For a moment, Alice wondered if she had made a horrible mistake. Perhaps the System breaking down had caused Perks above level 75 to malfunction? Was her brain about to melt down or something? Alice spent a few seconds mentally kicking herself for rushing her Perk choice. She had assumed it was safe because every other Perk so far had been safe, but with the System down, she should have double checked whether this would cause any problems.

Before she had more time to worry, she felt something inside of her twist.

For a brief moment, Alice was overcome with a variety of bizarre sensations.

She could taste what it felt like to conduct an experiment. She could smell what it felt like to conduct an experiment with mana. She could hear curiosity. Every single sense blended together in a chaotic mixture of concepts, smells, sights, sounds, touches, and tastes.

And every single one of those sensations was associated with either the concept of being a [Scientist] or being an [Explorer of Magic].

Alice managed to wrestle open her eyes, unaware of when she had closed them, and tried to figure out what was happening with the mana inside of her body. The strange barrage of sensations continued, nearly overwhelming her ability to think, but after a few moments, Alice managed to get used to the overwhelming rush of sensations and get things back under control.

The first thing she did was look inside of herself, using her various mana senses and {Organic Vision}, and watched in surprise as she saw two of her class fractals orbiting each other, like a fast-forwarded version of the Moon orbiting the Earth. Rainbow mana flowed between the two of them, carrying concepts with them as both magic seeds expanded like miniature nebulas.

Much like the first time Alice had learned about the true nature of Classes, when she had felt the concept of an [Explorer of Magic] start to overtake her very sense of self, Alice could feel the concept of being a [Scientist] and being an [Explorer of Magic] start to rise up and flood through her body. However, the sensation was considerably muted compared to the time Alice had tried to form a Class seed as if it were a magic seed. It was equivalent to the mental pressure of around ten levels of unfiltered mana in each class, compared to the overwhelming barrage of concepts that had nearly instantly overwhelmed Alice’s personality in one fell swoop when she had tried to mess with class seeds.

A small amount of her mind focused on fighting off the new deluge of ideas, but most of Alice’s attention remained on the two class fractals and the way they were interacting with each other. Meanwhile, her body started sucking in mana like a black hole, draining all of the mana in half of her tiny cabin dry in seconds.

And then, Alice watched as both class fractals started to connect to each other in a way Alice hadn’t seen before. The class fractals that were located inside of her brain started to stretch into each other, and all of the neurons between those two class fractals started to glow with mana. And then, the System mana inside of those class fractals did… something.

A moment later, Alice felt more complete than before.

It was the strangest sensation she had ever felt, but Alice felt more like herself than ever before. The dull, thrumming sensation of mana pushing against her mind and body started to disappear, and Alice saw, with some surprise, that a very small part of her body had its regular biology replaced with something completely new.

It was a type of mana Alice had never seen before, and Alice was sorely tempted to call it Alice-mana. It was a mana that constituted the most fundamental aspect of who Alice was.

No, thought Alice, as she started frowning.

It wasn’t mana built off of who she was.

It was mana that was built entirely off of what other people thought of her. Who they thought she was. What they thought she liked and disliked. What they thought brought her joy and sorrow.

It was as if every single person who had ever heard of her had a very small image of who she was, living inside of their mind, and the small, new strip of mana was trying to press that idea of Alice into her, overriding the real person behind the image.

Alice felt a spike of fear in her mind, before she realized something else.

Other Immortals didn’t have this type of mana in their body. Ethan didn’t have Ethan-mana inside of him. Allira didn’t have Allira-mana inside of her, either. Their bodies were mostly made of mana, and that mana was constantly transforming back into their body – but Alice didn’t think that the mana-based bodies most Immortals had altered their mind in any way. Instead, Immortals were constantly transforming into themselves – not some stereotyped or perceived version of who they were, but just… themselves. Whoever they had come to be as the years and centuries passed.

She frowned even more deeply.

What was the difference here?

The most obvious assumption was that this was some kind of inherent problem that was solved by the System at higher levels.

When Alice had tried to form a class seed in a magic seed slot, what she had found strongly suggested that Classes were built off of people’s assumptions. What people felt an [Explorer of Magic] should be like influenced what people with the class could do in order to level up – and, similarly, Alice also suspected it influenced what Perks the class could obtain.

