Chương 65: Chapter 20: Alums

The final arena to reach Alum was absolutely brutal.

Raine Talis grappled with essence, her Domain compressing it down to suffuse her spear as she plunged it into the head of a centipede at least fifty feet long. It screeched and twitched as she ripped the spear back out, instantly moving sideways another hundred feet with the help of her combat brain. In any other day, in any other place, such a thing would have been easy as thought, but not for the Alum trial.

The Bismuth challenge tested Skills, the Azoth one tested Domains, and the Alum one challenged their raw essence manipulation. The arena itself was just a small dungeon where the challenger had to fend off waves of monsters in a grassy plain, but it had some special property that made Skills incredibly hard to use.

She well knew that she wouldn't have been able to replicate those Skills on her own. Cato's combat brains and the new virtual intelligence within them bridged the gap between her understanding and the actual finesse it took to move and modify essence, manually activating Skills as well as expanding what they could do. The essence permeating her spear let it drive deep into the centipede's carapace, and then with a twist she shifted the melee amplifier into an explosion deep inside the monster.

Leese and Lorraine worked beside her to destroy the rest of the monster wave, Leese's frost and Lorraine's flexible elements tearing apart the other oversized insects. While Lorraine didn't have a combat brain, she was actually even better at the raw manipulation than either of the Sydeans, and in fact the brains had picked up more from watching her than from any of the monsters.

Between the three of them, the Alum ascension challenge was not terribly difficult — still requiring effort, but not a desperate struggle.

[Wave 9/10 Complete] [Beginning Wave 10] The System notified them as the last monster fell, and the three of them returned to the center, all of them floating or flying with their respective control. The very last wave was almost always an elite, and this was no exception, a towering four-legged monster with six arms emerging from a fifty-foot-high portal. Covered in thick, chitin-like scales, it had three eyes on a flat, snarling face, and bore a different weapon in each hand.

Spear, sword, hammer, whip, crossbow, casting staff.

Most people might have been worried, but Raine wasn't, and she could feel through the link that Leese was just as confident. Despite the heavy earth-aspect Domain the thing projected, their own Domains were impermeable and they were well acquainted with the offensive techniques represented by each of the weapons.

The Sydean pair drove in immediately, while Lorraine stayed at range, using her Domain to amplify a tightly-whirling ball of multiple elements into something that could deliver a truly awesome alpha strike.

Raine and Leese punched through the monster's Domain, then opened a path for Lorraine's strike, easily dodging swipes that ignited the air from sheer speed. A pulsing, multicolored ball shot forward from behind them, straight through to punch into the monster's chest and detonate. The damage wasn't enough to bring it down, not at Alum, but still made it roar with pain and rage. Raine and Leese shared thoughts over the link, not even needing to articulate what they were thinking to know they were on the same page.

As one, they went for the limb with the staff, gathering essence into their weapons. Not only was magic the most difficult offense to account for, but the staff could actually be reused — and in Lorraine's hands, it'd do more damage than either Raine or Leese could manage.

Of course it tried to crush them, but their combined Domain burned away flesh, freezing and slowing the movements of the nearest limbs. The monster's Domain tried to shove them away, forming stone armor and sweeping it at them, but its constructs crumbled the moment they encountered the iron control of their own Domain. Raine and Leese danced between the swipes of enormous limbs, avoiding increasingly frantic swipes as they mercilessly cut through the wrist of the arm holding the caster staff.

The moment the hand fell away Raine grabbed the enormous staff and hurled it in Lorraine's direction.

The human caught it easily, despite the weapon being twice her size, the thing crackling with energy as she began channeling essence through it. In the meantime, Raine and Leese worked in concert to tie up the crossbow-arm, using their precision to cut through the almost impossibly tough crossbow string in order to prevent the monster from targeting Lorraine — and beating down its Domain at the same time.

Instead of having to compete strength against strength, Lorraine's attack would be spent on a vulnerable target and be all the more effective thereby.

"Incoming!" Lorraine shouted, and Raine and Leese suddenly split aside as a coruscating, multi-colored beam hammered into the monster, blasting forth from the tip of the oversized staff. The monster roared and flung up its remaining limbs to protect itself, stone forming and crumbling as it tried to keep up with the assault. But that only meant that Raine and Leese had free reign.

