The hanging remnant of what he had just seen hung in Randidly’s eyes, almost haunting him. The tumbling perfection, the interconnections, the endless branches… they spun in constant, harmonious motion. Just by observation, he felt his understanding of the world deepen. In a strange way that benefited both his usage of Aether and Nether. These were truths that transcended the divide between energies.

“Mae, we should go,” Fiero interjected, his nagging voice breaking Randidly’s reverie somewhat. “We’ve seen the proof. We need to get back to Elhume and tell him.”

“Tsk, you would do anything to spend less time with me,” Mae turned and showed an aggrieved expression at the Vulpine, who simply folded his arms and snorted. She turned back to Randidly and offered her hand. “Look, I owe you. If you ever meet Elhume or his companions, you can call in a massive favor from us. Break you out of jail, save a captured lover, perform an improvised musical… But… this is just a warning. Maybe lay low for a while? You’ve become a blip on the Savior Cult’s radar. They really don’t like loose ends. If they notice you again, they will rip you to shreds.”

Randidly worked his mouth for a few seconds. He had a half dozen questions bouncing around his racing mind. Pine’s radiance left everything hazy and almost idyllic. It was hard to feel threatened after seeing that display. But eventually, he just shut his mouth and nodded. Mae flashed a cheery expression and went off, immediately launching into a long-winded monologue at Fiero. The foxman’s shoulder slumped, but he followed her as she departed.

Randidly watched them go, slightly numb. Even his capable mind needed some computational space.

Too much had happened too quickly and he needed to process it.

He had gathered a lot of important information and encounters several critical figures of the Second Cohort. Faelmac Westrisser, the man who could lead an army and entirely demolish a Nether City. The Patrons, in their younger and more immature forms. Tuthak Eloise, leader of an anti-Nexus movement in the future, in the Second Cohort a part of a strange organization.

The Savior Cult, with clues about the awakening existence of Pine. And with leaders that might have gone into other alternate universes in the past, now entering into the Nexus to accomplish their own nefarious ends.

Randidly rubbed his eyes. None of this was anywhere a part of history that I could find in the Nexus. Just scattered hints. The existence of Wyndaos. The usage of the Hierarchy of Karma. Several of the Patrons dying before the transition to the Third Cohort.

Still… I’m starting to understand the shape of what’s happening in the past. If the spirit of Pine really was about to wake up, after the Nexus had developed for a certain amount of time… With Elhume in the Patrons on the one side, the Savior Cult on the other, with the tensions of Aether and Nether balanced between them…

Ah, damn. Mae left before I could ask about her connection to Drane Swacc.

After humming to himself and thinking for a while, Randidly popped to his feet. He raised his head and just experienced the rain hitting his face for a few seconds, allowing the fickle weather patterns to do what they wanted. The small droplets of water were cool kisses against his skin.

But then he crouched down and jumped as high as he could, cracking the ground in the process. His body shot upward and pierced directly through to the cloud layer. The mist tingled against his skin as he manipulated gravitational waves and sent him arcing across the sky.

All the while, he kept his gaze down; whatever existed up there, which wasn’t actually the spirit of Pine, still existed in the future in an extremely corrupted form. Even a single glance could apply pressure against the memory.

Soon he had returned to the moderated environment he had created, where only a light rain fell over the area. He glided on a light wind over the last few miles until he could land on the familiar farmstead. The three lazing immature Arakis Beasts clambered over each other to come greet him, but Randidly waved them off as he walked up to the front door. He needed some time to go through his thoughts.

However, his first action when he returned to his private room was to press a hand to his chest and press his lips together. His Nether Core continued to rev, but this feeling was different than usual. This feeling… all the significance is continuing to abandon this place. I suppose it makes a certain amount of sense, considering the importance of that meeting between Elhume’s Patrons and this mysterious Cult of the Savior… that was the key moment in the memory. Soon, the memory will collapse around me…

His senses expanded to encompass the farm around him. He felt the apple orchard growing nicely, the carrot fields continuing to develop, the refined canyon at the back where the high-quality Ara Fruits would begin to be mass-produced. The ground was thick with the massive lumber cucumbers. The land walruses hooted and rolled, content with their existence, despite the threat of slaughter hanging over them. Squeezing his eyes shut, Randidly felt a flash of frustration and impotent fury that he had created so much here but it would vanish once he moved on to the next memory.

“...well, isn’t all life like that?” Randidly forced himself to release a breath and leaned back on his bed. “In the end, nothing we do will linger for very long… After ten years, an entire life’s work will have likely begun to fade.”

With a ponderous effort of will, Randidly moved his thoughts away from the futility of building something within the memory. Such considerations would not help his productivity. Instead, he investigated the flow of significance around him and found it would take a while for the remaining significance here to disperse and leave the memory barren and collapsing. Sighing to himself, he closed his eyes and took some time to meditate on what he had glimpsed in Pine.

He needed to reflect now, while the impressions were still fresh.

Those patterns were somewhat akin to the images that he had seen from Dogeol and Mae Myrna, just on another plateau of efficacy. They altered an entire world, but Pine was an existence that rewrote the way a universe functioned. In this case, it rewarded effort, provided Paths, Skills, and experience to assist in growth. It created support structures and rewards. Having experienced the System firsthand for so long, Randidly understood how profound such an effect would have on life.

