Eramith
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Book 2: Chapter 87
🕑 Added 2023-07-18 13:00:07 +0000 UTCNOTE: This chapter was edited on July 21 2023. The only change is to the status screens and three lines of dialogue were removed referring to them because I had been calculating them incorrectly.
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Even though he still had over 5 months left, Felix was getting antsy to leave. Just the prospect of being able to explore and learn out in the actual multiverse without being restricted to System events and whatever information it felt like drip feeding him was enticing. The idea of being able to fight things stronger than him and actually be able to improve and grow more was exhilarating.
Before he left though, Felix had one or two things he wanted to do. First, he wanted to level himself up to about 200 in his class. Secondly, he wanted to hunt more creatures to reap their souls. Luckily, he could easily do both at once.
When he was flying from city to city, Felix had killed 85 random creatures and reaped their souls. While they had given him a decent number of stats, he had only gained a total of 4 levels. He was pretty sure it had to do with the fact that he was never really in danger at all and he wasn’t really learning anything. He was just killing them with one to three spells from the sky before they could really respond at all. With Lightning Bolts too, they couldn’t even really dodge him.
In just the short time Nova had been hunting with Endycor on the other hand, they had gained 13 levels. He watched them hunt for a bit and saw they took turns fighting creatures that had levels in the high 300s to low 400s one on one. Endycor occasionally ate the creatures for sustenance but Nova ate everything they killed and the majority of what Endycor killed since the dragon couldn’t eat them all. Judging from the speed of how fast they killed things, Felix was pretty sure they had each killed around a couple hundred creatures since he had left them.
Holy shit the D grade wall, huh? Just 13 levels from around 200 creatures with levels 14% higher than theirs. That’s rough.
And apparently it get’s worse the higher you go.
Damn.
He let them be for now and flew off in a different direction. Felix headed north through the jungle into the densest part he had seen from the sky. While it was far safer and easier for him to fight creatures out in the open like the plains or rocky cliffs even further north, it would also likely mean less experience. He knew he needed to put himself in danger, take on actual risk in order to learn, grow and ultimately gain experience. Given how easy it was for him to kill things on this planet just by firing off a barrage of spells at them, he was planning on fighting with his Persona and Eretheas.
Flying through the jungle, Felix came across a decent number of random creatures but it took him a while to find something worth actually fighting. He could have just killed everything he saw to harvest all their souls, but a lot of them were very small, low level creatures that he was pretty sure would give him maybe a single stat for every 1000 he killed. He wasn’t inclined to go on a killing spree when it was worth so little and not to mention how boring it would have been. Instead he didn’t waste any time and rushed through the jungle until he found something actually worth fighting.
What he ended up settling on was a creature that looked like a green tiger, at first. Felix had seen a few of them in a small area and each of them were around level 255 give or take a few. He was going to ignore them because they were simply uncommon but out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of them change.
The color of their fur shifted to keep them hidden amongst the jungle. As they pounced on their prey, some bird like creature, the fur shifted again to a vibrant red color as the tiger leapt across the jungle. The fur reverted to camouflaging the creature as it ate but Felix was already interested.
He quickly took a look at his status screen before shifting into his persona and allocating his 30 free points into intelligence.
Name:
Felix Kade
FREE
0
Innate:
Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)
STR
7089
Class:
[D - Legendary] Reaper (Lvl 142)
DEX
10809
Race:
[D - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 179)
AGI
6329
Profession:
[D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (Lvl 217)
PER
9599
Health:
64050/64050
VIT
6405
Mana:
2337060/2337060
INT
21246
Energy:
310920/310920
END
7773
He looked at his status screen and it just confirmed to him that he had made the right choice of class and race. Though he still hadn’t caught up to the alternatives yet, he had made massive progress in a very short period. While he could have have Grim teach him basic soul harvesting and gone with the custom class or something else with higher stats, he would have missed out on the skills.
While he was initially disappointed with the Reaper skills because they offered him essentially nothing currently, he recognized their value. They were essentially percentage increases to his stats in a way which was infinitely more valuable than base stats to him right now. He suspected as he leveled and grew, they would become even more important too.
Looking at the tigers, he estimated his stats alone were much higher than theirs. He knew he was towing a weird line where he was stronger than just about everything around his level.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t just hunt down anything because the higher the level gap got, the more likely they would have some trick up their sleeve that Felix would have a hard time dealing with. His experience and therefore level, were in catchup mode because his level was not representative of how strong he actually was. Luckily, that meant he would be able to level quickly, if he found himself the right fights.
