Chapter 322 - Freedom at Last

Nate remained conscious as the world blurred around him. All of his mental focus was on the pressure from Reciprocity as it demanded its due. The nascent spatial spirit was tucked away in his Created World and his agreement with Arikanvil told him to deliver it as promised. So he fought. Fought against the pressure from Reciprocity as it eroded his body and soul. Nate knew he was dying and, though it would shorten the time he could hold on, he needed to come up with a solution.

As the world blurred by, his body being jostled by whoever was carrying him, he turned his mind to the problem. There was really only one possible solution that he could see: he needed to remove his Class Core. With it gone, he would no longer be bound by, or protected by, Kali’Terra’s Reciprocity Embodiment. He would be outside The System. Just because there was only one solution, though, didn’t mean there was only one way to go about it.

He also briefly mused about giving the nascent spatial spirit to Kiri but immediately discarded the idea. While she could likely endure longer than he could, courtesy of her own Embodiment, he also knew that she would be in the same predicament as him. That might’ve been alright if she also removed her Class Core but doing so in this state felt like it might be challenging. Or, was it?

“How will you remove the Class Core?” he sent mentally to Kali’Terra.

“I can do it now if you wish. It will only take a moment and it and a portion of the debt owed to you will be removed. But, you will be unprotected and you are not yet in a safe place. I advise that you hold on just a little longer.”

The System's reply settled Nate’s mind. While he was not looking forward to enduring this pain, he also understood the need to be somewhere safe. Somewhere he could spend a moment raising his Divine Vessel to the appropriate level and then breaking through to the next stage using the rewards he had accumulated from winning the World Reaping. Those winnings included the nascent spatial spirit. Arikanvil couldn’t get his hands on it if Nate incorporated it into his Divine Vessel, so that was exactly what he was going to do.

Time was impossible to track through the agony, though Nate did feel the warping of space around them. He knew he must be travelling through a portal. Time passed and the sense of space vanished. Then, more jostling and a dark purple sky. Finally, Nate felt cool hands touching his knees and heard Kiri’s voice.

“We’re in a safe space. What should I do?” asked his sister.

He thought he saw tears running down her face, though that might have been him looking at her through tears in his own eyes. 

“Nothing.”

“I’m ready,” he said mentally.

Then he breathed in and everything changed.

Concepts had always come easily to him. He could feel them around him, even when they were weak. Often he could sense them, even when others tried to hide them. Now, he could basically taste them. All of them.

The room he was in was well-built. if spartan. A plain, but comfortable, bed was through a door behind Kiri. The couch Nate was sitting on was soft but the colour was faded. As for his own body, he was covered in sweat with the mark of tears that had leaked from his eyes as he squeezed them shut to try and block even a single iota of the pain that had run rampant through him.

As for Kiri, she sat next to him. The sense of her was of a soft white light that extended inwards towards unknown depths that felt like they could stretch to infinity. Behind her was Wulfgar, an amorphous, wavering pool of blood that whispered of violence. Then there was Gwen, Fili, and Jak. Gwen was a pillar of holy light and, for the first time, he realised she must make use of Celestial Energy in her Skills. Fili didn’t move an inch and yet she buzzed as though she had insect wings, or perhaps those of a hummingbird. Ever in motion, so quick the eye couldn’t follow. Jak’s armour looked so normal, and yet Nate could see the outline of a warrior filled with honour. Finally, there was Frick, his form flickering in Nate’s sight with a thousand different faces, all of them blue. Every one of them hungry.

Without the Class Core and The System’s Divine Energy inside of him, his ability to read Concepts had grown again, and he smiled. His Stats, however, had taken a nosedive. Without the Class Core, the processed mana associated with it was gone. That was easily remedied, though.

“I’m going to need some privacy,” he muttered.

“Me, too?” asked Kiri.

“And me, Boss?” asked Frick.

Nate shook his head. Kiri and Frick could stay. The rest needed to go, though. Once Wulfgar had finished shooing them out the door, Nate let his Regalia erupt. Paint slithered free of his amulet, the Divine paint climbing the walls as Nate used Runic Reality to shape a rune of sealing into its surface. No one should be able to look inside without him knowing. Nate even incorporated elements of Space and Shape into the rune to try and block out the other layers of space he was beginning to suspect existed. When it was finally done, the room was enclosed in a painted box.

“Okay. What are we doing?” asked Kiri.

“I’m without a Class Core,” answered Nate truthfully as he sat down and began pulling out the pile of artifacts they got from the World Reaping. “I need to raise my Divine Vessel up to make sure I don’t die to the first Greater Divine that starts wondering why they feel like they could attack me.”

“And the item?” pressed Kiri.

“I got it from his vault. It’ll be a non-issue shortly.”

Rather than press him about what he meant by that, Kiri just nodded and sat down to watch.

From the pile of artifacts that glittered on the floor in front of him, Nate chose those that were more likely to supply Divine Energy to him, those that could be considered to be connected to the Concepts of Creation, Destruction and Space. One by one they were inhaled, the remains crumbling to dust as he did so. As Nate suspected, with each fraction of a percent he improved his Divine Vessel, more Divine Energy was required. Finally, after burning through over fifteen hundred units of Divine Energy, he felt himself hit a wall. No more Divine Energy would enter his body.

