Jakob H. Greif

Musem Core Chapter 9: The Nature of Power

Eventually, Elias stopped laughing, though that twinkle in his eyes told Thomas he’d be hearing about this for a loooooong time.

But he’d been able to absorb some of the greenery that the jaguar had hacked off on the roof and recreate it for the herbivores, and partially summoning said herbivores was the perfect food for the predators. So while Cheshire was happily tearing into half a zebra, Elias had managed to cajole over the Blue Duiker and was once more using it as a pi...

Museum Core Chapter 8: First Champion

“So, what do I do now?” Thomas asked after he’d finished resummoning everything and fixing the wall.

“You look into the monster pattern, and find its cores. There should be one that’s just raw energy and potential, you can ignore that one for now, and one that explains its, um, … its being, maybe? It’s hard to explain, but you’ll know it when you see it.”

“Oh, the information packet,” Thomas responded immediately. “Yeah, found it. And now?”

“Wait,...

Museum Core Chapter 7: An Invasion Most Foul

Dungeons were weird, anyone who’d ever truly interacted with one knew that.

As they grew, they gained more and more quirks, from collecting certain kinds of stones to only giving out left shoes as loot.

Usually, those were harmless quirks and didn’t really do much other than provoke the occasional bout of homicidal rage in a delver who’d already been grumpy beforehand.

Which happened surprisingly often, even Elias had once broken his knuckles on a Dungeon wall during a...

Museum Core Chapter 6: The New World

“Yeah, that’s it, I’m done,” Jaclyn said.

Or at least, that was what she wished she could say now, then throw up her hands in consternation and just … leave.

It was an impulse she’d felt many times before, throughout her career. Cases so horrible they shook her to the very core, made her question her very faith in humanity, but she’d always dealt with that situation the same way.

Stop paying attention to what she was feeling, and do her damn job, then deal with...

Museum Core Chapter 5: Zoological Expansion

Expanding his power out into the hallway was just as easy as everything else had been, once he figured it out.

Despite that, however, Thomas could tell that he was rapidly approaching the limits of what he could reach. The energy he’d received from the lizard was being … not consumed, exactly, but nonetheless becoming unavailable for his use. Perhaps it was being tied up in maintaining his territory, or maybe he’d simply gotten a boost to his claimable area when he’d killed the ...

Museum Core Chapter 4: The Change

12 hours Earlier

It wasn’t a question of if your kid said “I hate you”, or even how often they said it was about how long they meant it for.

In Jaclyn’s experience, waking up a six-year-old absolutely determined to sleep in and miss first period with the expectation that achieving this would mean getting to skip the entire school day … she gave it until tonight, tomorrow morning at the very latest before Eve would talk to her again.

Well, either then, or when Jacly...

Museum Core Chapter 3: Building the Citadel

“Shortest possible explanation of how Dungeons work: absorb stuff and gain the ability to recreate it.

“With that stuff, you make structures and reinforce them with mana to the point where they’re functionally indestructible at your rank, make as much as you want as long as you don’t block access to your core. The same goes for traps, they can’t directly block access. For example, poison mist needs to either disperse eventually or be passable by someone of your Rank without cr...

Museum Core Chapter 2: Chomp!

The being stood around two meters tall, its head brushing the top of the entrance, but it was clearly larger considering it was walking in a constant slump.

Its head was that of a Komodo Dragon, long and lizardlike, but its build was massive, bulky, reminding him of a massive saltwater crocodile, the kind of beast that acted as the big bad of a horror movie.

Long arms hung down to its knees, overly muscled to the point where it was practically obscene, tipped with long claws that ...

Museum Core Chapter 1: Wakey, Wakey

The world was a sea of light, bright light, in every color under the sun, and more he’d never seen before, swirling around him, reflecting off what might have been glass, metal railings, and other objects he could barely describe.

Thomas grimaced internally, as for some reason, he was unable to actually move. That was bad.

What was worse was the oddly solid “thump, thump, thump” of someone rapping their knuckles on his head. The figure was weird, largely unidentifia...

Epilog: Infinite Possibilities

Terraformed Mars, Olympus Mons, 2072

“You’re bored, aren’t you?” Elena asked, stepping up next to Isaac on the balcony.

“No?” he asked, confused. He was still wearing the bedsheet, and she was clad in a bathrobe. That had most certainly not been boring.

And quite frankly, even if he had been bored, saying so would have doubtlessly landed him in the doghouse until the heat death of the universe.

Elena laughed, laid an arm around his shoulde...

Chapter 324: Ten Years Later

“Ok, why the fuck do I have to walk up that stupid staircase every day?” Tanja loudly complained as she stomped out of the space colloquially known as the “walk of shame”.

It really wasn’t fun to use that particular staircase due to its enchantments. Gravity magic to make going up it harder to move, constant twists and turns to reduce the maximum achievable speed, and spatial magic to increase its length by a factor of ten.

“Because you keep jumping from the roof and l...

Chapter 323: New Heights

Level 200. The big one.

Well, technically, Isaac had just reached Level 190 after six months of playing around with his new gear, and then, the Level boost for having made a decisive difference in the Leviathan battle had automatically activated, booting him “upstairs”.

He’d never reached this point in the other timeline, having stalled out at Level 198. Well, not so much “stalled out”, as not having had any time to summon monsters he could still gain XP from.

But ...

Chapter 322: Gear Revolution

Handing over several billion euros worth of materials to Stagmer had almost resulted in him fainting. Being in a position to hand over such wealth had been gratifying.

And getting the armor that could be made from such materials … that would be infinitely better than handing over the materials had been.

Though the holiday he’d taken with Elena while those materials had been forged had been far better than any gain or show of wealth could ever be.

Yet �...