For now, his goal was to hit about level 200 before he left the integration. No amount of leveling was going to make him the strongest once he left but it would make him safer. Too much leveling and he risked finding some information that made him regret decisions. He could realistically sit on the planet and grind out levels for the next 5 months, but he knew that would have been way too boring for him. Instead, he set himself a reasonable goal of 200.
Felix activated the Persona causing streams of red and white to pour out of his rings and surround his body. After a few seconds, he stretched himself out and pulled out Eretheas then approached the hungry tiger.
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[D - Uncommon] Chameleon Tiger (Lvl 249) .________________________________________________________________________________________
Felix took two steps forwards and the tiger instantly went from gnawing on bird bones to wrapping it’s jaw’s around Felix’s axe arm. It’s teeth sunk into his flesh and it’s jaw squeezed causing Felix to feel his bones fracture. He dropped the axe instinctively then reached over with his other hand and tried to strangle the cat.
As much as he squeezed though, his one hand alone just wasn’t big enough to wrap around it’s neck. Felix reached down and felt around with his left hand for the axe then, as soon as his fingers brushed it’s shaft, ripped it out of the ground right up into the Tiger’s body.
The Tiger yelped but barely moved because Felix’s swing was pitiful, even by Felix’s standards. He dropped the axe again, this time on purpose and started to punch the tiger in it’s head. By the third punch, the tiger had completely broken through his arm bones crushing his muscles against each-other and tearing through his flesh. Felix gritted his teeth against the pain then dulled it to keep himself focused. He continued to punch, scratch and tear at the tiger’s face until it finally let go, leaping back 10 meters from Felix.
He quickly looked down at his now useless right arm and just saw streams of crimson pouring out of his arm and pooling on the ground, some of it splashing onto the axe. He reached his left hand down and ripped the axe out of the ground, straining to move it. He lowered the weight of the axe but realized, his strength in this form was actually lower than his normal body because he still hadn’t absorbed enough to strengthen it much.
Once he realized that, he lowered the axe’s weight and started supplementing his movements with force spells, like he had been practicing before. It made it at least possible to swing with a modicum of force, rather than utterly pitifully. Felix leapt forwards, with a force spell propelling him, and swung the axe down at the Tiger. The Tiger’s fur shifted slightly blue-white as it stepped to the side and Felix buried the axe into the ground. He was having trouble seeing the creature move which confused him at first because he had tracked it perfectly when it hunted the bird.
He connected the dots almost immediately though realizing it wasn’t just strength his Persona was lacking. Though it shared a portion of his actual stats, the portion of stats that came solely from his Persona’s body, were significantly lacking. He had a lot of work to do to make the body actually usable in any useful capacity.
Unfortunately he didn’t have a status screen for the Persona, activating it just brought up his own, so all he could do was estimate. If he had to venture a guess, he was thinking it was about a third to a half of his own stats. His intelligence felt lower to him even though in theory it shouldn’t have been but he didn’t think too much on it now.
Felix ripped the axe out of the ground as the Tiger slashed at his left thigh, opening a deep wound that bleed profusely, just like his right arm. He immediately swung the axe to the left but the Tiger simply turned slightly blue again and jumped back a few meters.
These fuckers are so much harder than the Devoured, even though they had almost three times it’s levels.
Yeah but their stats were less than halved.
And they were super predictable.
Yeah, they fought completely brainlessly, imitating random movements they had made when they lived.
Do I just suck?
Yes. Like a lot. You have little to no actual battle experience. How often do you actually have to fight anything?
Yeah, rarely. Hopefully I can find some better fights outside of the integration.
Well hurry up so you can leave then.
I know, I know I’m on it.
Before Felix could swing again, the Tiger leapt up almost above Felix’s head and reached it’s claws forwards with it’s maw open and aimed at his neck.
Fuck it.
Instead of dodging or trying to block the bite with his arm, Felix simply let it come and started swinging the axe up into it. Considering the body he was using was more or less just a suit of armor and not actually his real body, he was guaranteed to survive the otherwise fatal blow.
The tiger dug it’s claws into Felix’s shoulders and pulled it’s maw around his neck then clamped down just as Eretheas made contact with it’s stomach. The axe head ripped right through it’s body, showering Felix’s head in blood and viscera and ending the Tiger’s life before it’s jaw could break his neck.
Felix dropped the axe again and ripped it’s jaw off his neck then activated his rings as his vision blurred. The familiar streams of crimson and golden white poured into Felix’s rings except this time, the streams had another effect. As they poured into his rings, specifically the blood ring, Felix suddenly felt reinvigorated. His wounds stopped bleeding and sealed up, even his arm bones fused themselves back together. Mentally reviewing his Persona, he wasn’t in tip top shape, but he was pretty close.
