Wrapping his head around the Trait of Dominator wasn’t easy even with Alice’s explanation. According to her, there were many traits of varying potency and effect. Unlike buffs, they affected an ascender’s core, changing some of the core’s fundamental structure. She’d been reluctant to clarify it but eventually ceded some information.

Traits could offer unremovable spells or permanent buffs, affect attributes—not in a numerical way—and what was the most scary to Keynes, impact an ascender’s personality.

Despite the glaring drawback, the traits were substantial powerups and grew stronger with Levels. It was a difficult decision and on top of that the trait shard would vanish permanently after several weeks.

This was the extent of the information Alice had shared with Keynes and soon the meeting moved on away from traits and Esopp as he had no more rewards to show.

It was Keynes’s turn.

He’d received twice the number of materials and some that Esopp hadn’t had. None of them understood the value of these resources, but given their quantity and strength of their spirit, they were rare to say the least.

Wagner was the first to notice that some of the materials could be used in anti-dominion formation they’d acquired recently. The formation disabled spawning of dominions and dominion monsters within its range. With the combined resources brought by Esopp and Keynes, Wagner assured that they had enough to protect Emerald City and the Level 4 rift cluster. Both Keynes and Esopp didn’t have a problem with it.

Two lesser orbs; one increased the number of monsters by 15% and one affected affinity of the rift. Both were Level 3. Because they were consumables, Wagner advised them to just sell the orbs. But then came two rift orbs. One Level 5 and one Level 4.

Rift Orb of Enlargement

The size of a rift is doubled. This includes the number of spawned monsters.

Variety of monsters will be affected.

Affinity: None

Note: Cannot be used on a Dungeon

Level 4

The Level 4 Rift Orb of Enlargement was in essence an additional rift. It was a welcome boon that could be coupled with an Rift Orb of Recharge to boost the number twice more. The second rift orb was something of a stray.

Rift Orb of Pocket

Removes all the monsters and traps from the rift.

10% of rift’s previous essence value is now awarded over a recharge time passively.

The rift is unmoored.

Affinity: None.

Note: Can be used on a Dungeon

Level 5

Strangely, the System had an explanation of what meant for a rift to be unmoored. Such a rift could be freely moved around but left on its own, it would disappear over 24 hours of no use. Also, the unmoored rifts could be further modified only by greater rift orbs.

“Passive essence?” Esopp mused. “What does it mean?”

“You’ll most likely receive essence just by standing about,” Wagner said.

“This could be used for risk-free levelling,” Columbus noticed.

“But is it worth it? You are losing 90% of the rift’s essence.”

While the three men argued about levelling, Keynes’s mind returned to the rift he’d discovered with Vivena, Haruka and Bill; but particularly to the day with the rift’s paradise-like biome with a blue sky, clear waters and sandy beaches. In his mind, Keynes recalled that day with absolute precision and clarity and it caused his heart to ache. Why had he allowed himself to grow apart from Vivena? Was keeping a promise too much to him?

I can’t keep a promise if it interferes with the Shaper’s vision, he reminded himself and it immediately weighed his mood down. Though he’d moved on, at the very core he wished things to be different.

“I’ll take the orb,” he said, interrupting the discussion.

Columbus looked as if he wanted to argue but didn’t say anything. To recycle the bad atmosphere, Keynes took out reward rifts, he’d received five of them!

Three were Level 5 rifts, of which one was marked as special, and two rifts were Level 4. All except the special rift were rare and variable.

Rift (Runic; Stable)

Level

5

Status

Closed, Personal

Requirements

Requires Owner’s Permission

Modifiers

Runic Legacy (The rift contains a unique species of a runic tree. For each removed tree, recharge of the rift increases. Monsters nearby the runic trees are vastly empowered).

Details

Boss is always present.