In other words, people’s beliefs and assumptions somehow strongly influenced, or perhaps even created, Classes.

In that case, it seemed likely that people’s beliefs somehow interacted with mana and the System on a fundamental level. People’s beliefs about things could legitimately impact how reality worked behind the scenes.

What did that mean?

Alice put aside the press of ideas brought about by the new Alice-mana for a moment, and instead focused on what her new discovery meant.

The clues had been there for a long time now. People’s beliefs obviously interacted with the System. But the strip of Alice-mana in her body had still been created, even while the System was down. And Alice distinctly remembered that, at one point in the past, the System had given her an error message because personality-warping was a ‘core violation’ of the System. Immortals didn’t seem to be constantly changed based on the way people perceived them, but Alice was now experiencing a small amount of personality warping based on other people’s perception of her.

This was a problem created by the lack of the System. And it also potentially implied that people’s beliefs could alter reality. After all, people’s belief about who Alice was were now trying to override Alice the person, and she was fairly certain the System was trying to prevent that from happening.

People’s beliefs could alter reality.

Now that Alice thought about it, this was pretty consistent with how she had seen several System components work.

Classes were built based on what people believed certain professions did – [Nobles] got levels by doing things people associated with ‘nobility,’ and then got Perks that people assumed [Nobles] wanted. [Scientists] got levels for doing things people assumed were ‘scienc-y,’ and then got Perks that people associated with science.

Similarly, Achievements worked built on what OTHER PEOPLE believed to be true about someone or some achievement.

One of Alice’s Perks was {Immortal’s Disciple at the battle against the Society}. She pulled it up again, just to double-check the wording of the Achievement.

Immortal’s Apprentice at the battle against the Society (Rarity: 4)

As a talented combat-specialized Mage who is apprenticed to Ethan, the Immortal of Spells and Seeds, you participated in one of the battles between Illvaria and the Society of Starry Eyes, and played a notable role in securing victory for your side. Even if you didn’t distinguish yourself as an MVP of the battle, you performed above and beyond what would be expected of you for your age group. Illvaria is watching you!

+30% Level growth speed to your ‘primary’ Magic-related class (Explorer of Magic), +15% levelling speed to all Kinetic Magic related classes. The effect of the {Divided Attention} Skill is increased by approximately 50%.

The Achievement explicitly mentioned that Alice was a combat-specialized Mage, even though it was abundantly obvious to Alice and anyone who knew her well that Alice was mostly a research oriented Mage. She had found that odd at the time, but now Alice had a pretty good idea what was happening behind the scenes. People’s assumptions about Alice’s abilities and personality had been turned into an Achievement by the System – and perhaps, in the process of turning these beliefs into an Achievement, the System had somehow removed any potential for the mana to change who Alice was as a person, leaving only the beneficial parts and stripping away the negative effects. Just like the System did with class mana.

The more Alice thought about it, the more she felt that her new assumption was correct. There were a lot of ways that she could test her theory, but Alice wasn’t even sure if she should. If other people realized that the System could be manipulated based on other people’s beliefs, how long would it be until some madman forced a nation to believe he was a god, or something? Would that work?

Alice suspected that it would, at least to some extent. Alice doubted that it would give the person in question truly godlike abilities, since Immortals were semi-worshipped in Illvaria, and none of them had done any truly godlike things despite having centuries of worship. But they did have a lot of exceptionally powerful and reality-breaking abilities.

Alice wondered how much mana could change the world around her, if enough people believed something to be true.

If people stopped believing that gravity existed one day, would the entire planet just fall into the sky?

If people developed weird beliefs about how atoms worked, would the laws of physics just melt down and implode on themselves? How much could people’s beliefs actually change?

At the same time, Alice started wondering how much the System did behind the scenes to manage all of this. There were just too many ways that people’s beliefs altering reality could and should backfire spectacularly. The fact that none of them had happened yet indicated that something behind the scenes had been quietly working to prevent the worst case scenario.