He wasn’t exactly sure what to do with the nascent items he had gathered for the next step and, instead, spent another hour drawing out enough Divine Energy to fill his vessel to the brim. By this point, Kiri was growing a little stir-crazy and so Nate let her and Frick out of the painted vault he had created, as he was going to need to spend a little longer fixing his lack of Stats. The next two hours were spent mixing mana with his Divine Energy to create processed mana. In the end, he decided not to hold back and sequestered fully half of his Divine Energy for processed mana. At the equivalent of twenty-five Stats per single unit of Divine Energy, the results were powerful, to say the least.

With over six-thousand Stats to distribute, he focused on the same areas he had previously: Intellect, Creativity, and Perception with a little Willpower, as he now found that he couldn’t support three Soul Engravings without boosting his Willpower. He chalked that change up to the additional Soul Energy provided by the Class Core and its connection to Kali’Terra. Then, there were a small amount of changes in his Physical stats. Finally, the rest went into his control of mana, the power of the mana he stored inside of his Reserve, and the speed with which he could extract it.

As he worked, small amounts of Divine Energy seemed to want to flow into him naturally and, so, Nate spent forty units of Divine Energy improving his Information Sigil to Divine-tier. Finally, once he was done, he created the artifact he had been planning on the moment he originally learned of the Information Sigil. 

He started by plucking a green vine from his pile of artifacts that hummed with the Concept of Connection. Reshaping the vine into two distinct bands, he wrote over them with layers of runes using Runic Reality. With the Divine-tier Sigils for Information, Soul, and the inherent Connection within the material, Nate created the ability to Bind them to the wearer. Once he was done, he called on the information within and let it appear before his eyes.

Nate looked over his Stats and couldn’t help but smile. His Intellect had almost tripled while his Creativity had doubled. His Physical Stats were all higher than they had been previously but he’d mostly increased them enough to improve his overall health. Finally, his Magic Stats had all more than doubled. He wasn’t certain but he was confident he could handle any Peak Greater Divines and maybe even some lower-end True Divines. The only problem would be those who had Divine Vessels. Perenthia had shown she had one, according to Kiri. That meant that it was almost a certainty that Perenthia’s father did, too. A True Divine with a Divine Vessel would be able to defeat Nate still.

Nate looked over the remaining pile of artifacts. He’d used up a third of everything they had gathered from the World Reaping in improving his vessel and then filling it. That would mean another third for Kiri to do the same. The remaining third would be split between the other five with Wulfgar and Frick getting more than the other three. That did beg the question of what Nate was to do about them. Should he read them in on what was going on? Offer to help them achieve their own Divine Vessels? He was considering it, if Kiri wanted Gwen to hang around. But he also had to acknowledge how much it cost to improve this way. They wouldn’t be advancing as fast as him and Kiri, for example. 

Now that they were safe, and since Nate needed to ask for advice anyway, he figured he would send word to Ankh’aris and see what the ancient dragon replied with.

Letting the painted vault flake away and fade into nothingness as something Created became something Destroyed, Nate strode out of the room to find everyone else seated in a lovely garden, with sandstone walls surrounding the small compound.

“Where are we?” asked Nate curiously.

“Erudia, Homeworld of the Golden Tide,” answered Wulfgar before downing a mug of golden liquid that looked like beer.

Nate glanced at Kiri for confirmation.

“I asked for assistance when you arrived in that… err…state. The Grand Marshal agreed, though he might ask for some assistance in return for providing theirs,” added Kiri.

Nate nodded. He could live with that. He quite liked Grommir anyway and hoped the painting he had done for the Grand Marshal had helped a little with his love life.

“A quick word, Kiri?” asked Nate.

When his sister gave confirmation, Nate didn’t bother beating around the bush. Locking them in a rune of Sound Barrier so they couldn’t be heard, he asked the question on his mind.

“I’m about to contact Ankh’aris. What are your plans around Gwen?”

Kiri tapped her foot a couple of times. Then looked up at the now light purple sky to avoid meeting Nate’s eyes. Nate waited patiently, realising his sister had been putting off making a decision and, so, was literally deciding right now. After almost a minute, Kiri finally looked at him.

“I like her. A lot. It’s been a while and I need to try trusting someone other than you. I’m…I am going to stop keeping her at arm’s length.”

Nate smiled. “I’m glad. I hope it works out.”

“Me too,” replied Kiri before throwing her arms around him. “Thanks for pushing me to make a decision.”

Nate hugged his sister back. Then, separating from her, he quickly wrote out a short note using his paint. The moment the note was done, he casually spun up a Rune of Space and opened a portal before dropping the letter through the aperture.

That was when he dropped the Sound Barrier and realised alarms were blaring all around them.

“What did you do?” demanded Wulfgar, froth spilled all through his beard.

“Sent a letter,” muttered Nate in annoyance as a Greater Divine of the Golden Tide descended from the sky.

“Apologies, honoured guests, but there was an unscheduled spatial anomaly and we need to check the area to make sure that there are no assassins or thieves that have attempted to follow you here,” said the Golden Tide Divinity from behind a red mask.

“Sorry, that was me,” offered Nate politely.

“Ah. I see.”

A moment later, the screaming alarms stopped as the Greater Divine tapped his belt.

“Next time, please inform us if you intend to open any spatial apertures within your residence. We keep a close eye on them to make sure that foreign elements don’t slip in unannounced.”

“Understood,” replied Nate with a smile. "There might be another one..."

Nate trailed off as the alarms started screaming again as the space behind Nate opened up into a dark maw.

“Yeah, that’s not me,” finished Nate.