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But First, We Need to Talk About Parallel Universes

[!] Mirage Skills

(WARNING: Learning Mirage skills via crafting is not recommended before level 40.)

Considered the upper tier of available class skills, Mirage skills utilize the Mirage keyword to swap the player between parallel worlds, allowing for effects in combat that would otherwise be impossible.

A predesignated Mirage skill is granted upon reaching level cap. They can also be learned by crafting an S-grade (Sacred) item that incorporates a Godly Fragment. Please note that when crafting, the resultant Mirage skill will be random if using a non-unique Godly Fragment.

Only four Mirage skills can be available at once during combat. Learning more than four requires that one is overwritten, which is the player’s choice. Once overwritten, that Mirage skill must be relearned via crafting.

So there was the official info, Rian supposed. He found it a bit frustrating that the game was only now acknowledging this stuff, as if the notification was reluctant to pop up until right before he crafted his item. Probably because he was below the recommended level.

More importantly, he hadn’t known the skill would be random. He’d thought another menu would appear and let him choose once the item was made.

Looking over the crafting window again, he watched each stage of the process expand to reveal what was happening under the hood. The cloth scraps he’d amassed would fuse with colorless tesseracts to shift into a higher-grade silk material. Then, using more tesseracts to combine the single ruby gemstone in his possession with an Ezre’s Thought, it would combine into the silk material to create a hand-wrap weapon for his class.

Each combination of Godly Fragments and gemstones created a specific keyword. Though he couldn’t preview the Mirage skill it would grant him, he could at least see what effect the item would get. Rubies were the gemstone related to Goam, so the resulting keyword would have a physical offense aspect. And Ezre’s Thought, being a literal piece of Ezre in the abstract sense, would also incorporate a magical component.

When Rian saw the keyword preview, his brow raised a little.

The only questionable decision was setting the item’s level to 35—because he doubted he’d have the chance to craft another like this once he entered the Rift.

He tapped the CRAFT button.

His inventory opened automatically and ejected the required materials, which floated in front of him before combining. A kaleidoscopic vortex formed, tearing into the apparent fabric of space-time as the materials were sucked in.

Rian finally understood what he was seeing. A localized section of space itself, shifting through parallel universes. Fate, being rewritten such that the items and materials he’d used weren’t truly combining, but that the created item would now exist in this universe as if it had always existed.

The vial of Ezre’s Thought and the ruby entered the vortex, and a surge of wind kicked back so strongly that Rian could hear the canopies of the trees sway. Light consumed everything in front of him. When he turned away to shield his eyes, he saw that even Corvis was averting his gaze.

As the light faded, all that remained was a long, ribbon-like cloth. As if suspended in a ray of light, the material glowed with a heavenly brilliance. Energy rippled through the air as if the mere presence of the item was enough to destabilize the environment. Everything was resonating with it.

The light and sound faded as the item slowly descended into Rian’s palms.

Ethereal Silk Hand-Wrap (Level 35)

Grade: S (Sacred)

Ethereal (via Ezre’s Thought: the first hit dealt to a target ignores Armor and Spirit. Cooldown: 60 seconds per target.)

STR +8

DEX +9

Weapon ATK +31

An entirely new window opened in front of him, displaying four slots. One of them lit up. In it, a new skill appeared.

You have learned Mirage: Cancel!

Achievement unlocked: “A Memory of Lost Power” (Learned a new skill by crafting an S-rank item)

Mirage: Cancel (Level 1 [MAX])

250 MP

Cooldown: 60 seconds

(Activation cost: 1 Colorless Tesseract)

Allows the Monk to cancel their current attack into another attack for +150% damage.

Rian stared at the window. That’s…it?

All that fanfare for something so simple. A mere attack-cancel mechanic like from a fighting game. He’d seen the name of the skill ahead of time in the preview, but the description was so short. It didn’t even explain how it physically worked.

It seemed quite powerful at least, assuming the 150% modifier applied to whatever he was doing when he activated it. Using it with Charge Punch would stack nicely. And it seemed it would even interact favorably with the Ethereal keyword, ignoring Armor and Spirit on the first hit.

Maybe it was better than he’d thought. Once the gears started turning as to how he could incorporate it into his kit, it seemed almost perfect. He’d been stumbling into a burst-damage setup without even realizing it. And given what he’d need to do versus Ogrot, going for quick and one-off strikes was the ideal strategy. The less time he needed to spend attacking—and the quicker he could potentially end the fight—the better his chances. There was no telling what Ogrot had up his sleeve.

Time, in general, was the deciding factor here. It was all so very limited.

In his mind he mapped everything out he needed to take care of. He was going to need at least one colored tesseract to enter the Rift for the entry fee. That translated to a thousand gold, or ten colorless tesses, of which he had seven. But he was going to need to save a few to use his newly obtained Mirage skill—and as he remembered from the last time, nothing in the Rifts dropped gold or tesseracts except the bosses. The only source of gold there was the rather meager rewards from clearing each stage. He had to consider it a limited resource.

A few hours of grinding mobs on the third Overworld layer would probably suffice. He was fairly certain that he could reach level 35 before sunrise. That meant crafting new armor, which again meant he needed more materials, gold, and tesseracts. There was plenty for him to do tonight.

But first, before any of that, he needed to practice. Having a Mirage skill in his arsenal didn’t mean much if he didn’t understand how to use it.

When he searched his menu, he found an option to switch between Overworld layers. Downshifting into the first layer, he found himself in the same place as before—the forests outside of Elmguard—but the spawning creatures had changed from the more monstrous-looking versions to the familiar and docile fellings and meina.