Unfortunately, he didn’t know if that meant there was less harvested materials in the ring. It was likely, but to Felix, it didn’t matter. He should still have more than enough to strengthen his Persona considering how big the Tiger’s body was. Most importantly though, Felix had samples of the Tiger’s flesh and fur which he was super curious to check out. That could wait till later though as Felix had more Tigers to slay.
Ding You have slain [D - Uncommon] Chameleon Tiger (Lvl 249)
Ding You have gained 24 levels in [D - Legendary] Reaper (142 => 166)
Holy shit.
Running around the jungle and bringing his Persona to the brink of death a few times, Felix managed to slay a total of 14 more Tigers after the first one. He had gotten marginally better at staying alive but he was still getting injured far more than was sustainable in any normal battle.
Ding You have slain 14 [D - Uncommon] Chameleon Tiger (Lvl 250-258)
Ding You have gained 48 levels in [D - Legendary] Reaper (166 => 214)
He had already surpassed his goal of level 200 about 7 Tigers back but Felix was having fun so he kept going. He would have slain a few more too had he not spotted an even more interesting creature to hunt off in the distance.
A few hundred meters in front of him, in the middle of the jungle, Felix saw a creature that he would best describe as a furry Salamander. It looked like a giant Salamander with 6 legs and fur except that the way it moved was completely foreign. Instead of walking, it’s limbs, terminated with hands, reached out and grabbed the trunks of the trees around it pulling it’s body along through the trees. It moved like it was slithering through the air and honestly, Felix couldn’t tell which side was up with the creature.
As it slithered and Felix watched, he saw the creature flip itself over and continue on like nothing had happened more than a few times. It had an identical set of eyes and nostrils on the other side of it’s head too so Felix wasn’t sure at first if he hadn’t imagined it flipping over. At almost 20 meters or so from head to tip of it’s tail, the trees around it creaked and bent as it grabbed and pushed off of them.
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[D - Rare] Jungle Monkey-Salamander (Lvl 271) .________________________________________________________________________________________
I fucking hate this identification shit. Give me it’s real name please. Remind me to look for something to fix this as soon as we get to the city.
Noted.
Felix made sure he was all healed up using the bodies he had harvested into The Blood Ring then readied the axe and approached. The more he had fought the Tigers, the more he had realized that he actually had no instincts for fighting. So to try and make up for his lack of instincts, instead of just randomly swinging on the spot, Felix decided he would go into the fight with a plan. For this fight, his plan was to just dodge and avoid the creature’s strikes until he had a good idea of how it would attack. Then, he would try and figure out where his best openings were and capitalize on those.
Unfortunately, this was a real creature not a video game boss or a Devoured so it wasn’t going to be perfectly predictable, it would definitely adapt as the fight progressed. Having a plan though was still better in Felix’s mind than going in blind and just swinging, even though he found that incredibly fun. He also found winning and improving fun though so that was the plan for the Salamander.
Felix made sure the Salamander saw him by hitting it with a very light Mana Bolt then stood his ground and held Eretheas close to his chest and lowered it’s weight.
The Salamander immediately started pulling itself through the trees towards Felix, pulling a couple of smaller trees right out of the ground in the process. Felix was expecting it to try and bite him first and foremost so he prepared himself to jump back and to the side. Instead, as it approached him, Felix realized it was aiming a few meters above his head. As soon as it was above him, it pulled upwards on the trees and shot it’s body downwards.
Luckily, the jump spells Felix had prepared were trivial to redirect so he did so and jumped horizontally as fast as he could. He barely managed to get out unharmed though as his foot had brushed along the underside of the creature in the process. Luckily it didn’t get smashed into the ground, but it was much closer than Felix would have liked.
As soon as Felix landed, he jumped again as he saw the Salamander’s middle arm reach out to grab him. He managed to avoid the thumb but it’s fingers still brushed against his body and knocked him to the side instead of grabbing him. The Salamander took the time to pull itself off the ground so Felix quickly righted himself. He looked in its direction and saw it swing its head around the tree and go for a bite.
Felix was ready for it and jumped back but he wasn’t ready for the Salamander to shoot itself forwards using the trees for leverage. Instead of just having to jump back a few meters, Felix had to have jumped back at least 10 or more. Unfortunately, he hadn’t and he wasn’t fast enough to readjust in midair with spells. The Salamander managed to clamp it’s mouth down on the upper half of Felix’s body and it’s array of tiny sharp teeth shredded through his skin.
