Chương 392: Chapter 375

They spent their time practically living inside the fracture. Sam and his friends tore through the fracture and its small slice of the world with relentless determination and enthusiasm, displaying a level of efficiency that slowly began to shake the sanity of the final boss. As was clear from the fracture's description, it was the system's way of granting the island a permanent fracture through the presence of the Spirit of Flame sleeping beneath the volcano.

Seemingly as an in-universe explanation, the Spirit of Flame had willingly severed a portion of itself and used it as an anchor, binding the fracture permanently to the island. It was also abundantly clear that the spirit was an extremely proud creature. The entire fracture was filled with scenes they had to fight through, each one depicting the spirit bravely confronting hordes of monsters intent on capturing it on behalf of some unimaginably evil demonic force.

Naturally, the spirit always occupied center stage, heroically battling impossible odds while leaving the lesser enemies, the "dregs", for the players to clean up. The final battle was against an extreme caricature of the demon that had nearly succeeded in capturing the spirit. Throughout the encounter, the Spirit of Flame flew around in the background, loudly encouraging the players whenever they did something impressive and enthusiastically hurling insults whenever the demon gained even the slightest advantage.

Most fracture bosses were mindless constructs, resetting the moment the fracture was completed and the players left. However, a very small percentage managed to retain fragments of memory between runs. As the Spirit of Flame was not actually an interactable being within the fracture, meaning it could not be fought, touched, targeted, or otherwise affected, and was also the being that had created the fracture in the first place, it appeared to retain its memories on some level.

It was clearly only a low-level intelligence, but as Sam and his team repeatedly devastated the monsters inside, something began to change. At first, the spirit simply cheered them on. Well, everyone except Sam. Still, over time, as they continued to enter the fracture, annihilate everything in their path, collect their rewards, leave, and then return to do it all over again, the spirit gradually grew quieter.

Occasionally, they would catch it staring at them with an increasingly disturbed expression as another army was reduced to smoking craters in record time. Sometimes it muttered things under its breath that were almost intelligible. Once, Clarissa swore she heard it whisper, "I need a vacation…" The team, after sending Lucy a message that the plan for the island could proceed, focused entirely on reaching level 200 as quickly as possible.

They could have gone to another fracture, perhaps even a higher-level one, but the value of having an instance used exclusively by them could not be overstated. They never had to worry about rivals, enemies, or opportunistic players interfering with their progress. It was difficult to find something more valuable than complete privacy. That said, endlessly running the same fracture was hardly the most exciting thing in the world, so they found ways to keep themselves entertained.

One by one, they took turns leading the charge. Each member would become the centerpiece of the run while the others focused on supporting them. Watching Clarissa launch herself through entire formations of monsters while the rest of them desperately relied on their woefully inadequate healing skills to keep her alive was particularly entertaining. They completed several runs using only weapons and as little magic as possible.

Then they attempted the opposite approach, gathering as many monsters as they could before erasing entire armies in a single attack. Other runs became competitions, some were used to experiment with spells and skills, and some were used to try out harebrained schemes. Altogether, they used the opportunity to train their skills, teamwork, and abilities as much as possible. Meanwhile, Lucy began sending people over. It started with massive ships appearing on the horizon.

Some carried escorts for protection, but most were packed with workers, craftsmen, engineers, and laborers, all ready to transform the island into a resort. Thanks to the existence of magic, construction progressed at a pace that would have seemed absurd back in the real world – science came close but not enough. Every time the team exited the fracture and looked toward the bay where they had first landed, something had changed. A few houses here… A larger construction there… Part of the forest gone…

A road cutting through the landscape… A pier stretching farther into the water… The island transformed almost daily. By the time the system finally notified them that they had reached their desired level, and after they completed one final run that allowed the newly upgraded Hawky to unleash its full potential, the bay had become almost unrecognizable. A small harbor now occupied the shoreline as wave breakers stretched across the water in the distance.

A lighthouse stood half-finished near the edge of the bay on a cliff jutting out of the island. Along the coast, white stone buildings rose steadily from the ground, forming streets, plazas, and terraces overlooking the ocean. Slowly but surely, the Heavenly Forest Resort was becoming a reality.

'Maybe we should call it the Heavenly Island Resort,' Sam thought as he gazed into the distance. After considering it for a moment, he fired off a quick message before turning toward the others. Only to discover that every single one of them was sitting around the same cliff where the fracture portal resided, their eyes fixed on system screens visible only to themselves. Chuckling, Sam did the same.

Ignoring the fact that they were currently sitting on the side of an active volcano, he found a comfortable spot, crossed his legs, and summoned the system. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. Sensing his intent, or more likely because the AI had long since learned his habits, the notifications exploded into existence around him. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of translucent screens appeared, surrounding him like a forest of glowing glass trees.

The display slowly began to thin as the system performed its usual routine, consolidating and organizing the information. Until, after nearly a minute of theatrical excess, only a single main screen remained, accompanied by several smaller auxiliary windows hovering nearby. Taking a deep breath, Sam began to read. [Congratulations! You have leveled up!] [You are now Level 201!] [Gained 32 unassigned attribute points!] [Thanks to the directions and command, you gained +5 WIS!] [Thanks to experiencing different styles of battling, you gained +5 DEX and +5 AGI!] [What the hell are you even? – Gained +1 LUCK!] Blinking slightly at the last one, Sam contemplated calling up game support, but in the end, he simply shrugged and accepted it. Increasing Luck was already difficult enough. If the system had decided he deserved a point, then he certainly wasn't going to argue. As for the unassigned points, the decision was easy.