The two of them immediately flitted up to the thing's head, focusing their Domains to erode the layered protections of the thing's body. They forced their spears through the immensely thick, Alum-ranked hide, peeling off the almost chitin-like protection. For all the sheer scale of the thing, it had the same weak points as anything else, and a proper attack could kill it without them needing to deplete the bulk of its essence.

The massive beam petered out and the monster immediately twisted around to them, but both experience and the combat brains made sure they were more than ready for the sudden switch. Now that they had opened a weakness, the three of them hammered it relentlessly, the sisters using the fire and frost of their Domains to keep the wound from healing and maintain the vulnerability for Lorraine to exploit.

That same regeneration had already nearly reversed the damage done to its arm, though without the staff weapon it was far less of a concern.

None of the three were defensively oriented, which for many groups would have been a problem, but between Lorraine being a savant and the combat brains provided by Cato, there was just no way that the monster could land a blow. There was only one of it, and with merely six limbs it just couldn't outmaneuver them.

The monster tried to prevent them from attacking that weak point by simply covering it with a hand, but that only meant they worked as a trio to sever that arm, the Domains preventing regeneration in the meantime. It only took half an hour or so of single-minded hammering at the same point to finally cut into the monster's spine — and after that, killing it was easy. At peak Azoth, it was actually a far simpler task than dealing with World Elites as early Azoths.

Between the upgrades Cato had given them for the combat brains and Lorraine's absurd contributions, they were even further ahead than they had been.

Raine and Leese could have managed it themselves over a far longer period of time, but Lorraine turned it from a slog into a straightforward fight — and she couldn't have managed the Alum challenge by herself, simply because there were points where more sustained, focused combat was needed. Together the three of them were able to down the final elite with very little trouble, the body and the oversized weapons dissolving into essence that poured into them as the Alum quest completed.

[Arena Complete! Alum Challenge Completed Beginning Ascension…] Essence whirled and poured into Raine as the System elevated her to Alum, the entire trial seeming to condense into raw power and flooding into her. Unlike any elevation previously, she didn't get new Skill slots, but that was more than made up for by all her Skills being brought to the same level. Alum.

Not that it mattered overmuch. As the Ascension had made clear, the real power of an Alum was the ability to manipulate essence directly, to move beyond the limited options of what Skills offered. Between her Domain and her grasp of essence, [Ascendant Steps of Khuroon] had become part of her rather than a separate Skill, her Bismuth cornerstone fully integrated into her self.

As the Alum ascension completed, she could feel the new power she had — and the additional control over essence, her Domain able to harness and direct it far easier than before. It would take a little bit of testing to get the virtual intelligence Cato had added to their combat brains used to it, but they'd reached the absolute pinnacle so far as raw power was concerned.

Raine could feel Leese sorting through her own Skills in an identical manner across the link, the two of them feeling out a new balance between the System's gifts and Cato's; essence and instinct from the Bismuth cornerstone versus the combat VI and the combat brain corrections.

"Ding!" Lorraine shouted nonsensically, pirouetting midair before dropping down to where the portal out had appeared. Raine and Leese glanced at each other and laughed before following her, the three of them exiting the portal together and appearing in the Alum Arena, the sole place on each War-World where the Alum Ascensions happened.

"Third place!" Shiel-Ruyu shouted as they emerged, and Lorraine cackled.

"Not bad," Leese said. Shiel-Ruyu kept a leaderboard of every member of the Punchy Bastards for how quickly they finished their Alum ascension, with some adjustment for how many people were in the party. The Punchy Bastard himself held the record, as a solo, which was terrifying to consider given the advantages Raine, Leese, and Lorraine all had, with a normal party in a distant second place. Third was certainly nothing to scoff at.

"Better than not bad!" Shiel-Ruyu strolled over, producing some of his home-brewed drinks from storage and tossing them to the new Alums.

"Third puts you in the top fifty of all time for the whole System, far back as the records go. I'm a little jealous of where you are now, all fresh-faced with everything just opened to you."