Not exactly the opening I was hoping for…
Felix had been holding the axe close to his chest so it was in the maw with him. As he felt himself get lifted off the ground and high up into the air, he started swinging wildly with the axe. Everywhere he swung was bound to hit something so as long as he avoided hitting himself, he figured he would be winning. He ended up with hundreds of cuts along the outsides of his arms as they brushed against it’s teeth that covered the inside of it’s mouth but he did feel the axe make contact many times.
He wasn’t able to swing it very far or with much force considering the confined space but it was better than nothing and he didn’t want to trivialize the fight with spells.
Felix finally felt himself get released from it’s grip and pulled his arms in close to avoid further lacerations. Looking down though, he realized the Salamander had released him so they could fully swallow him. He quickly activated the jump spells in his boots and shot himself up and to the right, completely avoiding being swallowed then swung the axe down towards the creature as he fell. He augmented his swing with force, as he had been with most of his movements when possible, but this time with much more than he normally used.
The axe swung down and caught on the Salamander’s right jaw just as it closed it’s mouth then completely tore through the joint. The axe head popped out the back right of it’s head and Felix caught himself before his body smashed into the ground.
The Salamander faltered, letting go of the trees and falling to the ground but quickly recovered before Felix could land another strike. Felix readied himself for it’s next attack but ended up just screaming in frustration when it launched itself up and tried to run away.
Felix immediately shot himself up as high as he could with a single burst and then shot himself towards the Salamander trying to land another swing as he fell onto it. The Salamander saw him coming though and slithered around a different tree, completely avoiding him.
Felix shot himself forwards, using the trees to jump off of where he could and chased after the Salamander through the jungle. He tried multiple times to just swing down and hit it but he refused to simply hit it with a Lightning Bolt because that would have been too easy and in his mind, giving up or cheating. Instead he relentlessly chased it through the jungle blowing through almost half of his mana just flying and restoring his energy pool before he saw it start to slow down.
The Salamander first slipped when it tried to grab a tree then stumbled slightly, a few minutes later it stumbled again and Felix was able to pounce forwards. He finally managed to land on it’s back without it squirming aside. Before it could try and push him off, Felix reached down and grabbed a handful of it’s fur with his left hand then battered it with Eretheas using his right. He crawled forwards and repeated the process until finally, he got a kill notification.
Ding You have slain [D - Rare] Jungle Monkey-Salamander (Lvl 271)
Ding You have gained 7 levels in [D - Legendary] Reaper (214 => 221)
The Salamander’s corpse along with Felix on top of it, dropped to the ground. As soon as it crashed into the jungle floor, Felix activated his rings and then fell to the ground himself as it’s body disappeared leaving behind a small wisp of dust that blew away.
Even more so than when he had Devoured the Tigers, Felix felt completely rejuvenated and healthy. Looking at the stats he gained from harvesting the creature’s soul, after the requisite time for his skill to work, he had also gained about 20% more stats from it when compared to the tigers.
Difference between Uncommon and Rare I guess.
Felix dropped the Persona and reverted to his own body then opened a portal to Atalus. He had to fight off a couple of creatures that tried to get the drop on him in the middle of the jungle but none of them required he actually pay them much attention. He already had the mold for the portal, so all he had to do was alter it slightly and push mana into it, something he could easily do while fighting off random and weak jungle creatures.
The portal opened and Felix stepped through into a small crowd of people that were passing in and out of the portals around him. He avoided the entire situation and just flew up into the air then shot himself into the commerce district of Atalus.
He had a couple of things he wanted to buy before he left. The first thing he purchased was a basic set of durable clothing for his Persona. As much as he didn’t care about walking around naked, especially in his Persona in the middle of the jungle, other people tended to care. He had to get them custom tailored to fit but that only took an hour or so. In the meantime, he stocked up on various foods and supplies and generally perused the various shops.
Once he had the clothes in hand he headed over to the council building and opened the entrance to his Pocket Home on the wall inside. The last thing he had to do was make Mana Batteries for both himself and the city. He had a few thousand gemstones to get through so he started where he had left off, with the most flawed gemstones.
As expected, he didn’t have any major breakthroughs but after causing a few hundred gemstones to burst, he was getting a better idea of when to stop. By the time he had consumed a thousand, he had ended up with a just under a hundred small batteries with capacities ranging from 150 to 300.
As he continued through his progression of gemstones, the capacities he ended up with grew exponentially as the gemstones approached flawlessness. By the time he had gone through another thousand, he had made a couple hundred more batteries but their capacities ranged from 300 to just over a thousand.
After that, he only had a few hundred more so he was as careful as he could be. He managed to make a couple of batteries with capacities of 2314 and 4286 but he still hadn’t touched the last 5 gemstones he had been saving. Even though the gems used to create the 4286 and 2314 batteries were close to flawless, they still had minor flaws, tiny cracks and minor chips.