In addition, he was now beginning to see how significant a force it required to create the System. Not only did it need these self-replicating, self-duplicating, adaptable patterns, but it also needed a burning furnace of energy to fuel the change. Pushing against the weight of the way the world was would doom anyone; no wonder Elhume had no choice but to create an isolated universe in which Pine could exist.

Plus, with prolonged access to those patterns, I can see why Elhume was able to reach the Pinnacle, without quite being able to make it there on his own, Randidly thought with narrowed eyes. Even now, he could feel his memories of the way the whole grand orbital of the universe functioned slipping away. Standing in front of that wisp of energy, Randidly had felt the connections between all aspects of his journey and all the lessons he had learned. The actions of Yystrix and Elhume had seemed inevitable, leading straight toward the eventual growth of Randidly Ghosthound. That glimpse had finally evolved his Tapestry of Ten Thousand Radiances into the unique tool the Pantheon had hoped for. Yet gradually, his impression faded.

Congratulations! Your Skill Philosophy Within the Boundless Deluge (M) has grown to Level 901!

The insights he had lingered with him; the understanding was his own. But his mind was having a harder and harder time grasping at such a perfect system. His impressions became vague.

Briefly, Randidly opened up his Path menu. As he had expected, he had earned another reward Path from the System for reaching a Mille for the second time. However, the cost was ten thousand PP and he currently possessed a little less than four thousand. While he was interested in more benefits, he couldn’t currently afford it.

And it would take him another hundred and thirty thousand PP to trigger an Alpha Cosmos Tithe.

“One thing at a time,” Randidly came back to himself slowly. His eyes flashed with emerald light as he opened them, thinking through the best way to spend his last day or so within the memory. But something strange had occurred while he was turning his attention inward. All the draining of significance he had sensed ceased. The patterns around him had restored themselves.

The memory had stabilized, despite him having experienced the key moment.

Randidly walked slowly out of the farmhouse, unsure what was happening. His Nether Core hummed, cautiously testing the surrounding environment. Was I wrong about the memory collapsing previously? Or is it possible the next memory was close enough I jumped right to it, after lingering here? I bet Elhume’s trial in less than a month would be an important event…

A smile stretched across his face as he looked around at the rampant growth he had cultivated. But this does mean that so long as the memories are close enough to one another, I can move between them without leaving. All the effort I’ve poured into establishing this farm won’t go to waste.

Well, at least for right now. Randidly rolled up his sleeves. His companions would find their way back from the market fine without him, hopefully with several new interested buyers in their product. In the meantime, he really wanted to work on a few tasks he had been putting off around the farm: namely enhancing the Ara Fruit area and expanding it as well as searching the surroundings for a source of spice.

After cracking his neck, he blurred into motion. The Arakis Beasts watching him tried to imprint on his capabilities and collapsed, blood spilling out of all their orifices.

Congratulations! Your Skill Ghosthound’s Green Thumb (L) has grown to Level 500!

…

Congratulations! Your Skill Heritage of the Origin Beast (T) has grown to Level 401!

With a few touches of his images, Randidly carved out five more canyons and planted Ara Fruits along their tight walls. He stopped in briefly on his way back to check in on Bogart’s training and then released some stress by zooming at top speed through the sky. He used as body as a missile to pierce through multiple clouds, the masses of water vapor rupturing and spurting rain after he careened through.

During this release of tension, he simply enjoyed the base physics of a ballistic missile of a body. His senses idly scanned the surrounding ground for any signs of edible plants, but it was more just a random screening.

He found nothing worth digging up and investigating, which he had sorta expected. Randidly had been aware the best way to reach the desired produce he wanted would be to experiment directly on it, tainting it with his image and emotional affect, but he felt a little leery about the idea. This was one of the areas in which he was not confident about how his efforts could provide a benefit.

After an hour of zooming through the skies, he returned to the farm. He continued the work of refining and expanding the farm, losing himself in the mundane particulars of keeping a farm running. Superhuman abilities and magical powers solved a lot of problems, but pests and shit were still a constant source of annoyance.

These bothers were annihilated almost instantly by a well-placed manifestation of the Stillborn Phoenix, but still.

Almost a full day after Randidly had returned to the farm alone, Demetrius and Jotem trooped back bearing both currency and gifts. Jotem couldn’t stop laughing, floating arms akimbo while Demetrius explained.

“Quite a profit. More than Jotem expected, I gather from his reaction,” Demetrius nodded to the almost senseless half Origin Beast. “Ah, our neighbors want to visit our farm; I agreed in your stead, based on your treatment. But in the meantime, the biggest news is about Ara Fruit: I brought a sample to the handlers of the Arakis Beast in the Hobfootie match we watched. They raved about the quality and sweetness. So long as we can supply it, they will buy it. At top price. And with the tournament coming up.”

“Perhaps all my prior struggles were to bring me here,” Jotem almost sang as he spoke, joy resonating in his voice. “Because only with such a low platform can the true, spectacular heights we shall soon grasp be known…!”