Raine and Leese shared the same thought, while Lorraine actually turned to look at them. While they had all thought it would be nice to try and recruit Shiel-Ruyu, none of them would have dared to even think of it before Alum. Not even then, as the Punchy Bastard thoroughly outclassed them, were it not for such an obvious invitation.

"Oh, what's with that look?" Shiel-Ruyu, of course, noticed.

"Some kind of conspiracy?" His tone was good natured, even teasing, and his body language relaxed, but Raine was aware that he hadn't gotten to be the leader of the most elite group in the War Worlds without being able to tell when something was happening.

"A bit of one. There a place where we can talk in private?" Leese asked, though she meant only her and Raine when she said we. They were the ones who were linked to Cato, and so in some ways immortal even outside of resurrections. Despite his limitations, the War Worlds did have some coverage, especially near portals in cities.

"Really? Now I'm very interested," Shiel-Ruyu said, gesturing with one hand, essence rippling out into a portal to somewhere in the Punchy Bastards guildhouse, albeit not a place Raine was familiar with. Raine and Leese went on through, while waving Lorraine off. Assuming Shiel-Ruyu let her.

Fortunately, Shiel-Ruyu didn't seem worried about the third member of the so-called conspiracy, and ignored Lorraine as she headed off to wherever. Probably one of the meetup worlds Cato had suggested for leaving the System, just in case. The portal vanished, leaving them in an almost circular room of some burnished wood, packed with keepsakes and trophies, and with a few of the portal-windows looking out on other worlds. At a guess, it was Shiel-Ruyu's personal office.

"So, you have something to tell me?" Shiel-Ruyu crooked a finger, conjuring a table and a set of chairs for the three of them and settling into one. Raine and Leese took the other two, and Raine popped the top on the drink with her thumb as Leese nodded.

"I'm sure you've seen or at least heard of the Cato material circulating around?"

"Of course," Shiel-Ruyu said, taking a sip of his own drink, something bright orange and sparkling.

"It's pretty expensive, though."

Raine snorted and produced a pamphlet from her own storage. Lorraine's idea about selling the flyers at auction had been sheer genius; as a rare and expensive commodity, they had garnered far more interest and people willing to ignore the will of divine users who condemned the possession of the material. Which didn't mean that it had been widely distributed, but it did mean that some of it was out there, somewhere.

"I'm surprised you managed to get your hands on some," Shiel-Ruyu said, unnecessarily flipping open the pamphlet — somehow already having it in his hands despite Raine not noticing any movement — then blinked.

"Ah. You didn't manage to get your hands on some, did you?" Considering the pamphlet in question was directly addressed to Shiel-Ruyu, the conclusion was obvious. Especially since it was made out of the brightly colored plastic that was so unlike anything the System offered.

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"We're the source," Leese confirmed.

"When you said you were jealous of us seeing things for the first time, we had to wonder whether you would be interested in seeing new things. We're clearly not in a position to judge, but from what we've seen you don't care that much about power for its own sake."

"Hmm," Shiel-Ruyu said, turning another page of the pamphlet. Obviously he could read it in moments with sensory Skills alone, but their point was made by the fact that he preferred to physically handle it. Finally he looked up at them, considering.

"You should be more careful," he said, in a tone of mild censure.

"A different Alum might care more about the System."

"Maybe so," Raine agreed, relaxing as the initial danger passed.

"But the Bismuth cornerstone works against System loyalty for anyone other than divine users. After all, if Cato can offer something far more interesting than what's on the War Worlds – and he can – then why wouldn't they take it?"

"Assuming they believe you, that has some merit," Shiel-Ruyu conceded.

"But many Alums are at the top of their guilds or factions, not to mention the System Elite Listing."

"The what now?" Leese asked, as they'd never heard of such a thing. Shiel-Ruyu waved a hand, pulling up a System window that showed a listing of people, ranked by kills. Shiel-Ruyu's entry was highlighted at rank eight hundred thirty seven, with names Raine had never heard of stretching above and below.

"Top thousand for kills, or for essence, or time spent in dungeons — all kinds of things. I'm not sure how many would want to abandon their positions on the ranking," he told them.

"But what if everyone was starting from the same point," Leese asked, waving at the window.

