Cyril Sarnath
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Chapter 194
🕑 Added 2023-11-17 19:31:20 +0000 UTCHey everyone, just a quick message. I am planning to soon wrap up this arc with 3-4 chapters and then I will take a month break. After the break I am beginning another arc but it is very different from what we had so far.
More time skips.
We're leaving Earth.
Harter's fate.
In general, it is big step for the story as it will allow me to widen the scope and speed up the pace considerably. In some way, the next arc will be a soft restart. Still, Keynes remains the main character but his situation will be vastly different. I am already excited about the next arc.
PS. Just for your knowledge.
I'm half way through with rewrite/edit of the first book, which I plan to publish on amazon once finished.
Also, I am working on another story; it's going to be a chill one :) take care everyone!
****
Understanding insight was a tricky thing. It was elusive like a serpent, constantly shifting its meaning. Each time Keynes had it in his hands, it slipped through, leaving him with a feeling of being “almost there”.
It was frustrating. It was annoying. It made Keynes waver in his resolve to fully enter the spiritual world but he understood that the underlying principle of insight was to step beyond mere understanding and experience enlightenment.
Knowing it wasn’t enough though. Insight couldn’t be trained like attributes, skills or even Talents. It couldn’t be learned or grinded like techniques. It just came to some people and did not to others.
Fortunately, apart from the System’s entities granting insight, there were skills and elixir helping in achieving it. Not surprisingly, all of these were rare and valuable. At the moment, Keynes didn’t have access to any of them. But still was trying to find his own insight without external help, excluding Alice.
She offered some minor insight as to how Keynes could gain insight. It was a convoluted process that tested Keynes’s patience but he would not stop until his goal was achieved.
What was so critical about the spiritual world that Keynes was keen to mentally suffer through it? According to Alice and hints from the guardian, the physical and spiritual world had a strong symbiotic relationship and learning how to impact both worlds at the same time would strengthen Keynes in more than one way.
At first, he had been convinced that the spiritual world was only beneficial in gardening but his conversations with Alice shifted his understanding of the spiritual world. The spirits had much broader potential than affecting plants and based on Alice’s observations, some spirits were strictly elemental in nature, having one strong affinity, which could exert some effect on the physical world.
It wasn’t clear what precisely the extent of that effect was but Keynes had a strong hunch that the System wouldn’t bother with the spiritual world if it didn’t play a part in its grand design.
His bet was that gathering spirits of the same affinity or one but very strong spirit, could somehow boost his spells in the physical world, or simpler effects like improving regeneration.
These were good ideas but weren’t without drawbacks. Keynes didn’t know if he could limit the beneficial effect only to himself and his allies. It would make no sense to boost his enemies.
Slowly, thoughts started to fall off and only a singular drive remained. Keynes recognised what was happening. The pattern was eerily similar to when he’d unlocked the Technique of Spiritual Sensitivity. It was different and yet it was intimately familiar and impossible to miss.
Keynes followed it.
***
Is he going to be alright? Kora asked her spiritual assistant.
He appears to be perfectly healthy, the spiritual assistant replied, missing the point.
I’m asking if he’ll wake up in time to finish the current challenge, Kora elaborated.
I am not in position to predict when he will wake up or what is happening to him right now.
It was as Keynes had told her earlier. Spiritual assistants tended to be useless. She somewhat agreed with him. Her spiritual assistant wasn’t without its benefit but they didn’t lie in providing knowledge about the System. Keynes just assumed that the spiritual assistants should reveal the System’s secrets.
Kora returned to the tree house and nestled against the trunk of the dream tree. She activated [Nature Aura] but kept it passive in the background. In the last couple of days her connection with the dream tree evolved into a weird relationship where Kora would talk to it about her earthly problems and the dream tree would awkwardly try to soothe her. In the beginning, Kora found it amusing and cute, but since then grew to rely on the otherworldly support.
“I’m worried about Keynes. Not any fundamental way; it’s just his conflict with Zephyr has awakened something in him and he’s pushing himself to limits, which may cost him the whole tournament.”
The dream tree’s attention slowly descended onto Kora, then a connection formed.
“He’s a prideful boy,” the dream tree said, amused by her own words. “And he seeks challenges. He thrives in them. He’ll be fine. This time.”
“This time? What does that mean?” A spike of fear gripped Kora’s heart.
“It means precisely what it means. This time he will be fine,” the dream tree replied as if it was explaining something to a child.
“What about next time?” Kora asked.
“I do not know. I cannot see the future. Silly.”
“Of course,”Kora said, relieved.
They left the topic and moved onto more girly subjects. For some reason, in Kora’s mind, the dream tree sounded feminine, although it understood the concept of female and male, it didn’t see itself as one or another.
Later that day, Kora returned to the task at hand, meaning figuring out what could be the most precious in the Father’s eyes. The added difficulty was not even a single hint from the guardian this time around. It made the challenge treacherous. At no point, Kora knew where she stood with the criteria being outright unknown.
She cultivated several plants with a different emphasis on each of them. At the end she would decide the most important quality. Her best project was a mana plant, which she kind of copied from Keynes. It produced 388 mana per hour and she was pretty sure she’d soon cross 400 mana per hour.
Nonetheless, she was convinced that a mana plant wouldn’t satisfy the Father’s judgement as the plant’s quality was one dimensional and they were already judged on this, which raised an additional issue. There were others who had placed better than Keynes and her. If they decided to go with a mana plant as well, she might drag Keynes down.