The last 5 Felix had reserved, were entirely flawless to his eye. The first three were a small ruby with a perfectly spherical shape, an emerald beautifully cut with a triangular shape and a yellow gem called an Agyracrase, according to his ring, with a square shape.
The last two were both the largest and most impressive to Felix, a diamond with a round cut and a deep blue gem cut into a perfect icosahedron with chamfered edges. The blue gem intrigued Felix the most and he had actually overspent a little on it in the auction because he liked the color so much. It looked almost like a sapphire in but under harsh light, it lightened to a beautiful almost baby blue. It was called a Caerulite, according to his ring and the auction.
He had sorted them by size because his previous sorting method of how flawed they were didn’t work without any discernible flaws.
Starting with the ruby, Felix did the same thing he had done with all the other gems. In his soul space, he pulled in a stream of mana from his mana pool and filtered it until it was as close to inert as he could make it. Once he couldn’t see any attunements or energy levels at all, he progressively pushed the mana into the gem from all sides. Once that cycle was complete, he pushed mana in from all sides at once then he looked inside as best he could and tried to feel out any vibrations or instability.
With every other gem up to this point, he had had to wait and let the gem rest so it could restabilize. When he completed the next cycle, it would become unstable again, even worse than the last time. Each and every cycle the instability got worse and Felix just had to know when the instability on the next cycle would be too much so he could stop.
With this gem, there was no instability he could detect, which was both scary and promising at the same time. On the one hand, it meant the gem would likely produce a huge battery, on the other, it meant Felix had no idea when to stop.
He let it rest for a few minutes anyways, just to be sure then continued on with another cycle. He managed to get through another 50 cycles before he decided he had to change something. He started to gradually increase the amount of mana he was pushing into the gem with each cycle until, by the 100th cycle, he was pushing almost a thousand mana into the gem at once. Only by the 129th cycle did he feel any kind of vibration at which point he resumed his previous process of letting it rest until it became stable again.
Unfortunately, without flaws, he had no idea how much instability was too much. With the other’s, he estimated it based on how flawed the gem was. Now, he would just be guessing. He ended up stopping when he hit 250,000 mana exactly, adjusting the last cycle to make it precise because he had finally matched his standard consumable battery size. It wasn’t the most useful to him, but to Grim or the city, it would be enormous.
He decided to allocate the batteries once he finished but until then, he continued with the emerald. He managed to push that one to 436,000 before he stopped because he had never seen so much instability in a gem before.
Moving onto the Agyracrase, Felix paid very close attention to the gem and started with a lot more mana per cycle. This time, he was fully prepared to have it burst because he needed to know how much a flawless gem could take. By the time he hit 750,000 mana, the gem itself was vibrating visibly instead of just internally. He was committed to seeing how far it could go though so he continued until he hit just over a million mana and the gem vibrated just a little then instead of the vibrations dying down, they increased until the gem shook and finally exploded.
Paying careful attention to the gem, Felix had an idea for an improvement he could make on his process. Instead of sending bursts of mana at individual points along it’s surface one by one, Felix decided to instead create a wave of sorts that pushed mana into the gem more gradually but would still hit every point an equal amount. He figured since he had learned by adapting from a spell form, the spell form just didn’t have the ability to make a clean wave or this was easier to make. If it had created a clean wave of mana, the spell form would likely be far more complicated and therefore a higher grade spell.
At least, he was hoping that was the case, either way he didn’t think it would hurt the gemstone and he was willing to potentially ruin the diamond, especially if it was a marked improvement. Starting with less mana than he had on the Agyracrase, Felix created a small wave of mana and pushed it into the gem then gradually moved the wave around to push mana in from all directions.
Once he had completely covered it’s surface, he applied a burst of mana from all sides. Instead of pushing it in suddenly, he increased the pressure from all sides more gradually like a wave then backed off in the same way.
He continued this cycle and very quickly hit a million mana as he increased the amount of mana he was using with each and every cycle. By the time he hit 4 million, the vibrations were far less noticeable and Felix excitedly pressed onwards. Unfortunately, by the time he had hit 4 and a half million, the gem suddenly exploded with no warning. He had been paying careful attention to the gem and even though he didn’t sense it visibly shake, it had still exploded. In hind sight, he suspected there had been an internal flaw in the gem that he had either missed or had no hope of seeing.
While it was possible his new method caused more strain on the gem just in a different way, he had no way of knowing for sure because no two gems were identical. With only one gem left, Felix was left with the conundrum of whether or not he should continue using his new method or go back to the old one he had more experience with.