"I'm sure most of those people have been around for hundreds of thousands of years. Nobody now is ever going to catch up to them. But if everyone started fresh, with the same advantages, it'd be a real competition. And there'd be more to compete about."

"Yes, so the pamphlet says," Shiel-Ruyu acknowledged.

"But what about you two? You've come very, very far in the System yourselves."

"Only because of Cato's gifts," Leese said, which was an admission they had to make.

"By ourselves, we had made Gold, and I suspect Platinum would have been our limit. With them? We're here — and that could be true for so many things. Reaching excellence of all types."

"What we're hoping to get from you is this: we want Alums to start recruiting Alums," Raine said, ignoring the fact that she was an Alum, too. That meant nothing in the face of the old monsters.

"People like you don't need to worry about being instantly destroyed, and you can actually find and talk to some of these Alums that are buried deep in the War Worlds." What she didn't mention was that there was no way that Raine and Leese would be able to do that — and in fact, they would have to be well out of it when the time came for Cato to assault the Core directly. Neither of them knew his exact plans, but they both were uncomfortably aware they were nearing the end of their task.

"And what exactly does Cato get from such Alums?" Shiel-Ruyu asked, tapping the pamphlet with one thick finger.

"Surely he is not doing it out of the goodness of his heart."

"He means to bring down the System," Leese said, by way of framing.

"Every Alum he can bring out of it is a victory, and it helps him convince others that it's safe and can be done."

"So he thinks he has some way to contest the Core?" Shiel-Ruyu asked skeptically, and Raine shrugged.

"We don't have direct knowledge of every tool at his disposal, but he seems confident enough. And considering everything else he's done, I wouldn't underestimate him."

"But what has he done? He's only taken—"

"A little under three thousand worlds," Leese supplied. Most of that had been in a few large engagements over the past years, seizing areas in a hundred different parts of the System. Cato hadn't kept them fully up to date with every single action, but they well knew that he was being conservative in such exchanges, mostly seizing areas that were already under threat from the Core.

"With the only risk being to the System, not to himself."

"Hm." Shiel-Ruyu didn't seem convinced — not that she blamed him. Nothing within the System could prepare anyone for what Cato was and could do. Fortunately, it wasn't their role to try and express that entire existence.

"You can always talk to him directly," Raine said, pointing at the pamphlet.

"We're merely his agents."

"That must be an uncomfortable position." Shiel-Ruyu eyed them, as if reminding them at they could be annihilated instantly if they drew the attention of a god or the wrong Alum.

"As I said, our limit was likely Gold, maybe Platinum," Leese said quietly.

"And we would have spent the rest of our lives watching Sydea slowly choke to death. We were reforged, rebuilt – at our own request – into something that could become Alum. Where we are now may be risky, or difficult, but it is someplace we would not have reached in our old lives."

"I see," Shiel-Ruyu said, seeming more interested than disapproving, even if he had reached his current strength without anything like Cato's gifts. In a way, Raine and Leese were cheating, which might well offend someone like Shiel-Ruyu. There was a moment where her instincts prickled that they were in far more danger than they ever had been before, but then it passed and he leaned back with a grunt. The pamphlet disappeared, stowed in Shiel-Ruyu's storage.

"I am not particularly disposed to giving up Punchy Bastards."

"Who says you have to?" Raine asked with a shrug.

"We may not know everything Cato does, but I do know he has specifically designed things so that all the Alums can at least keep in contact, even if they don't necessarily want to do the same things. Leaving the System, you have to give up what the System gave you — but it's not the System that gave you friendships, or a reputation. It's not the System that gave you the drive and ability to make you one of the best. You did that all yourself."

"That's your best pitch so far," Shiel-Ruyu observed with amusement.

"And I don't think it was part of your prepared speech."

"We're talking to people, not recruiting for a guild," Leese observed.

"I think some form of standardized pitch would work against us."

"I'll talk to him, I suppose," Shiel-Ruyu said, flicking his finger. The office expanded to their senses, additional exits that they hadn't realized were blocked becoming clear.

"But be more careful in the future. You are very lucky."

"We realize that," Leese said.

"Though we should say that Goyle knows as well. He came to us, though.""