Affinity

Dominion, Runic, Life, Plant

Special Status

Unexplored; Modified

Now this was a haul. A unique species of a runic tree—whatever the runic tree was but the word ‘unique’ used by the System indicated one thing; this was the only source of this species in the entire Universe. Alice confirmed the meaning; if something was unique it didn’t reappear anywhere else.

“Rank 7 rarity!” Wagner exclaimed, excitedly. “And one having FOUR affinities with two of them being related to my specialisation.”

Keynes could almost hear Wagner’s thoughts but neither Esopp nor Columbus would have any of that and cut Wagner’s hopes short.

“That is a kind of the rift we cannot keep for personal use. If these runic trees turn out to be valuable, we’d have to invest rift orbs into this rift and take advantage of it.” When Columbus spoke like Wagner and Wagner behaved like Esopp, Keynes could only stare in slight astonishment.

“What he said,” Esopp added.

They were correct. This rift was something else. This particular rift was the sub-boss dominion reward, while the two Level 4 rifts came as the weekly rank 1 rewards. It was confusing as these two events overlapped on each other.

After the rifts, Keynes scooped up the essence orbs with the exception of night essence which he kept for himself. There was also one skill shard: [Empower Minions]. Keynes had no use for it and added it to the pile of rewards he was giving away.

As the ranking reward he’d received a pair of boots that boosted movement speed within any dominion. He considered keeping them but their appearance was not to his liking.

The other five items came from the sub-boss and were directly related to it.

Woodbird Queen’s Crown (Rare)

“I command you!”

-

+5 All Attributes

-

[Dominate]

-

Lesser Mental Resistance

-

{Enchants: Self-repair; Self-adjust}

[Helmet]

Level 5

The item was a helmet made out of polished dark wood. Its top part had a vague crown-like shape while the rest of it had a more traditional appearance of a closed helmet.

Woodbird Queen’s Cape (Rare)

“My path will not be barred.”

-

+5 All Attributes

-

[Flight]

-

Lesser Wind Resistance

-

{Enchants: Self-repair; Self-adjust}

[Cape]

Level 5

The cape was brown and tattered but brimmed with power.

Woodbird Queen’s Heart (Rare)

“I am the forest. The forest is I.”

-

+5 All Attributes

-

[Essence of Forest]

-

Lesser Wood Resistance

-

{Enchants: Self-repair; Self-adjust}

[Plate Armour]

Level 5

Even though the armour was wooden, it felt stronger than steel. It was made out of the same material as the helmet and looked elegant.

Woodbird Queen’s Roots (Rare)

“From soil you came and to soil you shall return.”

-

+5 All Attributes

-

[Root Strike]

-

Lesser Earth Resistance

-

{Enchants: Self-repair; Self-adjust}

[Boots]

Level 5

The wooden boots had greaves to protect the shin and felt incredibly light.

Woodbird Queen’s Communion (Rare)

“I speak for the silent.”

-

[Root Network]

-

[Telepathy]

-

{Enchants: Self-repair; Self-adjust}

[Ring]

Level 5

At the last item, Alice’s wooshed next to Keynes’s ear.

Telepathy? Keynes asked, mildly amused.

What—no! Master, that is [Root Network].

Doesn’t ring a bell.

Ah, right, she understood then added in an ominous tone. Do not give this ring away. I will show you why once we have a chance to use the item. You will not regret it, master. I promise.

For a good ten minutes discussion was fierce as Columbus and Esopp tried out the items. Twice Keynes felt a delicate mental brush and a system message informed him about a failed telepathic attempt. Unfortunately, they couldn’t come to consensus. Wagner wanted to sell them. A price for a rare Level 5 item with such properties would be astronomical. Columbus refused, believing it would be giving away substantial power for credits they could acquire easily through different sources. He wanted the items stored away or used by crafters to try to replicate them. Esopp wanted to use them.

“The cape gives you the ability to fly, I can’t walk away from that.”

Eventually though, the other three men turned to Keynes to settle the argument. The issue was, Keynes didn’t know what to do. He agreed with Columbus and Esopp. Having inferior copies of these items would be a substantial win for their elite soldiers. But after reading descriptions of [Root Network] and [Essence of Forest] he kind of wanted to grab the items and run off to the closest rift.