Ultimately, he decided to use the new method because it wasn’t the end of the world if he failed. He would give the city the 250k mana battery and Grim the 436k battery so this one was for himself. He didn’t needa battery immediately and suspected he would be able to find more gems outside the integration so he could try again soon.
All the smaller batteries he had made he would either sell or more likely just hand off to Noah to do whatever he wanted with them because he had no real use for them. At this point, a few hundred to a thousand mana was nothing to him and even if he used them for magical contraptions, they wouldn’t be sufficient for much.
Felix carefully examined the Caerulite in his soul space a few times before he finally started. He wanted to make sure he couldn’t see any flaws. Once he had confirmed his previous examination’s results, he started with his new method and pushed mana into the gem.
He started at a thousand mana and then doubled the amount in the gem with every cycle until the gem showed any signs of instability. It was slightly risky, but in his experience with all the flawed gemstones, shouldn’t result in a premature explosion. That only happened to three of the gems he had worked on, in total.
He pushed mana into the gem all the way up to 1 million without seeing any instability whatsoever so he doubled it once again to just over 2 million mana. At that point, the entire gem started to almost pulsate when he completed the cycle. He let it rest while he collected enough aether to perform another cycle, with the portal to his pocket home open so he could pull from the real world.
Once he had enough to do another he performed a cycle with just a million mana. As he pushed mana in he noticed the vibrations almost immediately ramp up so he stopped himself short. He had at that point managed to pour in a grand total of 4.1 million mana, which was already far larger than his own mana pool.
Instead of risking it any further, he stopped, let the gem rest and cure before it’s final transfer into a housing. While he waited, he worked on a simply housing for the battery. The plans he had for mana batteries included a housing that evened out the mana entering and exiting the battery so the transfer was more distributed.
It also stopped too much mana from being pulled out or put in at once. The design was basic and functional but Felix was pretty sure he could do better. The housing was designed with E grade batteries in mind, not that batteries really had grades, just capacities.
As Felix made more batteries, he had noticed that the materials only indirectly affected the grade of the battery. The determining factor was the capacity. The two he planned on giving to the city and Grim were C grade batteries. The one he had just finished the initial phase for, he suspected would be at least in the C grade. Given it’s insane capacity, Felix felt it deserved a more appropriate housing than just the default design.
Felix’s adjustments used a different lattice around the battery as well as more complicated channels. He also added a small mana collection array so the battery would refill itself, albeit slowly. He used the best inlay materials he had for the inscriptions and Starmetal for the outside. Once the housing was complete and the gem had cured, he carefully placed the prepped gem into the housing and sealed it.
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[B - Common] Mana Battery (4,100,000/4,100,000)
[Large][Slow][Very Slow Recharge]
A battery containing mana.
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4.1 M is B grade Common?
Seems like it.
Well I would say that was a resounding success.
Ding You have gained 5 levels in [D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (217 => 222)
Felix pulled Grim out of his soul space and fed him the 436k mana battery then put him back. He exited his pocket home and conveniently found Noah right inside the council building.
Noah immediately turned towards Felix and cocked a brow, “Did you just portal in here?”
“No, that’s where my tower is now, pocket dimension.”
“Oh, of course.”
“Anyways, I have something for you.” Felix handed him the completed 250k mana battery with a basic housing. It wouldn’t recharge itself, but it was functional.
Noah stared down at it with wide eyes, “Woah, this is huge. Thank you. What does the city owe you?”
Felix waved him off, “Oh, don’t worry about it. Think of it as my going away gift to Atalus I guess.”
“Shouldn’t we be the ones giving you gifts in this situation?”
Felix shrugged, “Meh. I also have a couple hundred small ones I don’t need. I could sell them, but honestly I’m eager to get going.”
Noah frowned, “Wait, you’re leaving? Like soon?”
“Yeah.”
Noah’s frown deepened, “Don’t you still have 5 months?”
Felix shrugged, “Sure, but… why wait?”
Noah shook his head as he processed, “Oh my god, uh ok. You won’t leave until later today right?”
“I was planning on leaving as soon as I gave this to you.”
Noah shook his head adamantly, “You can’t just leave like that. Did you already say goodbye to Benjamin, Will, Alan, Henry, Amelia?”
Felix just looked at him blankly, “No.”
Noah sighed, “At least let me get them, I’m sure they’ll want to say bye to you.”
Felix nodded, “Fine. I’ll go grab Nova then open the portal from here.”
Noah smiled, “Perfect, how long will that take you?”
Felix shrugged, “I don’t know a few minutes?”
“That’s not long enough. Grab Nova and if I’m not back here by the time you get back, wait for me ok?” Noah said as he started walking towards the door, clearly in a hurry.
