+ Reid +

The final barrier shattered, and yellow-orange energy roared forth. It streamed around and through Reid, and propelled itself far away in the other direction, then each surging wave came back around to him and crashed together. The energy around him rose, and he could feel it all. Each one of his metaspaces was connected to one another, newly empowered by the connections that now formed a continuous circuit through his metaphysical self. He could fly from where he was now, through every other space, and end up right back where he was.

Thinking about his accomplishment sent a twinge of pain into Reid's head, and he watched on as items flew out of his kitchen metaspace, through a ephemeral membrane in the junction, then into the threadspace where he stood. The items seemed to dissolve, and spread out into the vast expanse of the threadspace. Reid's headache died down, and he smiled.

"Oh, hell yeah."

His unavoidable, awful headaches were the worst part of working inside himself sometimes, especially within his threadspace. Nutrients and resources that would directly apply themselves to help solve that problem? Reid mused that this was the connection he should have started with.

The waves made by the energy explosion continued to ripple through him, slowly dying down as everything came to an equilibrium.

Reid felt right. Balanced. Grounded and healthy all at once. The sensation was like the morning after coming out of a long illness. Everything felt... better.

He reveled in the sensation for a long time as energy settled.

When it finally smoothed, Nyx appeared.

"Congratulations, Reid. Truly impressive. Full conduits and metaspace alignment in F grade... I don't think that's ever been done."

"Nyx, I feel... more."

She smiled softly. "Please, go on."

"It's like waking up better after being sick, but it also feels like I'm more... me. Proven. Certain. Interconnected within myself, like all these things I knew about myself were really all part of something larger this entire time, and I've only just now realized it. Like I'm bone and muscle and skin, and energy and space and concepts in equal measure. And all of it is me, and now more of me is together."

He opened his physical eyes, and blinked. Cracked his neck. Reached out and touched the dusting of snow coating his blanket. The world around him was the same - but he wasn't. He felt like his eyes saw detail further into the distance. He heard and felt his cracking neck, and knew which muscles he needed to stretch to make it happen again. He sensed his hand and its warmth melt the tiny frozen fractals away. Sensed a tiny spark of natural energy contained within.

Cold air filled his lungs, and he closed his eyes. He felt another tiny spark. "There's... energy in the air."

"Mana." Nyx corrected. "I won't push semantics too hard on you, but there is a division. Energy is energy. It doesn't need to do or be anything else. Mana is... owned, for lack of a better term. It's something you have within you, someone else has within them, part of the environment around us, or infused into items and equipment. Mana belongs to someone, or something, or is aligned with someone or something. Energy isn't - it's just energy. When you touched the beacon - energy. When the system tried to assist you in evolving to the next grade - energy. When you craft an item or surge power through yourself, that's mana."

Reid let the information sink into his mind, and felt it fall into place and rearrange itself.

"This is crazy. Everything is... it's in sync."

Reid held out a hand and recalled his Brock. Energy- no, mana - churned within him and sped off to where he needed it, then compressed and activated the trait. It still took ten seconds for his projectile to appear, but the process itself was easier. More automatic.

"Reid, are you ignoring your notifications again?"

He stilled. "No? I didn't notice any. What did I-"

Reid's voice caught.

Congratulations! Metaphysical Accomplishment Detected! METAPHYSICAL MILESTONE REACHED. ERROR: Template generation failed. Unknown error occurred. Congratulations! Equivalent experience adjusted for grade. Awarded. [ 250,000,000xp (F) ] ( + 145,000,000xp )

New Achievements Earned!

Metaspace Savant (Earned for locating and connecting all metaspaces prior to C Grade) Metaphysical progress accumulates at a slightly increased rate.

True Alignment (Earned for realizing true alignment between all six metaspaces) Improves mana, construct, stat, skill, crafting, metaphysical, and physical applications.

Experience: 263,083,501 / 419,430,400 -> 658,083,501 / 838,860,800 Level: 48 -> 49 [Hidden] Control: 610 -> 630

NOTICE: Note Unlocked - Priority Note to Self:

Hello Reid, and congratulations on making it to level 49. Hopefully by now, I'm awake, but if not, its probably long enough that I might not wake up at all, and since that's the case, I need to help you understand some fundamentals that are more easily described live. Prior to F grade, I'll have a message about balance and its importance. This message is about something wholly different, and something you're going to want to spend the few decades you have left in F grade mastering - metaspaces. You've sort-of discovered these already - the sea you've found yourself in when you fly off the handle is actually your power metaspace, and the space where you used a thread to bring up your status screen is one of the two spaces related to intelligence. There's also one for dexterity, one for...

The message from Nyx disappeared as he was reading it, and he could've sworn she mumbled something about 'missing one'. But that wasn't the main object of his attention at the moment, anyway.