That does not surprise me," Shiel-Ruyu laughed.

"I'll have to compare notes with him. For now, I won't say anything. Go, enjoy being Alums," he told them, and vanished from the room in a swirl of essence.

Raine and Leese both let out a breath at the same time, in sudden relief as the overwhelming power of Shiel-Ruyu's presence vanished. The meeting had gone better than it might have, but their luck was not going to hold for much longer. It didn't seem likely at all that they would enjoy being Alums.

"You're an idiot!"

Morvan glared at Kiersten, not bothering to lower his voice even if they were in the middle of the guild hall. He didn't bother to keep his Domain controlled, the light and fire pushing outward, and she scowled back at him, small sparks flaring and fizzling as her Domain replied in kind.

"I am not!" Kierstan huffed.

"What, you think we can just ignore everything that's going on and then, what, mindlessly grind away?"

"This is fun!" He argued back, still baffled that Kiersten had even thought about bailing on the System.

"Look, we've put in so much work for this! We're at the top, we have a guild, we have property, we have everything! Why would you want to throw all that away? Why would you want to go back to something that isn't real?"

"'Cause we're done." Kiersten shrugged.

"Max level. Max gear. You know I've never been much for the postgame. I'd rather go play at something else."

"Then do crafting! The guilds!" Morvan growled.

"There's all kinds of things! You can't do something for like eighty years and then just get tired of it."

"You can get tired of anything," Kiersten said, frowning at him.

"Look, it's not just that either. I really don't like the idea that the System messed with our minds. Can't you see that's the kind of thing we wanted to get away from?"

"So Cato says," Morvan scoffed. There was no reason to believe anything that their cousin said, especially since he was hardly the person they used to know. A softie, who preferred the sort of casual stuff that didn't even have a leaderboard. That person never would have had the guts to combat people directly — and that was ignoring that he somehow had gotten access to plans for antimatter weaponry and particle beams.

Earth had made sure that stuff was tightly controlled, and that Cato was far too dumb to ever make any of it himself.

Morvan considered Cato just another NPC at this point, some puppet that only looked like it had intelligence. A bit of that same manipulative false reality following them from Earth. Just another person trying to curtail Morvan's freedom, trap him and box him in, put him in some zoo like where he grew up — or turn him to a ghost of a person like the rest of digital life, just pictures on a screen for someone else to play with.

That his own sister was thinking of joining up with Cato, or at least abandoning the System, showed the propaganda was a lot more insidious than Morvan had thought.

"Morvan, look around," Kiersten said, waving at the guildhall.

"Justin wandered off to become a god or something, half the others just vanished into the War Worlds to grind the leaderboard. They're acting exactly like that Bismuth cornerstone thing in the pamphlet."

"Or you're just seeing patterns that aren't there," Morvan shrugged.

"When you get right down to it, people aren't complicated. Chop roles up into explorers, crafters, healers, tanks, and deeps — well, that's what you get. That's all it seems to me." Kiersten's determined expression wavered, but didn't drop.

"Maybe, and I maybe I could keep doing this forever, but you know what I really miss? Going to that cat café up on the atrium floor. Food and stuff too, but really, I miss being able to play with kittens. Even puppies would be okay at this point." Kiersten shrugged uncomfortably, probably realizing how stupid that sounded but committed to it anyway.

"Or dive sims, or see movies, or just go read some books. I just wish I could go back to Earth sometimes, you know?"

"Earth's not even connected to the System anymore," Morvan pointed out.

"For all we know we're not even in the same reality!"

"I know that, idiot!" Kiersten snapped.

"That doesn't mean we have to sit here and fight monsters for eternity. I want out, and I think a bunch of the others do too. I don't know if he will be able to actually do anything against the System, but I'd like have some normal home comforts."

"Who cares about that?" Morvan growled, his Domain flaring as his anger fueled it. Some of the nearby tables and chairs started to sizzle, even if they were Alum-ranked and specifically designed for toughness.

"We've finally found something that makes us feel alive, and you want to throw it away because you want to, what, bus tables at a coffee shop?"

"You're impossible," Kiersten threw up her hands.

"I was hoping you'd be willing to think about coming with me, you know. I don't want to leave you here! It's just the System seems too much like those Elysiums, and it's starting to creep me out."