Walking through the forest, he found a lonesome felling and took out a single, colorless tesseract from his pocket. Nestling it into the palm of his gauntlet, he cracked his knuckles, crushing the glass cube and releasing a burst of light that encompassed his body.

Rian quietly apologized for the utter devastation he was about to bring upon the level 5 creature.

***

Rian caught the felling’s attention. Instead of attacking him, the living tree stump hesitated as if Rian’s mere presence had intimidated it.

Like with any other skill, he merely thought of using Mirage: Cancel, and the System reciprocated.

The temporal energy of the used tesseract vanished from the air around his body. Everything split in two—the same effect he’d witnessed during his match with Pitune. He had the distinct feeling of being in two places at once, controlling two separate selves. Likewise, the Overworld had split in two along with the felling itself.

For a brief instant, he saw that everything looked the same: the movement of the creature, the wind through the trees and grass. It was like seeing double, but now he knew what was truly happening: two universes overlapping each other.

And then he tried to throw a punch, and everything diverged.

He completely lost track of where he was—where his bodies were, where the felling was, which direction the ground and sky were in. Because, as he realized a moment later when he’d struck the ground sideways, one of his selves had lost his balance.

The split-view effect ended. Rian’s two selves recombined in a disorientating snap. The felling, beginning to crawl away, let out a sound like a sigh. Rian frowned, wondering if it was a sound of relief or amusement at his ineptitude.

He tried again, burning through another tesseract. The felling didn’t even face him this time. As the world split, Rian got as far as winding up a punch only to blank out mentally. It was like trying to control two bodies with one brain.

Probably because that’s exactly what I’m doing, he thought, snapping back into one self.

It seemed impossible. He’d thought he could at least get a start tonight on using Mirage: Cancel, but Kat really hadn’t been kidding when she’d said it took weeks to learn these skills.

He’d give it another hour. There was only so much time he had to spend, and he wasn’t going to waste it struggling like this. Plus, every attempt was costing him money—a hundred gold per colorless tesseract. Each use meant more time he’d need to spend recouping his losses for the journey ahead.

Once, as if the felling was getting frustrated along with him, it lashed out. Rian merely took the hit and shrugged it off given how massively over-leveled he was for the creature. He prepared another tesseract.

Then, while he was in two bodies, the felling attacked again. It struck one of him, and then suddenly he was back in one body, wincing at the feeling of everything shifting around.

He sighed. Getting hit seemed to end the split effect prematurely. He glanced at his System feed.

The damage he’d taken was doubled. So not only were Mirage skills a pain in the ass to use, it seemed that using this one in particular left him especially vulnerable. The split effect only lasted about half a second, but getting hit by a real attack would be disastrous.

He thought he was beginning to understand, at least. When he used the tesseract’s energy to gain access to a parallel version of himself, the end of the skill prompted a recombination of his separate selves. Whatever happened between the two of them would happen to the singular “him” once everything was normal again.

That was how Mirage: Cancel worked—the same way that he could get hit twice, he could do the same to a target. Except, even then, there was something extra built-in. The modifier to the attack he canceled into gave an extra boost: 150% damage, not just 100.

Wanting to test an idea, he spent another tesseract and attempted to control only one of his selves. He found it considerably easier—so much so that it was probably the intended way of using these kinds of skills.

He lightly jabbed at the felling as quick as he could. As soon as he struck it, that version of himself disappeared from the perspective of his other self, fading from view as if it had ceased to exist. It was so abrupt that it gave him pause—the feeling of an entire universe, including himself, being destroyed by his actions.

It was…unnerving, to say the least.

As for the result, it had worked: the next punch he threw, with relatively equal force as the first, did extra damage to the felling.

That was a success, at least. Next was the task of integrating it into actual combat. He jumped up a layer on the Overworld and got to work.

***

Fighting the evolved forms of fellings and meina, Rian steadily got more comfortable using Mirage: Cancel, at first demolishing the safer and weaker mobs, then moving on to the trickier ones on the third layer where he could start gaining real EXP. After an hour, he’d managed to get hit out of the skill only once. He’d even maintained the split effect for an entire two seconds before his selves recombined.

He wondered aloud, “Is there a limit to how long I can stay in that weird dual-state?”

“There isn’t,” Corvis answered, crossing his arms. “It depends entirely upon your mental capacity for it, though you’ll naturally improve at it with practice, too.”

So the INT stat factored in, possibly, Rian figured.

“Not that there’s any benefit to staying in superposition for longer,” Corvis said. “You’ll just end up spending more time being twice as vulnerable.”

Opening a menu which illuminated the forest, Rian checked the time. He was paying close attention to how fast he was leveling, even if it was still early into the night. It seemed he was getting less experience than before for some reason.

And then it hit him that it was because he wasn’t partied up with Kat. He was missing the extra EXP gains from their companionship.

Rian sighed, closing the menu. It hurt to think that things had gone sour between them so quickly. It was his fault that he’d lost the locator item to Ogrot, but if he missed his chance to find Yindra because of Kat abandoning him when he needed her and the guild, he was going to have a hard time forgiving her.

Still, he wanted to apologize for the way he’d acted, but there was no point yet. It wasn’t like he could message her in the middle of the night, and it would be best to wait for her to message him instead.

Until then, it was leveling time. The EXP curve between the levels was getting steeper, and he would have to play a bit riskier to make up for the lost bonuses, but it was fine. No amount of risk truly compared to fighting solo against Ogrot in the Rifts. And as long as Rian kept going forward, he was sure that—no matter how difficult or impossible things seemed—a path to victory would eventually reveal itself.