Reid's chest rose and fell with breaths of cool air. A small group of bovine creatures wandered in the distance, teeth tearing at bits of greenery hiding under the thin layer of snow. Wind made the corner of his improvised blanket dance.

Two hundred fifty million experience, just like that. A hundred times what the system had given him for making a mana compressor. It was more than the beast lords were awarding him.

"That's... so much." The words carried his disbelief into the sparse and chill wilderness.

"It matches the accomplishment."

Nyx's words were warm, and simple. The total seemed outrageous - but so was the sensation he felt when he completed the work. He still had the same sensation now - a newer, truer Reid tucked half under a makeshift blanket at the edge of a large snowy expanse. His introspection mixed with her words and the acknowledgement of the system, and his vocabulary failed him.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

"Huh."

Reid rose, stowed the items that had kept him warm on the ground, then marched forward while still lost in his thoughts. Each step crunched through half-frosted grass

)+\( Hugo )/+(

Smoke rose over the burnt remains of a simple building. Hugo wrinkled his nose as the scent of burning flesh invaded his nostrils. Cries of pain, horror, and loss echoed off the boulders that dotted the clearing.

Hugo sent out cables of energy - not to harm, but to soothe. The work with Serroc and Nyx, within himself and with Vidita had given him a vast appreciation for what his skill was truly capable of. He had stared down the lens of a microscope, and missed so much. His magic and his soul touched dozens of others. He felt the grief and loss as if it was his own, and stilled for a moment. So many, at once, was nearly overwhelming. But he was here to help - so he did. His energy swirled and made to soothe the pains of those around him.

It would not be permanent. Trauma was a foe not so easily defeated.

But it was a start.

"Vidita. The chains."

She set to work, light carving slowly through the dense metal as links were severed. This was far from the only place they had found people chained to one another, but it was the first base they sacked since meeting up with Serroc and his trio. Some of the links fell limp to the ground - the prisoners they were attached to had already perished in the fire - or from the smoke.

Hugo grit his teeth and swept his eyes over the surrounding landscape.

Belar was gone, again. This time, in their flight, they failed to take the prisoners with them. The company's grunts had known Hugo was closing in, and in their fear and cowardice, they set fire to the prisoner's simple shelter.

A small boy picked up a limp and blackened hand even smaller than his own, and sobbed.

"Brinkha." The woman stepped forward, a rag over her face to protect from the smoke. She had proven herself the most capable of the three, though they all had merit. "I need you, Norton, and Gerald to tend them. Clean their wounds, and see them fed. Do it here, if you must. Take them to safety, if you can. Vidita will give you directions."

His original goal here was to see Brinkha, Gerald, and Norton safely back to the Vuxarinan camp. He even considered making his proper return. There were more than enough rescued to justify it.

Massing those willing to fight for a final assault on Belar's headquarters would be the smart thing to do. More tactically sound, and a move that would offer options and contingencies to a complex scenario.

But seeing the result of those cowards running to their 'safe' bunker amidst the wilds of the tutorial caused a righteous anger to rise in him. Serroc - his unlikely, alien friend - had killed their leader. A good number of their elites should be dead, between his actions and Hugo's own. The forces left against him were not insurmountable, and delaying any further would only put more of his people at risk.

Brinkha stared on. Her soul churned a mix of reluctance and will. Vidita's gave him a questioning look - then seemed to shrink as her currents swirled in on themselves. She understood him now at a fundamental level, and she understood what was going through his mind. He needed to act, now - and he could not wait for the slower members of their group to follow. Her included.

Vidita gave him a sad smile and small nod.

Hugo let his voice rise over the crackle of still burning flames. Over the pain of his people.

"I will end this."

#

#

His feet carried him quickly over sandy terrain, then through the root-covered floor of the congested forest. He pushed on without rest for days on end, before he had to stop himself to eat and sleep.

On the fourth day, he caught up to the group of guards in power armor hauling supplies and weapons. The same ones that had left a burning encampment just to slow him down.

His new constructs, part soul energy and part magic, had the power to heal and soothe.

They also had the power to destroy.

Hugo reached out with strands that were more solid and potent than he had previously been capable of. Each was securely anchored to his central structure, and empowered by it.

A cable wound itself around a straggler in the enemy numbers, and squeezed. The ashen skinned man convulsed.

Light compressed and contorted violently before it ripped apart in four places at once. Hugo pushed more energy through himself, and eight cables shot forward into the enemy ranks, squeezing and tearing. Light burst from multiple bodies at once and floated back to be absorbed. Shots lanced out in all directions, burning holes into the trees. Hugo was safe behind an earthen rise, beyond their frightened fire.

They screamed.

They suffered.

They died.

