As we leave, I wonder if I’ll see that shameless guy again. At this point, I wouldn’t mind, even if it was only to observe his primordial energy. Even now, there are so many things that make me curious about him, and what his primordial energy might do. My best guess is that the multicolored light he used instead of an arrow that was able to pierce the skull of the Harvester.
There was also something about his movement that felt off, so maybe that as well?
Just more questions ...
2025-06-22 08:42:56 +0000 UTC
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Moar art! This time it is Tess - I really like this one, the artist did amazing job, and Izzy with Noodle - from the same artist that did Nat, Minion and Myrra cooking art.
I hope you like them as much as I do.
*Pls no spoilers
2025-06-19 16:18:45 +0000 UTC
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POV Talon
Of course, that crazy bastard walks into the exact room I’m in, out of tens of thousands in this godforsaken city full of greedy assholes.
I had hoped not to see him again, especially after we left him behind. I still think it was the most reasonable thing to do and that he would have done the same. I swear by the name of the brother I had to kill because he backstabbed me–literally–that I wouldn’t get angry if he did the same thing to me and lef...
2025-06-19 08:46:33 +0000 UTC
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I look at the man, and he looks at me. He stands there with arms crossed, eyes sharp but lazy at the same time, like he’s sizing me up but can’t be bothered to care too much.
“Man, took you a while to get your ass over here, but also lucky me to be here just as you came around. Or unlucky? I hate dealing with newbies.”
He is short, bald, and seems like he likes to smile a lot, but not all of it is in a friendly way. These smiles are often ironic and for his own amusement r...
2025-06-18 08:39:39 +0000 UTC
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I know nothing is ever free, but the way everyone asks for shards in exchange for sharing some information is as annoying as it is funny in some twisted way. The worst is that I am getting used to it.
Sooner or later, the places will swap, and it will be me scamming people for shards.
In some way, it makes sense. For example, the information guild has to function, and they need salaries and such, so of course they would ask for shards. But there are situations where people just ex...
2025-06-17 08:44:41 +0000 UTC
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There are guild rankings of Beyond, the ones that update once a year. They are more or less similar to the last time I checked them, with the exception of two guilds swapping places.
Guild Rankings
1. Bloodline
2. Frontier
3. Crimson Forge
4. Primordial Knights
5. Astral Brotherhood
Crimson Forge is now ranked higher than Primordial Knights.
As the five top guilds, even they have a br...
2025-06-16 08:44:27 +0000 UTC
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After going through it all, I gathered 130 usable items out of what I estimate to be 231 bodies. There are a few more items, but they are mostly broken. Armors, weapons, pendants, and similar things got wrecked by the arrows. But even those, I immediately sold to the system shop, though only for a few hundred shards each.
The 130 gathered items are a mix of multiple rarities, with the lowest being mid-rare and the highest being low arcane. There are 11 low arcane items and 21 damaged ar...
2025-06-15 08:44:42 +0000 UTC
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In the small surviving group, there is no healer. Once again, it shows how rare they are. But beyond the lack of healers, everyone here seems to have some weaker way to regenerate their wounds, whether it’s passive, a trait, maybe an active skill that allows weak self-healing, or an item with even weaker healing effects. There used to be an epic sword I had on the 4th floor that could do that.
But the stronger you are, the higher your body stats or the more body upgrades you’ve gone...
2025-06-12 08:55:36 +0000 UTC
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hey! book 5 (chapters 385 - 469) will be launching on amazon on July 9th
that means I will (because of amazon's exclusivity clause) have to stub the chapters about 2 weeks before the book launches - so sometime around June 24th or 25th. even from patreon
Side note: If you are subscribed to my (or any other) patreon through patreon app, it is possible you pay 30% extra because of apple and google store "tax". You can avoid it easily by subbing through browser, and continue using a...
2025-06-11 13:07:27 +0000 UTC
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Most of the people here are C rank, same as me. When the raid party, expedition, or whatever they call it is put together, the rank is one of the things they check. D ranks are straight-up rejected, even though it's very rare for someone of that rank to get this deep.
The color for the C rank identification emblem is Ivory White. So far, I haven't seen anyone here with the Royal Blue of B rank.
As our group of over 100 attendees moves through the first floor of Beyond's dungeon, p...
2025-06-11 08:44:26 +0000 UTC
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POV Duncan
It’s been months since I last saw Noname, and like every time I meet him, he looks even stronger now.
