After waking up, I eat a hearty breakfast to compensate for the 4 days I spend meditating. My gaze goes even further than before and my senses are so sharp I’m almost afraid to cut my skin if I stare too intently at any part of myself.

After acclimating, I get a full update on what happened while I was out of contact, focusing especially on the enemy’s movements and taking a look at what they were doing with my perception field. And I learn that their defenses are formidable, not that I had much to compare it to, but I doubt that anyone else would stand a chance if they had to overcome even a fraction of them assuming they continue to grow stronger.

The occasional scout is quickly intercepted by the teams we left behind near the island, though they are careful in their movements, even with superior levels.

Worse yet after searching the globe we found another concentration of enemies: this time goblins. They had shown up just off the coast of Egypt in the Mediterranean sea in the nearest void to the pyramids.

That nearly confirms my suspicions, they can’t be teleported inside the root network.

We warned the nearest villages and cities while advising them on everything that we could. But without understanding more of the rules governing the enemy’s actions, there wasn’t much we could help contribute. And although the others were troublesome, the greater number of Elves with whole sections in their runic defenses completely unknown to us gave me goosebumps.

With the immediate tasks taken care of, my mind goes back to my tentative list.

We can’t act against the enemies just yet, not unless I wanted to attack their encampment and if we were going to prompt anything like that we would need a much deeper understanding of their protections. And though we shouldn’t dismiss them out of hand, they had less than ten thousand enemies around the globe while humanity had a decent fraction of our old population.

I don’t have hard numbers, nor am I too concerned with that. But with a fair guess sat between 100 and 200 million people.

Even if most of us were relatively not even level 20, with a decent chunk stuck at the same level they had in the instance. And that was not for a lack of trying. Even then, with this numerical advantage, we would slaughter any force that got overconfident.

Only a fraction was properly organized, and if the enemy spread out simply looking to inflict maximum casualties they would kill many times their numbers before being taken out. But we can send in reinforcements, on a few critical spots, and with loose directions and our remote skills with nature, and mana they would survive. Even the ones that had bailed on the instance would be no exception. After they felt the bite of the war, chaos would be just a step away and they would either be culled or listen to our advice. Though we shouldn’t grow arrogant, nearly a year of developing in the instance, and instant information from all around the world meant that even a mediocre idea from us would usually be better than anything they could come up with.

My mind tries to come up with more ideas to implement beyond what was already being implemented. Everyone had up to date information, enough food to avoid starvation for quite a while, and decent shelter at least against the elements. The only missing thing was defenses against predators, but most villages were already hard at work buildings walls.

My well of ideas is empty.

Instead of sucking the marrow of old and dried bones, I leave my home in the heart tree and take to the village’s training field. If we were already doing everything we could it made no sense for me to spend any more time ruminating on it. Now it is time for me to grow in another way.

Still with the remnants of my wonderful state after settling my home on the heart tree, my long meditation and a good night’s sleep, I take out my staff and get a look at it before starting to practice with it.

Staff of Magic

Forged and engraved by a master of the craft with Nash as its intended wielder.

All effects are halved if used by anyone but Nash.

All effects are halved without a perfectly matched engraving of living wood.

All effects increased by 20% if used by a worthy wielder.

Effects:

Attack halved: +25/2 = +12.5

(All deferred physical attack power is returned as control over the outcome of a blow.)

2.4% Increase in power of any magic

9.6% Increase in power of magic powered by Qi

9.6% Increase in range of magic powered by Qi

Resource storage: (2/1200)

As I follow a few simple routines my mind turns to everyone’s development. Sure I hadn’t paid close attention to them initially, but it’s impossible to miss their skill levels. Crossing the level 100 barrier with their classes provided a huge help for their skills to cross that same threshold.

I was no slouch in a fight, but even if I had my advantages, every single one of the people in the 150 level range already had at least one skill beyond my best one.

Half an hour after, another person joins on the other side of the field and even as he starts his own drills, my perception field accompanies him. I can see the way that each of our blows carries momentum beyond what should be possible simply by the momentum of the accelerated mass and the very world lending a hint of help to his moves.

I try to imitate him in a shallow and hollow facsimile, something that my staff helps me achieve.

He speeds up and I keep mimicking his moves. Although Blackwood’s gift is helpful, there is something external about the way it helps my movements. For him, the help of the world comes from within, but my moves are award. Like two people with the same theoretical carrying capacity, but while he took years to develop his muscles and technique, I just put on a badly fitted exoskeleton.

Still, I don’t let my shortcomings stop me, trying to mold the world’s will to help me, even if only by the tiniest of margins. I wanted the air to part before me, so that I can move faster. I wanted the packed dirt to survive even the harshest of mana pulses as my feet exploded, not only for aesthetic reasons but because any explosion that send dirt everywhere, just meant that I wasted momentum.

I fall into a trance while letting my staff guide and teach me. Each move imparts memory into my very bones and muscles. Every little small movement required to surpass level 100 in skill.