Morvan rolled his eyes. As much as he loved his sister, she had always lacked the strength of will to really follow through on things. Always the first one to get cold feet. He had hoped that had changed, since she'd been doing so well leveling up in the System, but apparently not.

"Sounds like we need to go out hunting. That'll make you feel better."

"No," Kiersten said quietly.

"I think — I think I'm going to just go."

"You can't," Morvan said, taking another step forward, and Kiersten vanished as she invoked her travel Skill. He cursed and followed, chasing her out of the guildhouse and through the city to the portal in the blink of an eye, but beyond there he lost her. He stood there, clenching and unclenching his fists before he turned to head back to the guildhouse. There were portals there to all kind of places, most of them filled with monsters.

Morvan really felt the need to kill something.

Muar sat meditatively in his Estate, breathing slowly as he focused his now Alum-ranked senses on the essence within and around him. While he could step into the divine realm at any time by virtue of his Chosen status and his Skills, that was the wrong path, a hollow strength given by outside forces, in much the same way as Cato's agents. He had seen too many deities who simply assumed their status without understanding it in the way that Misse did, and that was not for him.

He wished to step into the divine realm as a peer, crossing the boundary between Alum and true Deity of his own accord.

There were multiple paths to crossing that boundary, but many of the paths were closed to him simply because of the choices he'd made throughout his rise to Alum. Not that he regretted any of them. His best option was in some ways the hardest: to ascend by taking that final step by sheer commitment and will, to breach the barrier with his essence, without the support of any quests or even that of his favored status.

For most that would have been impossible, but Muar had been to the divine realm. He knew what it was like. How it felt, both to ordinary senses and to the more esoteric ones within his Domain. His own divine aspect connected him in a profound way, originating as it did with the System's own fundamental nature.

While Misse had not ascended in that exact manner, she had spoken at length of the difference between the mortal world and the divine one. Instead of trying to force his way through, he was trying to match his Domain to what he remembered of the divine realm. He had made sure to suffuse his entire Estate with his Domain, merging his own personal essence with the Domain itself and in turn attuning it all to something higher.

It wasn't enough to simply cross over himself, he had to shift everything the System had given him into the role [Deity]. His Estate and its Interface, all the granted items and trophies. All of it needed to be carried with him, and if that was more difficult than doing so by himself, that merely went to show he was doing things properly. That was why he was meditating at his home and not in a Temple.

His surroundings flickered ever so slightly as he brought his essence more and more into alignment, getting ever closer to an ineffable goal. So far he had not reached it, but he knew it was there, just above the reality he knew. Muar took another breath, another small tweak, and suddenly he could sense more outside his Estate than merely the surface of Misse's personal world. A small push, a twist in a certain direction that could not be described, and he was suddenly there.

[You have entered the Divine Realm of your own accord. Convert to Deity?] He didn't have to even think to accept. Chains he had never known fell away, his essence expanding into the divine realm. Another ascension, but not one strictly of power. As the limitations vanished, strands of the divine realm fell into place around him, one after another. The core crystal of his Estate shone with power, shrinking to something the size of a badge and floating over to attach itself to his armor — and to him.

He could feel it link into his very soul, illuminating the growing constellation of threads spreading out from where his Skills resided.

[Conversion Complete. Crusader Title passed to designated inheritors. Welcome, Deity Muar.] The surroundings stabilized and he opened his eyes to find his Estate in a bubble of reality all its own, with his own personal sun shining overhead and a pleasant breeze blowing through the bright blue walls of his Estate. With a flicker of will he simply appeared at the edge of the bubble, another brief burst of intent conjuring a doorway out.

A marbled blue archway, heavy stone swinging open to reveal a space dotted with points of light; the worlds of the System connected by flowing streams of essence.

Misse grinned at him from the other side. Muar let the door swing shut behind him and walked toward her on the luminous road of essence that underlay all of reality, marveling at everything he could see and feel. As soon as he reached her, she lifted her hand and tapped the Deity badge on his chest with a satisfied smile.

"Welcome, [Overdeity Muar]," she said, the Interface chirping at his promotion.

"We have work to do."