I watch him walk alone between groups gathered for the raid. Unlike many of them, he has no skill visibly activated, and I can’t sense any mana from him. There's even less of it than before.
He’s wearing a white short-sleeved shirt and some weird pants that I guess are from his world, not the tutorial. He has no weapon, no armor, or any item...
2025-06-10 08:42:02 +0000 UTC
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This time I didn’t meet my handler. I just straight up appeared near the sphere. My best guess is that she either didn’t want to or couldn’t meet me. Part of me understands. Probably nothing good would have come from it anyway.
Now that I’m here, my 30 days in Beyond are about to start. All the meetings I had planned with Leticia, and maybe Jean, are too late now because of the 8th floor situation, when we couldn’t come here.
The safe area I just left still lingers in my...
2025-06-09 08:34:14 +0000 UTC
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Another week later, both Tess and Lily seem to be doing better, with only the burns on their bodies as a reminder of what happened. Sophie still remains in the same state. There are no wounds on her body at all, but according to Izzy, her mind is broken and scattered.
In some way, it could be said that Sophie is dead, but it's not that simple. Sophie can't save herself, but she has done something that might allow her sister to.
Pieces of her mind are scattered in her brain, and th...
2025-06-08 08:43:25 +0000 UTC
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POV Maya Jones
It is all one huge mess. Izzy keeps standing over her sister and holds on to her. The more she learns about her state through her ability, the worse her sobs become. Not once have I seen her like this. She was always so cheery and so mature for her age, yet now she’s like this.
Sophie herself doesn’t seem to have any external wounds, but both Tess and Lily look near dead. Like their lives are hanging by a thread. The wounds they have, these burn...
2025-06-05 08:48:43 +0000 UTC
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I appear seated on one of the stone benches arranged around the sphere at the center of the cave, where the water swirls endlessly in unpredictable motion. Tess, Sophie, and Lily are nearby.
Other than us, there are only two more people. A feylith woman and a thylarin man with four arms.
Something about this meeting seems to unsettle the others as well. I notice them putting up their defenses and becoming more alert. Lily shifts her huge axe and steps forward, Tess creates some di...
2025-06-04 08:58:08 +0000 UTC
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[You have defeated Spineback Ape - lvl 319]
[You have defeated Spineback Ape - lvl 315]
[You have defeated Spineback Ape - lvl 330]
[You have defeated Spineback Ape - lvl 301]
…
I create another [Empyrean Lance] and shoot it through yet another Spineback Ape.
Even now, I'm only able to create one lance at a time. Would the skill need to be called ...
2025-06-03 08:34:58 +0000 UTC
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POV Kim Min-Jae
Even after the reset, the portals to the 9th floor remain where we stood when the quest was completed. They didn’t reset with the loop. Mine is near the Library, where I head. As I reach it, it stands there with jagged edges, revealing a view into a completely different area. A green rainforest lies beyond, and the portal floats in the middle of the hallway like a framed picture. I notice something strange about it. When I connect to the link I share w...
2025-06-02 08:48:46 +0000 UTC
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“What do you mean by that, Assistant Professor Gwyn?”
“Exactly what I said. I do not think you are a Candidate, Ari.” I say. More than anything, I think Ari would be killing many more people if she were a Candidate. Only Examiners are restricted to Candidates if they don't want to die.
She looks around, and because we stand in the middle of the garden, there are some students, servants, and even a few Assistant Professors passing nearby. So far, no one gives us much attent...
2025-06-01 08:49:53 +0000 UTC
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The 11th day comes, and all of us decide to join the trip. Some of us, being students, just go, while the Assistant Professors either request to join it as well or simply quit their jobs and go, while, of course, planning to pay the fine later.
Tess and Maya, being guards, have a bit more difficulty, but they manage to come too.
As we head toward the station, Maya seems like a weight has been lifted from her shoulders.
“You wouldn't believe how good it felt to tell that li...
2025-05-29 08:42:09 +0000 UTC
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The loop resets just a few days later. It seems like it happened because Sophie got close to locating the Candidate by taking over dozens of students and creating some sort of quasi-hive mind, and also going through their memories.
Just the fact that she was able to do it here in the Academy, under the noses of some quite powerful Professors, is scary. I would have expected at least the Vice Director to notice, but even she did not. The speed at which Sophie has progressed in making her...
2025-05-28 08:46:47 +0000 UTC
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The loop resets, and just a few minutes later, it resets again.