Felix sighed, “Sure.”
“Alright, see you in a few.” Noah nodded to Felix then rushed out of the building and disappeared.
Felix pulled out the Starmetal mold he had been using and adjusted the anchor to the one on Endycor’s continent then funneled mana into the spell. He stepped through and mentally nudged Nova to come to him through their soul bond.
He didn’t get a specific response but he saw Nova ascend out of the jungle way off in the distance. Endycor shot into the air next to them and they seemed to be racing towards him. He quickly darted off to the side so the dragon didn’t accidentally launch itself through the open portal and waited.
It took them a little while to make it there during which time both of them cheated countless times. Instead of just racing, they attacked each-other in the air to try and make the other lose. By the time they crashed into the mountain on either side of Felix, Endycor was visibly panting and Felix could tell Nova was tired through their soul bond, despite their appearance.
Felix had thought about dragging Endycor around with him but he already knew it wasn’t really safe for baby dragons in the multiverse and he couldn’t protect them from being hunted down. It was ultimately safer for the dragon to stay in the integration universe, which was a miracle in and of itself and Felix suspected the only reason it was born.
Felix communicated to Nova that it was time to leave and that they would likely never see Endycor again. Nova was sad but quickly accepted that fact then seemed to somehow communicate it to Endycor as well.
They screeched and paced in a circle then sulked a little but Nova breathed fire onto the dragon and they breathed back. That was apparently all that needed to happen because then Nova morphed back into a small cat and hopped into the folds of Felix’s robes. Felix carried Nova back to the portal while Endycor continued to sulk. He stepped through back into the council room then closed the portal to Endycor’s demesne.
There was no one else in the building and even though he had agreed to wait, he was tempted to just open the portal now and leave. He decided against doing so because he did respect Noah, Benjamin and the others and doing so would be kind of rude and mean. He did get everything ready though. Using the mold he had used to get to Endycor’s demesne, Felix morphed the spell form mold and inlay material inside it into a new spell form. The portal spell form that targeted coordinates wasn’t drastically different from the anchor one, but it was different.
Overall, it was more complex but held the same general shape and layout. All he had to do though was melt the inlay material until it was liquid then morph the mold into the new form. It didn’t take him long to shift it so he spent time checking his work by channeling his entire mana pool into the spell. It wasn’t enough to activate it, but it was enough for him to find a few flaws that he quickly fixed. Once he was done with that, he reabsorbed all the mana and sat at the table in the middle of the room.
He fed Nova all the gem shards from the batteries that had exploded in his soul space and dumped all the smaller mana battery gems on the table for Noah to sort through later. None of them had housings but Henry had the schematics to make them. He also transferred everything from his inventory into his soul space.
If he was right, there was no such thing as an inventory outside of the integration and he didn’t want all his shit dropping to the floor in front of him. All of the souls in his ring had been processed by now so Felix put all free points into intelligence and took a quick peek at his status screen now that he was ready to leave.
Name: Felix Kade
Innate: Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard)
Class: [D - Legendary] Reaper (Lvl 221)
Race: [D - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 221)
Profession: [D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (Lvl 222)
Health: 72490/72490
Mana: 2564870/2564870
Energy: 343760/343760
FREE 0
STR 7902
DEX 11839
AGI 7165
PER 10596
VIT 7249
INT 23317
END 8594
This is it, this is what I leave the integration with. Think it’s enough?
Probably fine, no real way to know though, right?
As Felix waited for Noah, he created balls of mana in the air above him and started juggling them, constantly shifting their attunements and energy levels as he did. Shortly after he started, Nova popped out of his robes and started flying through the air to try and catch them.
Juggling alone wasn’t enough for Felix anymore so he also crafted spell forms behind his back at the same time so Nova wouldn’t try and eat them. He played with Nova like that, him practicing his mana control and Nova just darting through the air to chase the tasty mana balls for almost an hour before Noah ran through the door.
Noah audibly exhaled as he skidded into the room, “Oh thank god, I thought you might just leave anyways.”
Felix snorted, “I honestly thought about it.”
Noah shrugged, “Well, you stayed. Thanks.”
Following Noah were Benjamin, Will and Alan who all walked up to him and shook his hand.
“Thanks John, for everything.” Benjamin smiled and winked.
“Felix.” Alan just nodded.
“So… you bought Alan that bow and you enchanted Benjamin’s armor… did you get me anything?” Will said with a mischievous grin.
Felix thought about it for a moment then pulled out a blank spell scroll from his inventory along with his Parroukan Feather Quill.