Chapter 321: Premature Yet Deserved Party

There were a lot of people who could not be here today.

Thankfully, Isaac’s most immediate circle had largely escaped damage, though it had been a close thing in Karl’s case. He, along with the team’s spellcasters, had done one hell of a number on the Leviathan, and it hadn’t taken that well. But unlike the others, Karl, however, lacked the teleportation capability of his colleagues and barely managed to escape retaliation.

But there were others who hadn’t gotten away wi...

Chapter 320: What Now?

“… And the recipient of the World Item should have been decided via committee, taking and immediately wasting it was irresponsible in the extreme, and disrespectful to those who died, I …”

This particular speech had been going on for close to ten minutes already, and Isaac’s patience was running thin.

“How about someone just explains to me what I should have done with that item, instead of making vague suggestions?” he suggested, making sure to keep it out of the gen...

Chapter 319: Interlude Unsung Heroes

Day 1

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, how about we calm down,” Jason called out to the angry mob. It didn’t work, obviously, but keeping his [Aura] going at full blast was thankfully sufficiently intimidating that no one tried charging at him. Yet.

The problem with mobs was that they were only as smart as their dumbest members, and if they charged, he’d have to run, but that was a risk he’d have to take. His interference could hardly have made things wors...

Chapter 318: Rewards for a Job Well Done

Congratulations, Planet Earth! The World Boss “The Leviathan” has been slain by the hand of countless people. The matter of the final blow was therefore random and immaterial.

All those who participated will be rewarded based on their contribution, with XP, Aspects, and monster materials.

So, the damn thing was dead, but weren’t there … billions of tons of materials floating out there?

And that was when the swearing started.

Understandable, after all, ...

Chapter 317: Final Round

Four days. Four bloody days. That was how long they’d been at this.

Isaac stumbled, planting Balmung’s tip in the ship’s deck and leaning on its hilt to keep standing. He was dead on his feet, the short bursts of sleep that should theoretically have sufficed being nowhere near enough. And there were very few people here who were in any better shape.

Most big trump cards had been spent in the opening hours, long cooldown [Skills], expensive expendable weapons, and more beside...

Chapter 316: Round 2

A titanic spike of earth and ice rose from the ocean, but it was far deeper than what was visible, extending all the way to the bottom and two kilometers into the bedrock beneath that, with reinforcement [Skills] covering not only the entirety of the weapon, but all surrounding rock for several more kilometers.

All in all, the entirety effort of twenty cryo- and geokinetic S-Rankers, 3 S-Ranked [Engineers], and every combat engineer of the combined forces of humanity had gone into that ...

Chapter 315: Round 1

The snake surged forward, jaws wide open, its head having been raised so high out of the air allowing it to reach incredible speeds as it lunged, crossing the fifty kilometers that separated it from the battleships in seconds. As it passed, the ocean beneath it began to boil, becoming a roiling maelstrom that would literally shred anyone who fell in. And the effect was only spreading.

Going overboard had just become a death sentence for most of the fighters.

The snake con...

Chapter 314: Devil Snake

For an entire week, [Final Defiance] had been pulsing away in the back of his mind, to the point where he’d feared it was having a deleterious effect on his sanity, and as it turned out, it partially did.

But it was simply not a supernatural effect altering his mood, just stress. Stress over the situation that wasn’t being helped by a constant reminder of how bad things were.

The [Skill] had been a pain until just a few hours ago, when it had calmed down and synchronized with ...

Chapter 313: Rage, rage against the dying of the light

But first, someone needed to clean up here.

Isaac kicked himself skywards, flames gathering around his hands as he glared at the General of Cocytus. It looked like absolute shit, cracked and battered, but it was still perfectly capable of moving and chasing after a badly damaged Dreadnought.

A massive burst of [Prometheus’ Wrath] wiped out the entirety of Isaac’s remaining mana pool but slammed into the General’s back, slipping through a crack in its armor and knocking it do...

Chapter 312: Do not go gently into that good night

Furfur fell back to Earth behind Isaac, down a wing, burned, and covered in smoking acid.

He was still alive, and would be even after he hit the ground, but that wouldn’t last once everyone else passed.

Concentrated bursts of fire from whoever had proper coordination and synergy [Skills], powerful cooldown skills, and so on.

Furfur rose once more maybe thirty seconds after Isaac had passed, but that wasn’t anywhere near enough to keep him safe.

The demon lost anoth...

Chapter 311: Naval Battle

The shield that had already been teetering on the edge of collapse was the first to go, rapidly followed by the hull collapsing inwards, metal and glass being pulled towards a single point. The bridge.

Rath had already been leaping forward, immense paw swiping to tear open the Dreadnought’s side, only to miss with a hilarious look of surprise on its face. And the various grapples that had been tying it down dropped away as the parts they’d grabbed onto vanished.

After barely a...

Chapter 310: Interlude Naval Battle

Stone grinned briefly as he saw the General of Cocytus vanish along with the Flying Dutchman. If Jones managed to survive that duel and the [Skill] lasted for a quarter of an hour, they might even be able to finish this swiftly.

The first few monsters arrived at the Dreadnought and the destroyers that flanked it, but those were just minions that fell to the ships’ various Close in Weapons Systems, the CWIS also occasionally referred to as “Sea Wiz”. Those were designed to deal wit...

Chapter 309: Interlude Naval Battle

Gabriel Stone had been in the Royal Navy since his eighteenth birthday. Literally to the day, he’d slept outside the recruiting office and been the first one in the door.

And he’d seem some shit, both weird and horrifying. But today definitely took the cake in both categories.

He’d seen a few demon-type summons before now, but those things were on a whole other level. Normally, they were all basically the same, humanoid, with skin that could be anything from red to black to ...