A true threshold. A quantum leap in capability on this single avenue. Having a proper guide to follow, I can refine what my years in the void and the time I spend climbing mountains taught me.

Even though the capabilities of level 99 in every quantifiable measure are beyond what we could have attained before the system, they at least follow that same progression path.

Sure, with much higher stats a spear thrust under ideal conditions went from having an error rate of once in hundred times to one in ten thousand, the target went from 2 fingers across that a mortal master could hit to an apple seed along with a significant increase in a hundred other metrics. But all of that was still within the realm of the quantifiable and what he is showing is not. He hits the straw men with the handle of the spear. A blow like that should have compressed the outer layers and bounced off the wooden ‘scarecrow’ without doing more damage than folding the packed straw weave, instead it causes the very core of the wood in our humanoid training aid to creak.

He slows his moves, seemly to show me how his skill works. A sequence of weak hits that put a fraction of his strength forward hitting strike even slower than a pre system child swinging a spear. But each blow gains greater help from the skill and soon the wood starts to creak again.

The 3-inch wide solid trunk keeping the training dummy upright that was being indirectly hit through layers and layers of weaved straw. I absorb each of his moves. I look deeper within, trying to connect with the world and him.

The system was reluctant to allow me even this first and easier step that I could take from level 99 to 100, but as the years of training and being stuck in place find the slightest of breaches in the system, I almost feel something give way and then a fluttering of my heart causes the inspiration to slip away.

We continue there for hours as he breaks dozens of the training dummies in succession. I get an ever increasing understanding of his skill and even the faintest sense of the improvements the system was channeled through his body, which was magnified as I witnessed the Aether construct heading into him when he finally increases his skill level.

My mind churns on everything that I learned, all the small and nearly meaningless aspects that anyone else would have simply dismissed, but I can feel it in full force.

I have trained for years in the void and now I could feel the threshold only a step away as I catalyzed everything into its proper place. A threshold that I worked toward diligently, but the closer it seems to me, the clearer the fact that something was holding me back becomes.

That sticks into my craw and I can’t let go. It isn’t something that I will simply be able to ignore. It consumes my mind for good reason. While my enormous stats were a massive advantage and would let me keep up for a while with the others, if or better yet when they crossed the level 200 threshold they would cross yet another threshold with their skills and if this was the difference now, I could only imagine what would happen then.

Just about anything that I wanted to do would benefit me by increasing my skill level. Although this is only one skill, it was the one I most closely had a path to follow laid out by Blackwood’s gift. So I dance to find the limits and fine tuning my approach until I know that all it would take me is a single move to cross the boundary. But as I can taste the side of the line, hints of dark truths shape a dreaded reality.

The morbid curiosity that I would usually despise becomes simply an investigation into a ceiling that wasn’t for me to break. There were still a thousand possibilities fleeting across my consciousness, but as soon as the idea grabs me, I know that there is at least a hint of truth there and I keep pursuing it.

All the warnings, come back to mind:

Any resource beyond the system is a dead end.

Follow this path at your peril.

The cost is greater than you can imagine.

You have no idea how dangerous is this path.

I do my best to diminish my use of my own resources, nearly meditating as I stand. Each of my heartbeats slowed until whole seconds pass between each, every breath enough to last me a minute and my body as relaxed and conservative with my resource as possible. Then I lightly swing my staff, without even lifting it up. The increase in skill is there, clear as day. Then the thread of Vigor naturally spent catches up to me and push the system's attention away and the feeling is gone.

Completely absent.

I do that again and again, finding the limits.

Even if it’s not the whole story, these limits were part of it and the only thing that I can detect.

I almost think to give up, but then a small hint in everything that I learned about these resources comes back t me:

Not every one that used resources got stuck on the same level.

My path was probably more extreme given that most people only used one resource of their own. Not only that, but some people found ways to compete with system users for a while.

If I use stamina instead of Vigor, I might be able to increase my skill level and then I could simply repolish the glass cage protecting me from the unfettered horrors of reality. But even if this was the path that most took, my gut warned me against it. Not that it would be directly dangerous, but it wasn’t a path that would allow me to soar, always limited and tethered by the system.

Exhaustion threatens to overcome me.

The weight of the world presses down on my shoulders, as I realize that there was likely no simple answer for this either and I would have to cut down a path through dense forest on my own.

Would I have to create a new system, when I didn’t even could replicate the simplest of Aether constructs? I’m rubbing stones together, when even the simplest construct is like stringing a dozen electronic components and building a system would be greater than a chip with millions or even billions of transistors.

Still, even if I couldn't compare with the system, at least I had Pando to rely upon, after all, he had done something within my soul, so perhaps I could bandage it together something temporary and of our own design.

The monumental project, screams at me, consuming every iota of my being.

This isn’t going to be easy or take only a few centuries, it would be a project for the ages if I choose to take it on. But what else could I do if I hopped for progress?