It then repeats ten times in a row before we finally stay in one loop for longer than a few minutes. Even then, while already separated, we expect yet another reset.
Only after a full day passes does everyone start to believe it will actually continue.
It’s around that time Sophie tells us one of the students she’s been teaching is missing. A human boy. She says he was fairly average, but she had been observ...
2025-05-27 08:40:34 +0000 UTC
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I think demons as a race are a bit... well, weird. Not in a racist way! Unlike our paladin of Justice, Gareth, who probably wouldn’t mind annihilating an entire city of demons, I hold no such opinions.
It’s just that they’re weird. My minion has a human part and isn’t a full demon, so it’s not as noticeable on her, even though she’s clearly influenced.
Unlike her, Professor Feran is a full demon. White hair, red eyes, horns. Even though he can control himself to the po...
2025-05-26 08:26:49 +0000 UTC
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My plans for this loop are fairly normal, so before that normal thing happens, I have to do some other normal stuff. It’s because that normal thing will... incapacitate me a bit and make some tasks more difficult. But it is very normal, so it’s okay.
I’m the normal one here, after all.
That’s further confirmed as I gather more information on the Professors and even Assistant Professors who could teach me a thing or two. The Head Accountant is quite willing to share details...
2025-05-25 08:31:02 +0000 UTC
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In this loop, the Champion Dion doesn’t die. Or at least, they do not find his body. The usual day when he dies passes, and there is no information on it, no panic spreading through the Academy. Everything continues as if nothing happened.
Such a change of schedule can be caused by the Examiner or, more likely, by a Candidate. It also means that for some reason, someone is killing the Champion and it’s not on this floor´s "schedule.". It also means that, in some incredible way and ...
2025-05-22 08:45:16 +0000 UTC
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Early in the morning, I enter Craft Zone, and passing between all this machinery, forges, people, and students, I reach the hall that leads to a single door at the end. This hall has a ceiling full of hundreds of lamps, each of them very different. Some are smaller than my fist, others are bigger than me. None of them are the same, and there are just so many shapes. Circular, square, a halo, some looking like a crunched-up blanket.
Each of them also has a different type of light. Some a...
2025-05-21 08:42:05 +0000 UTC
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As I was told, the Professor I am getting lessons from this time is an old man. Possibly the oldest one I have seen here, looking like he is in his late seventies. All gray-haired, with a mustache that looks like he could hide snacks in it, and a slight belly.
The signs I usually look for when estimating someone's level are almost impossible to feel from him. His mana is perfectly contained.
That makes me wonder. Let us say you have 1000 points in constitution. Shouldn’t that ke...
2025-05-20 08:33:24 +0000 UTC
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My opinion of the Absolute of this world goes down more and more by the day. That guy is way too unhinged. What kind of asshole would work with the Ruler to allow part of their world to be recorded and used like this, even throwing in random ideas just for shits and giggles?
That almost makes it an interesting option. What if the Ruler who chose this place to be used as the floor for the tutorial is not the Ruler searching for successors, but the Absolute who became the Ruler later? Or ...
2025-05-19 08:30:56 +0000 UTC
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Right away, I open the status menu, select three skill combination tokens, and use them.
Congratulations, you have successfully combined [Ley Line], [Perception], and [Mana Manipulation]! A new skill has been created.
You have acquired [Mana Relay]
[Mana Relay - Level 0 > Mana Relay - Level 19]
After reading the new skill name, I move my mana to try to activate it, and another notification pops up.
...
2025-05-18 08:41:01 +0000 UTC
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From the first time I saw him, I knew he was just like every other demon I had met: a maniac like the rest, only better at hiding it.
That is what confused me. His heart, the look in his eyes, both told me he is ready to attack at any moment. To fight with that typical joy and aggressiveness only demons seem to possess. Yet his face and outward behavior are calm, perfectly controlled.
I cannot even blame it on some concentration type skills. Personally, I think those are rare for ...
2025-05-15 08:47:02 +0000 UTC
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I look around what used to be my room. All the furniture, all my belongings, even some personal items, are gone. Before I can start to miss them, I remind myself they should be back at the reset and shrug it off.
A variation of an alarm rings, the molten rock glows orange, and heat fills a hole made into the tower. Impressively, some arrays are totally destroyed, even the ones I thought of as more durable.
I let a good part of my mind examine it while the small remainder pulls the...
2025-05-14 08:55:59 +0000 UTC
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