And considering how many other weird and opaque rules the System had that quietly preventing the human species from going extinct, and the fact that System mana had literally coated every single centimeter of the planet until about a month ago, it wouldn’t surprise Alice at all if the System somehow managed the impact human belief had on the laws of physics.

Alice eyed the System mana inside of her brain suspiciously.

Was that the ultimate purpose of the System? To lock human beliefs down before they interfered with mana too much, thereby accidentally destroying the world through sheer coincidence?

Come to think of it, several very weird incidents had been reported to her while she had been in Cyra. She wasn’t sure if those incidents were related to her new theory or not – but she distinctly recalled that a bunch of trees had exploded for no reason while some scouts had been tracking down some monsters. Alice hadn’t been sure what to make of the ‘exploding trees’ when she had first heard of them, but now Alice wondered if human beliefs were somehow bending the laws of physics that governed those trees, or something like that. She would need to ask Ethan if the locals in that area had any peculiar beliefs regarding the trees in the forest – if they did, it might help Alice shed some light on all of the weird things that had gone wrong ever since the System collapsed.

If the System really did have some sort of ‘locking’ mechanism that prevented human beliefs or monster beliefs from breaking down the laws of reality and killing everyone, Alice needed to get the System fixed or replaced. If she didn’t, tomorrow all of the important little rules about how atoms worked might get swapped out and make the planet implode. Alice wasn’t sure how some other aspects of the collapse of the System tied in to everything yet – the monsters getting more intelligent all of a sudden and learning to absorb System mana wasn’t really something she understood yet, even though it did prove surprisingly useful. But Alice was starting to realize just how dangerous every single day without the System was.

Alice took a deep breath and tried to slow down her spinning thoughts. Even if she now realized just how much the System collapsing was dangerous, she doubted the world was actually going to explode tomorrow. People’s beliefs probably needed time to influence other things, or there might be other limiting factors in play – but since the world hadn’t collapsed the moment the System had, Alice assumed that the laws of physics were less volatile than she feared. And Alice also had no way to immediately restore the System – she had been working as quickly as she could already. She tried to shake off her fearful thoughts, and instead focused on the Perks she had sacrificed to create her new Perk, as well as the actual text of her new Perk.

Seeds of Ambition Perk Costs: Three Seeds +  Seedy Ambitions sacrificed to create this Perk.

Two times a month, you can create an inferior magic seed with a maximum mana conversion ratio of 30%. (Since this Perk has been upgraded, you may now also combine two magic seeds once per month). The seed creation rules from {Seedy Ambitions} are applied to this Perk. However, Achievements may now apply to the Inferior magic seeds as they would to other magic seeds.

 

Science’s Mana Requirements: Scientist level 65 or higher, Intelligence 150 or higher, Enchanter Class at level 25 or higher, create at least three enchantments of your own design.

Make System enchantment for item. Must be related to a Perk you already have from the research Classes, or Attributes_thought association with Science. (Intelligence, Willpower, Perception).

 

Perk combination in Progress. Combining {Science’s Mana} and {Seeds of Ambition}. Error – {Science’s Mana} judged to be misnamed. Cannot find correct name – please re-establish connection to main server. No connection can be found. Searching user’s memories for a suitable name… {Science’s Mana} renamed {Scientific System}. Proceeding with combination process. (Due to increased Assistance/Authority/Recognition from the System and multiple Achievements related to exploring and understanding the System, as well as the desires of the creator, Perk direction is influenced) (Perk direction is banned.) (System removing upgrade to find a suitable replacement upgrade.) (System cannot be accessed. Not enough processing power present in Class Fractals. Error.) (No suitable replacement upgrades found. Continuing with original path.)

 

System’s Ambition (Tier 3 Perk) Perk Cost: Scientific System + Seeds of Ambition sacrificed to create this Perk.

Once per month, you may create and synthesize four Seeds. If they are added to your S_yst@m seed, then each synthesis will also increase seed mana conversion ratio by a further 10%. If not added to your System seed, these Magic Seeds are instead categorized as ‘inferior’ seeds, meaning that they cannot be influenced by other Perks or Achievements. Seeds will add 30% to mana conversion ratio at maximum. Due to influence of other upgrades, magic seeds created by System’s Ambition can be influenced by Perks. Due to influence of other upgr@des, magic seeds created by System’s ambition can be influenced by Achievements.