It took him twenty minutes to dismantle the traveling Belar goons, and some of that had been spent making the ranking members experience... prolonged suffering.

Nyx's warnings, in Serroc's voice, echoed in his ears. He took a breath, and pushed on.

#

#

Belar's headquarters sat astride a pair of hills that rose hundreds of feet over their surroundings. Trees were clear-cut a mile out from the high walls. Guards patrolled in pairs and trios along the tops of each, and a pair of lookouts were stationed in even higher towers that interspersed the wall's length.

This would not be easy.

Few worthwhile endeavors ever were.

He started by testing his range. His new framework and cables gave him impressive distance, but it still only made it a quarter of the way to the walls. He stalked around the perimeter, careful to stay out of view of the cameras that peppered the area. There were spots that had a closer approach, but those buzzed with more activity, and Hugo found himself retreating when a group of armed men came down towards his position with tools and axes in hand. Killing them would have been trivial, but he was not ready to alert the base to his presence.

Hugo watched on as the trees were felled, a combination of magic and might. There was also a crystal-powered chainsaw contraption, but that one was left unused. When they were finished, the group used a series of hooks and chains to sling the trees together, then dragged them back up to a large set of gates. Fire and smoke told him that at least some of the harvested wood was burned. Hugo eyed the trees.

It was worth a try.

#

His skull rattled against the half-rotten wood as his transport bounced over another series of rocks set into the hillside. He ignored the insects that crawled over his arms and legs to the best of his ability. Hugo kept his breathing measured and steady as he stared up. The rotted hole in the bark had became his entrance into the partially hollowed trunk, and the bit of gnarled bark he used as a plug was still holding strong. With any luck, the plug would remain intact and unnoticed.

Voices mixed around him, tired but playful, like the soldiers around the noble residence when they had not yet realized he was near. He hated how normal it all sounded. These were the same base animals that put his people in chains. They did not deserve such mirth.

Hugo extended his magic and his soul before his tree trunk came to a stop.

With his finer ability, he could sense the people around him more clearly, and could discern structures and walls by the slight resistance they provided. Cables of energy snaked through the sprawling compound, and a map built in his mind. He was in a courtyard filled with other trees and supplies. There were multiple simple barracks where dozens of soldiers slept. An armory where a strained crafter was following some sort of process that made new metallic gear. An observation room with a dozen guards inside. A training hall with 50. A central structure filled to the brim with personnel on the bottom floor, then sparsely populated with each rising floor. Seven stories tall, and only two occupants on the inside. Walls surrounding. Towers and guns and other structural oddities whose purpose eluded him.

The cages here were underground. Most of his people were there. Some milled and mixed with the Belar goons. They served food, or wore the armor and walked the walls. The sight of it turned his stomach.

He returned his attention to the tower, reached out, and squeezed.

Two souls on the top floor struggled in his grip and put a concerning level of strain on his power. As soon as they died, one of the four figures on the floor below fell backwards out of a chair, then started pointing at their allies. Hugo surged more energy forward, and held each of them in the grasp of his cables. The commotion they had started with one another died down with them, and gears turned in his head. He started with the top floor to cut off whatever new head had taken leadership of Belar's forces here. What he failed to anticipate was that the system would pass the leadership down to someone else.

He ripped apart the three reactionary members of the group, and left the fourth alive. No one on the next floor down reacted this time, and Hugo breathed a sigh of relief.

His work could continue - all he had to do was keep this one person in check.

Silent, creeping death ripped through Belar's main camp.

It strangled soldiers sleeping in their bunks. Wiped out rooms full of conversing goons as they played games of chance. It plucked the life from guards on towers and stopped the footfalls of patrols. His cables of energy seized them, crushed them, and tore the light away from their bodies.

None had power like the first few he killed. None possessed a soul strong enough to cause him harm.

He drained himself dangerously low, then partially rested as he allowed himself to digest the souls of every life he'd taken so far. Thin, strong strands kept the leader of Belar's forces still and quiet while he refueled himself with the souls of their fallen troops, then started another wave of death.

A wormlike creature with legs crawled across his face and threatened to break his concentration. He scraped it off against the wood. His situation did not matter. Results did.

Night came, and with it, a new shift of troops started to rise from their bunks, and emerge out to the walls and halls.

They found their comrades, cold and lifeless with no visible injuries.

An alarm was raised.

Grounds and wall were investigated for signs of a breach. Signs of the enemy. Signs of him.

One team tried to take hostages from the Vuxarinans still trapped in their cages. They did not make it to the doors.

Frantic troops desperately searched for the intruder. Unprocessed firewood laid untouched, forgotten in their mad scramble.

From the hollow core of a half-dead tree, Hugo Vux slowly massacred every member of Belar's forces left in the tutorial.

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