlets of Hammerforce (Level 40)

Grade: S+ (Unique)

Ethereal (via Ezre’s Thought: the first hit dealt to a target ignores Armor and Spirit. Cooldown: 4 minutes per target.)

Voltaic (Every 40 seconds, the next hit inflicts Lightning Damage with a 25% chance of paralyzing the target for 2 seconds. Required Insulation: 1)

Hammerforce (Every 40 seconds, the pistons on the gauntlet reset, allowing the next punch to deal +45% damage at the cost of double the durability loss.)

STR +16

DEX +18

Lightning Damage +13

Weapon ATK +45

Insulation +1

The stats on the item were double that of his Silk Hand-Wrap. The attack value was almost one-and-a-half times higher, and it looked like he’d gained access to yet another damage multiplier with the Hammerforce keyword.

Rian really had to stop and admit to himself that if there was anything that could distract him from traumatic violence, it was new equipment.

“Oh,” Corvis said. “It seems I’ve received a Mirage skill.”

“Really? What did you get?”

“Nothing of importance yet. It seems you have other things to worry about at the moment.” He gestured to the sky.

Everything had stopped. The water, the wind—everything except Rian had frozen in place. Even Corvis was motionless now.

“Um, excuse me,” someone said. “Sorry.”

Rian glanced around to see where the voice had come from.

Then a young man in a white, blue-trimmed uniform descended from above. He wore a white baseball cap with giant blue writing on it, and Rian’s heart skipped as he saw the two letters: GM.

The stranger landed atop the shallows in front of Rian without disturbing the waters. He adjusted his cap and pulled out a clipboard from behind himself like a magic trick.

“Hello, I’m, uh, GM Nephim, here to respond to your ticket? How can I help you today?”

***

“The…ticket?” Rian said, tense as a piano wire.

“That’s right,” GM Nephim said. “You put in a request for assistance with a technical issue you were having a few days ago?”

At the beginning of the game, Rian recalled, sweating buckets now. God, why is this happening at the worst possible moment?

“Oh. Well, uh." Rian shifted his feet, crossed his arms. "I’m good. No issues here. It…resolved itself.”

GM Nephim stared at him, narrowed his eyes. Then he tossed his clipboard, which vanished into blue particles. “Sorry,” he said. “I know we’re running behind lately. If I can be real for a second, this is like, my third shift in a row, and it feels like everyone’s been quitting left and right.” He let out a hefty sigh. “I swear it’s like the universe has been out to spite me. I’m really sorry it took so long to get to you. The ticket backlog just keeps getting longer.”

Rian laughed nervously. “Customer service, am I right?”

“Yeah, you get it.” Nephim adjusted his cap. “Well, I’m glad to hear that the issue’s resolved.” He opened an inventory to his left. “As compensation, you’re entitled to one Ice Lion Capsule. This item will…” He glanced at his inventory window, made a face, and closed it. “Actually,” he mumbled. “Never mind. I’ve got a better idea.”

He opened several new windows.

“You seem like a swell guy,” Nephim said. “How would you be interested in applying to become a GM?”

Rian spent an entire three seconds feeling like his brain was going to short-circuit.

This was about as far from possible how he’d expected this encounter to go.

At the same time, he wondered. Was this the path he was meant to take? Another road to power. Or would it expose his situation sooner to the GMs? Was there safety in being closer to—people he presumed were—his enemies?

Rian glanced around like he was considering the choice, which he was, but he was also trying to gauge Corvis’s reaction and read the danger of the situation.

Corvis, who had initially frozen upon the GM’s appearance, was now floating nearby with his arms crossed. His expression brightened when Rian glanced at him.

Nephim clasped his hands together, his smile vanishing. “Please. Oh god. I’m begging you. I know I said we’re understaffed, but it’s not that bad, and the perks are great, and you can work at your own pace, and they just made the evaluation period easier than ever. You’re basically guaranteed to become a Junior GM if you just, uh…last…fourteen days.”

Nephim scratched the back of his head. “Okay,” he said, “maybe I’m not selling it all that well.” He splayed his hands excitedly. “But you get perks! Lots of perks!” He gestured to his uniform. “A complementary outfit! We’ll mail you a Thank You card every…so often.”

“You guys are that desperate?” Rian said. “But I just started playing. I don’t think I’m all that experienced with the game, honestly.”

Nephim chuckled. “I knew it. You really are one of the hardcore bunch. That’s why you’d make such a great fit.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your play-time stats don’t lie. You’ve got thousands of hours clocked in across all your characters in total, and you’ve been logged in for several days straight.”

Other characters, Rian thought. My past selves?

“That’s the kind of dedication we look for in candidates,” Nephim continued, beaming again. “I mean, I’m assuming you know how to pace yourself. You don’t seem like you’re that tired for how long you’ve played. But we could really use someone like you. A good portion of the Senior GMs were players like that—real poopsockers, you know.”