The other option was the monster plant but she just didn’t see how it was precious. There had to be something else. The dream tree only offered help in improving the existing plants not in explaining the concept or hinting criteria.
Her thoughts returned to Sophia and her offer but Kora quickly dismissed the idea. She didn’t trust the green-haired woman.
Maybe it’s time to venture to the marketplace and get some quests. I have to come up with something better than these.
***
“Nothing?” Zephyr asked as he stared at the line of the trees beyond which lay the Dark Forest.
“Nothing,” Sophia replied, grimly. “That bitch never trusted me.”
“You cannot blame her,” Zephyr said. “You don’t inspire confidence.”
Sophia turned to him, her spiritual aura rippling around her. Zephyr didn’t look her way, not intimidated by her power. Even if the Inner Sanctuary didn’t forbid violence, a fight so close to the forest would be too disadvantageous for her. The old man’s Talent was too powerful when surrounded by trees. She’d have escaped him, but defeating Zephyr would have been too dangerous.
“You aren’t helping,” Sophia snapped.
“And how do you expect me to help?” he asked, frowning.
“What about the council’s lapdog? Have you learned anything from him?”
“I did,” Zephyr replied in a neutral voice.
“And?”
“Apparently, the boy is a big shot, worth more than winning this whole challenge.”
“Who is he?” Sophia insisted.
“I don’t know.” Zephyr shook his head. “He wouldn’t tell me and when threatened he told me to piss off.”
That put a smile on her face. Zephyr saw and immediately said, “once this is over I will kill them both.”
“Aren’t you afraid of the Council?” Sophia asked intrigued. “Before we entered, they had pretty much taken over the planet.”
Without replying, Zephyr entered the Dark Forest, leaving Sophia alone. She cursed quietly because she failed at her true purpose of their meeting. She was trying to learn from the old man about the challenge. The time was almost up and all the plants she had come up with were subpar at best.
As she turned her spiritual sense picked up an ascender. It was evening but the sun was still above the horizon. She quickly hid her aura from the approaching person, wondering who it could be at this hour. The secret of the Dark Forest lay in the fact that it spawned more valuable and dangerous monsters during the night. Most ascenders avoided it altogether, as they knew winning was out of their hands and so risking their lives was pointless.
A few moments later Kora came from behind a hill. Their eyes met and the other woman stopped. Does she think I’ll attack her? Silly girl.
Kora’s hesitation lasted only a few seconds and she resumed her walk. All the way to the Dark Forest, she watched Sophia in the corner of her eyes, hostility plain her stare.
“How about we exchange information?” Sophia called out but Kora didn’t reply. Bitch. Once this is over I’ll cut you to pieces.
***
Somewhere in Arshem Hunting Ground
“It was a good hunt,” Maegan said, smiling at her adventuring party. “Just from the furs alone we have earned ten thousand credits. Three more days and we can return to Arshem to turn it in for a hefty profit!”
She tried to keep excitement at bay but it was getting harder to do so as she considered ‘the gold mine’ they had found
Others nodded in agreement. Their group had formed out of necessity when they learned that no individual adventurer of their Level was permitted in the hunting grounds. There had been too many deaths and Arshem was forced to change the law.
Maegan could see why. With additional outbreaks, Higher Level rifts opened, populating the hunting grounds with more dangerous monsters.
Even with thousands of adventurers prowling through the hunting ground day and night, the number of monsters didn’t budge.
To her satisfaction, demand also remained at an all time high, making hunting extremely lucrative. But it wasn’t simply killing the monsters that made them money. Not at all.
Before their group formed, Maegan researched everything about the monsters that spawned in Arshem Hunting Ground, the value of their parts, their danger index and population. She built a chart that revealed to her that Level 3 Tree Bears were the most profitable to hunt. They kept away from other monsters, their powers were easily countered by water affinity skills and Talents, and their furs were quite valuable. When she took all factors into consideration, the Tree Bear turned out to be her gold mine.
She didn’t wish to end there. Once everyone in her party hit Level 5 and grabbed the Minor Talent upgrade, she was planning to move to Australia, the largest hunting ground in the world. Some hardcore adventuring parties were already there but they kept their lips tight about the monster types and such. It only convinced her that Australia was her next destination and the place where she’d rise to prominence.
Suddenly their communicators started blipping. They exchanged glances. The communicators were mandatory to hunt here. They were issued by Arshem and kept adventurers in the hunting ground informed about important matters.
“The fuck!” Klaus swore.
Maegan glanced at her communicator and read the message. It was tagged with the highest priority.
Dear Ascenders, The free city of Arshem has decided to accept the Solar Council’s joint program called the Umbrella which aims at creating a safe, sustainable and convenient system where every ascender is valued as an important member of our community and supported on their path to greatness. The Umbrella program is an important step in the integration of outbreaks and dominion monsters into our lives without putting our families at risk.
Click here to learn the details.
Maegan felt like her insides caught fire. She couldn’t believe that Arshem, the last free city in the world, bent the knee! She didn’t even consider hunting grounds nearby Geneva because they were the council’s big suckers. Every ascender flocked Arshem because it sheltered them from the Council’s greed.
“I fucking knew it!” Klaus jumped to his feet. “They want to chip us.”
“Oh, but it's way worse than than that,” a man Maegan didn’t recognize said. Others seemed unaware of the man and Maegan blinked several times to ensure she didn’t have hallucinations.