Twenty-nine went directly into Agility, while the remaining three went into Strength. Simple and straightforward. He had always relied on speed, and now, with the war looming closer and closer, improving it further seemed like the obvious choice. However, that wasn't the end of that part of the leveling process. Before he could move on to the skill portion, there was one final notification that immediately brought a smile to his face. [You have reached new heights! Your body and mana are going through a qualitative change!] Instantly, he felt mana surge through his body, flowing through the same pathways he had used since the beginning of the game before completing its cycle within his perfectly spherical core, where it struck something and exploded into new mana before continuing onward. Then it happened again. And again.

Each cycle produced more mana than the last, the process feeding upon itself as the pressure inside his core steadily rose until it felt ready to burst, held together only by his control and iron grip over his own power. Knowing exactly what was happening and how the process worked, Sam closed his eyes and focused. The pressure continued to build. Mana kept flowing. His mana core strained to hold it in.

Sweat began to pour down his face as he concentrated on maintaining control, every second stretching longer than the last as he wrestled with a power that was rapidly growing beyond anything he could comfortably contain. Still, he held on. He continued to compress it, forcing the growing mass of mana to remain contained even as the pressure mounted higher and higher. Only when he felt his core reach its limit, when it seemed as though another moment would cause it to shatter, did he finally let go.

Mana exploded outward. It flooded through his body and spilled into his surroundings, swirling around him and through him in equal measure as the qualitative change finally took place. The process lasted only moments, yet it felt far longer. Sam felt his body and mana transform while his body was locked up, unable to move. Then, gradually, the storm subsided. When Sam finally opened his eyes, the black obsidian surrounding him appeared translucent, almost crystal-like, allowing him to see into its depths.

His body was drenched in perspiration, his clothes sticking to his skin as he breathed heavily, recovering from the strain of the breakthrough. A small smile appeared on his face. Once again, it was a process that had only been understood after exhaustive research by the largest guilds in the future, relying on countless people as experimental subjects, and yet here he was, completing it perfectly on his first real attempt.

It used the mana of the world to initiate a kind of cascading fusion reaction within one's core, filling the body with chaotic mana for a brief moment upon the final explosion, allowing that instability and malleability to facilitate a qualitative transformation that fundamentally altered the user's body and mana. Naturally, all of this depended heavily on the type of core one had, the level of mana control one could exert, and even the kinds of skills one had developed up to that point.

This was punctuated by the others behind him. Dan burst into a pillar of plasma, the air around him distorting as raw energy flared upward. Isabella sat in the middle of a different kind of change entirely, the swirling mana around her seeming to hum and sing as it coiled and flowed in rhythmic patterns that were almost musical in nature.

Clarissa did not have anything quite so visually dramatic in the traditional sense, but the effect was no less noticeable as plants began to push up through the pure obsidian around her, breaking through volcanic stone as if it were fertile soil rather than cooled lava. And Katie… All Sam could really say was that something was happening there. What that something was, or what it wanted, he could not say, nor did he particularly want to find out.

Whatever it was, it winked with thirteen eyes, licked the elbow of a cow, and then began to hum with its nose. Turning back to his own screens, he began to read the new information. [Congratulations! You successfully ignited your Mana Core!] [Your Perfect Mana Core skill is turned into Ignited Perfect Mana Core!] [Thanks to this transformation, you gain the subskill, Perfect Ignition!] [Perfect Ignition: Level MAX (MAX%) (Passive) You managed to ignite your core and perfectly control the process. The outcome has upgraded certain parts of your Core. Gain double mana regeneration when missing mana. Your base mana gain is doubled, and you gain an additional 10% base magic resistance.] Sam smiled and nodded, pleased. Achieving perfect ignition was considerably easier than achieving a perfect core, but it was a hurdle that not many could jump, and seeing the system confirm it so cleanly was very satisfying.

As he began scrolling through the remaining skill level-up notifications, Sam found himself briefly wondering what the game developers must have been thinking about all of this, because while he had never said a word about the process to anyone, he had still executed it flawlessly on the very first attempt, and that sort of thing usually did not go unnoticed in systems like these.

However, seeing no ban message, no warning, and not even a vaguely threatening notice about a GM investigation, he could only shrug in the end.

'They probably don't care…' [Ignited Perfect Mana Core is now Level 80!] [Mana Scales is now Level 211!] [Mana Weaving is now level 99!] [Void Manipulation is now Level 99!] [Void Affinity is now Level 99!] [Void Soul is now Level 97!] [Obliteration is now Level 49!] [Illusionary Stealth is now Level 24!] [Art of Etheral Body is now Level 39!] [Physical and Magical resistance is now Level 75!] [Fear Resistance is now Level 44!] [Necrotic Resistance is now Level 54! Grinning at the gains, he closed the windows and stretched slightly, letting the tension ease out of his body before turning back toward his team, who were still finishing their own processes, and then letting his gaze drift out toward the horizon as his thoughts settled on the looming war ahead. They had prepared as well as they possibly could, but so had the enemy, and the fact that his own actions had already disrupted the balance meant there was no telling what kind of response they might be building in return. Drawing on the absurd amount of knowledge he still carried from his previous life, especially all the tropes and patterns that tended to repeat themselves in situations like this, he had set up countermeasures upon countermeasures, yet there was always that lingering possibility that he had missed something important. Still, as Sam watched the sun dip below the horizon and the first lights flicker on within the small but steadily growing settlement along the island's edge, painting the entire bay in a soft, almost peaceful glow, he found his thoughts gradually easing despite himself. Whatever happened next, it was still an incredible game. Might as well enjoy it.