Rian blinked.

Nephim cleared his throat. “Sorry. Old term. Anyway, you’ll be starting as an intern. Now, I know—” He held up his hands. “Unpaid internships, am I right? But it’s worth it, trust me. You get line-of-sight Fast Travel to start with, but that’s just the beginning.”

Nephim gave him the rundown about the four GM ranks: Intern, Junior, Senior, and Admin. Interns were the only rank that couldn’t ban players, but they could mark players for it, which would alert an upper-rank GM and call them to the location with higher priority than a report from a player. The upper ranks had everything expected: invincibility, flight, arbitrary warping, zero cooldowns, unlimited access to all items, and so on. An Admin-rank GM was essentially a god.

All the lower rank GMs had to do was answer a certain number of tickets per week, and they’d be evaluated for their performance in consideration for a rank-up. Rian wasn’t going to bother with any of it, as there obviously wasn’t enough time before Ogrot, and nothing after that really mattered.

But he saw no downside to accepting the internship. Having Fast Travel even temporarily would be helpful. And when the evaluation period ended fourteen days later, he’d simply lose his internship and move on.

He sighed wistfully. If only it were as simple as showing up and banning Ogrot on sight.

“So how about it?” Nephim said.

“You know what?” Rian said. “Sure, let’s do it.”

Your tertiary alignment has changed to “Ezre”!

Your System Permissions have been changed to “Rank 4 (Intern)”!

You have obtained (1) GM’s Handbook!

You have learned GM: Fast Travel!

GM: Fast Travel (Rank 4)

0 MP

Cooldown: 60 seconds

Warps user to any location in line-of-sight. Higher ranks allow warping to any location in user’s memory or via maps, with collision detection disabled.

“Ezre alignment?” Rian noted. He had three different alignments now—all of them except Yindra—though he didn’t know if that was meaningful.

“Oh, yeah,” Nephim said. “GMs are essentially super-wizards, like ol’ Ezre himself. Lots of warping and space-time manipulation.”

“I would’ve thought it’d be more like the Altir alignment. Like healers.”

“Well, this is the Ezre server,” Nephim said, “so you’re essentially in tune with the meta-instance of, er, the universe. That’s what lets you access GM skills—on a higher tier than the regular Ezre-aligned classes, of course. But you can also think of it this way: Altir and Ezre are both magic-centric, but Altir alignment is more passive and Ezre alignment is more active. We’re really the front line offense for Miriad, and, uh…” He scratched the back of his head.

Did he just let something slip? Rian thought. If the GMs were closer than anyone to Reflect Systems’ administration, then they were connected with Zeniyon. They were essentially continuing his work—the invasion of this world.

Nephim dusted his hands. “Well, that should be everything!” An alert window popped up next to him. He groaned. “Oh, not again.”

“Something wrong?”

Nephim sighed. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but—well, you’re an intern now anyway. There’s been a rise in hacking incidents lately. We’re starting to think it’s more coordinated than it seems. Like an entire guild or three are involved. Looks like they’re on the move again.”

Hackers. In a world like this? Rian couldn’t begin to imagine what that would be like—let alone what an entire guild of hackers could do—but he was glad that he probably wouldn’t have to deal with any of it.

“Well, I’ll be off, now,” Nephim said. “Thanks for taking a chance on the internship! Like I said, we’re really short on people nowadays. Way to step up. Really appreciate it, bucko.”

“Yeah. No problem.”

When Nephim disappeared, there was no special animation or anything. He simply vanished, as if he’d turned invisible like Corvis—like he was still there, watching.

“It’s okay,” Corvis said, answering Rian’s nervous glance. “He’s gone.”

That had certainly been one of the more surreal conversations Rian ever had. He was glad it was over. He was even starting to wonder if Nephim was actually a hacker in disguise rather than a real GM, but that was a stretch. Rian didn’t have any real reason to believe that, just a hunch. The handbook in his inventory looked authentic, at least. But had it really been that simple? Just have a GM show up and offer him a place among them?

He wondered why they were so behind on tickets. With a game as large as this—an operation as large as this—they should’ve had plenty of staff to go around. Something strange was going on.

The return-to-Overworld timer was decrementing again now that the GM was gone. Rian had only a few seconds to prepare for the leap.

“You sure this’ll work?” Rian said. “I’m gonna just…out-of-bounds warp into World 4?”

“Yes,” Corvis said, “but sometimes you can end up in unpredictable places along the way. There’s an element of luck to it. This is one of the few areas of the System that lacks oversight—where it’s unstable.”

“So the GMs aren’t gonna immediately come crashing down on me for doing this? Well, that’s good.” Rian pulled a tesseract from his pocket. “Okay. World 4, here we come!”

He held the tesseract at the ready while watching the timer count down. In the final second before it hit zero, he prayed to the gods of RNG and crushed the glass cube in his fist.