[Essence of Forest] boosted every metric for every tree nearby. Speed, defences, regens, everything. It was a massive powerup in any forest biome rift. On the other hand, [Root Network] was something else entirely. It allowed to connect with a root system, command and animate trees, and even transfer the lifeforce of trees changing it into life and mana regen. These two alone would make Keynes unbeatable inside any forest.

But as the other men waited for his judgement, a dreadful thought dawned on him and he froze.

“Do you realise that … soon others will acquire equally if not more powerful items?”

One such an enemy and they were screwed. Keynes’s words didn’t impress others so they must have had similar thoughts. It overlapped with Alice’s warning that the world would soon see powerful outliers rising to the top, leaving the old powershouses in the dust.

“That’s why we should let crafters figure these items out,” Columbus pressed but Keynes was afraid that these items were far beyond the skill of any man living on Earth.

Wagner understood his blunder when they explained to him the skills. He could—somehow—read the system labels of the items but to get additional information about the skill from the item, it had to be equipped, which he couldn’t do.

“In that case, I side with Columbus,” Wagner admitted. “But only the most senior crafters will know about the existence of these artefacts.”

They agreed.

Almost.

“We shouldn’t allow the ring to go to crafters. We don’t have counter-measures against [Telepathy] and because of its small size, we might play with fire here. We cannot afford to lose it.”

“Then what are we going to do with it?”

“I can put it to good use,” Esopp offered hopefully.

“No,” Columbus cut in. “It is best to lock the item in the vault for now. [Telepathy] is indeed a security risk we aren’t ready to tackle yet.”

They agreed to do that, although Esopp grudgingly. The vault could be only accessed when two out of the four founders were there so Esopp couldn’t sneak it out.

With the items sorted out, the last two items were the Orb of Dominion and the Trait of Dominator, the same as Esopp. It sparked a short discussion about the latter but Keynes didn’t know what he was going to do with it. They would definitely return to this topic at a later date.

The same was true in regard to the next sub-boss dominion. Columbus took responsibility for creating an actionable plan in the event of its appearance.

They moved on to the short term plans.

Wagner’s mansion in Geneva was being rebuilt with Level 4 materials, turning it into their company official headquarters. Because he assumed the role of the company’s CEO, he was in charge of interacting with the outside world, mostly with the Solar Council. He promised to level up once he prepped up a suitable replacement.

Columbus was taking over Tyr’s responsibilities and as the ex-chief-in-command of the World Government’s army, he would be building their private army. The decision to relocate all their staff to Emerald City, had left Red Moon Legion in the vacuum as they weren’t in the city themselves because of its location’s secrecy. But these things were Columbus’s responsibilities and he had a free mandate to act any way he deemed necessary.

Esopp was going to level up, get to the Elevated spiritual stage (eventually) and then level up again. He warned them that in the foreseeable future, he was going to be focused purely on his own strength. Although Wagner grimaced, because he didn’t want to leave Andrew Gunnar in charge of Emerald City—which expanded dramatically—and Cyrano in charge of the rifts. Esopp’s decision deformed the chain of command for now but Wagner refused to leave the situation be and promised them to fix the mess. None of them seemed particularly invested in the issue so they only shrugged.

Keynes’s plans mirrored Esopp’s. He had to get stronger—fast. He wasn’t far from Level 4. Then he’d be focusing on mastering his skills and aura control and learning techniques. And of course, there was the Department of Knowledge to build!

“We will have to borrow you after you level up to scoop up a few Level 4 rifts from around the world but nothing major,” Wagner interjected.

“Ah, I forgot. I will need a personal assistant. Would you be able to direct me to where I can choose from?”

“Personal assistant? Why?”

“I figured out that with all the responsibilities I’ll need someone to run errands for me.”

Esopp’s laugh was the only answer.