“I was kidding…” Will said as Felix leaned over the table and quickly traced out a Fire Ball spell form. Then he pulled out another and traced out a Lightning Bolt spell form. He reached out onto the table and grabbed the biggest battery gems he had made then handed all of them to Will.
“Bring these to Henry, he’ll know what to do. This is Fire Ball and this is Lightning Bolt. Have fun, don’t kill anyone.”
Will looked down the bundle with wide eyes but couldn’t help himself, “Wow, you really put a lot of thought into that…”
Felix shrugged, “If you don’t wan-”
“No no, I want it. Thanks.” Will took them and smiled then surprised Felix by hugging him. Felix hugged him back. Over Will’s shoulder, he saw Amelia walk in followed by Henry a few seconds later.
“Are those all…” Henry said pointing to the table.
Felix nodded, “Yeah, mana battery gems. Just need housings.”
Henry frowned, “How big?”
“They vary.”
Henry nodded, “You leaving them here?”
Felix nodded, “Yup.”
Henry nodded again, “I’ll ask Noah. Felix, thank you for everything. Stay safe out there, yeah?”
“I’ll try.”
Henry shook Felix’s hand then walked over to the table and started sorting through the gems.
Amelia just hugged Felix then smiled at him.
Noah was the only one left and he walked up to Felix and shook his hand, “Thanks Felix. I know we disagreed… disagree about some things but, you were a great city owner.”
Felix tilted his head, “Great?”
Noah tilted his head in turn, “Well… you left the important parts to people who knew better and did your best to assist us. From some of the stories I’ve heard… I can’t really complain about how you actually ran the city.”
Felix cocked a brow and smirked, “You mean how youran the city.”
Noah smiled, “Exactly.”
Felix shrugged, “Well, thank you. Now all you have to do is be better.”
Noah nodded, “I’ll try, well… the council will.”
Felix tilted his head forwards in assent, “Of course.”
Noah sighed, “So this is it? You sure you don’t wan-”
Felix didn’t want to let him start an argument at all, “Yes. This is it.”
Noah nodded, “So… how do you get out of here?”
Felix just pointed to the wall behind him, “I just open a portal.”
Noah frowned, “Just… right here?”
“Yup.” Felix said then pointed at the spell form mold he had left on the ground.
Noah just looked at him expectantly so he walked over and started channeling mana into the spell form. He blew through half of his own mana pool then started drawing on the battery he had just created. Unfortunately, it wasn’t very useful.
Felix quickly realized that although the battery held a lot of mana, it was very slow to pull the mana out of it. He used it and the aether to slowly fill the spell form until finally, a portal appeared above the mold.
Damn. Gonna have to revisit batteries later.
He looked through and saw a large mostly white room with intricate arcane symbols inlaid with an emerald green material on the walls and floor. Through the portal, just a few meters away, there was a door on the wall but otherwise, it was simply an empty room from what he could see. The portal coordinates had shifted slightly when he had cast the spell but not by much. From what he could tell, there was nothing wrong with it.
“You sure that’s right?” Felix heard Noah ask from behind him.
Felix frowned, “What do you mean?”
Noah pointed at it, “I mean it’s just black. How do you know what’s on the other side?”
Felix’s frown deepened, “What do you mean?”
Noah leaned forwards a little, “Through the portal, it’s just pitch black. Like there’s nothing there.”
Felix tilted his head, “I can see through it? It’s not black at all.”
Looking around the room, Felix realized he was the only one.
Felix’s shoulders dropped as he realized what was happening, “Oh, guess you aren’t allowed to see outside the integration…”
Noah sighed, “Well that’s disappointing.”
Felix shrugged, “Sorry.”
Noah scoffed, “It’s not your fault. Anyways… Felix, it’s been a pleasure.”
Felix nodded to him, “Likewise, thanks for managing my city for me.”
Noah smiled, “No problem.”
Felix looked at everyone one last time then quickly opened his pocket home and lightly tossed Nova in. He felt a little bad just tossing them when they looked like a kitten, but they floated back over to the Demitium chunk and seemed elated to continue licking it. He closed his home then turned back to the portal. He lifted his foot to step forwards but was interrupted by The System.
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Congratulations!
You have received a new title.
Exile: 256th integration
Earned for being exiled from the 256th integration.
.________________________________________________________________________________________
.________________________________________________________________________________________
Warning
You will not have access to an inventory outside of the integration universe. Transfer anything you wish to keep with you now.
.________________________________________________________________________________________
He had already expected the second screen and could care less about the first. He dismissed them both then finally, he stepped through the portal into the completely empty white room and let go of his portal spell, completely cutting himself off from the integration and his home universe.