Alice blinked in surprise as she looked at her new Perk, as well as the slew of System messages that had accompanied its creation.

There were several things that she wanted to analyze.

First of all, the name {Science’s Mana} had changed to {Scientific System} during the Perk combination process. Alice had always figured that the name {Science’s Mana} was probably a bug – a lot of the names in the System, as well as the spelling and grammar, had gotten slightly messed up since the collapse of the System, and System descriptions had also gotten a lot less… descriptive. There was a lot more trial and error involved in figuring out what a new Perk did and what it was useful for. It wasn’t a huge deal, but Alice was happy to know that the ‘correct’ name of the Perk had probably been applied during the Perk combination process. {Scientific System} sounded like a legitimate Perk name, instead of the glitched out nonsense Alice had been seeing recently.

The second thing Alice noticed was a System message she had never seen before.

The message about ‘perk combination’ in progress.

When Alice had combined {Science’s Mana} and {Seeds of Ambition}, she had felt like she was more than before. As if something about her very nature, her very existence, had changed in some subtle way. She was fairly certain that the speed at which she aged had decreased considerably in the few seconds after she had combined her first post level 75 Perk, and she was also fairly certain that she had taken a very important, very critical step forward – even if she wasn’t entirely sure what that meant yet.

The System seemed to reflect that – the System message about combining Perks, upgrading them based on her Achievements and her own behavior, and the various checks the System seemed to have gone through reflected the fact that the System seemed to be personalizing upgrades after level 75, at least to some extent. When Alice had checked the Perk list from the book of the Church of the System, the Church of the System hadn’t had many Perks listed after level 75. It was now obvious why – if each Perk was at least somewhat personalized, any record of what Perk combinations resulted in would be, at best, a loose guideline for what might happen. There wasn’t much point in recording it, since there was so much variance in what Perks people might combine at this point, and even if they did the same Perk combination, they might get different results.

But at least in this one, specific case, the System collapsing worked in Alice’s favor. The System had tried to prevent Alice from getting a certain Perk upgrade direction for whatever reason, and replace it with a suitable ‘alternate’ upgrade – and then had failed, because the System couldn’t connect to the main component of the System.

It was also the very first time Alice had seen the ‘increased help from the System’ impact anything at all. Alice had spent about a year wondering what in the world the ‘increased help from the System’ did by now. It was mentioned in {Outworlder} that she had it, but she had never, at any point in time, figured out what it actually meant.

Now, for the first time, it actually came up in a System message Alice suspected she hadn’t been supposed to see.

Alice wasn’t entirely sure what to make of that, so for now, Alice just noted what she had seen. There would be more time to experiment with the benefits of the {Outworlder} Achievement in the future, and see if it cropped up every time Alice got a post-level 75 Perk. But it was worth thinking about in the future. She finally had some hint about what the weirdest part of her first Achievement did.

The moment Alice finished scanning her new Perk, she noticed that the Perk was asking her to designate a seed – or at least, Alice was pretty sure that was what it wanted her to do. She checked the Perk’s wording again, and noticed that it would give her extra benefits if she added seeds to her ‘System’ seed.

In other words, Alice needed to point at one of her seeds and tell the Perk it was her ‘System’ seed, or at least it would be in the future. Alice immediately selected her combined Filtration/Display magic seed. She had already been working on turning it into a System magic seed, so it made sense to make it her ‘official’ System magic seed.

Then, Alice checked her new Perk, and found that sadly, it was still on cooldown. She got the feeling that she needed to wait about a week to use it again – which she was pretty sure was less time than she originally had before {Seeds of Ambition} came off of cooldown, but Alice certainly wasn’t going to complain about it.

Alice sighed as she thought about her new speculations from the day, and then decided to go to sleep.

She needed some time to think about what had just happened, and figure out a way to defend her mind against the influence of Alice mana. She had developed plenty of other ways to fight back against erosion of her willpower in the past – she just needed to cement what she planned to do this time, and how to do so without hurting herself. The Alice mana wasn’t what worried her, because Alice was pretty confident she could find a solution.

Instead, as she went to sleep, she thought about whether tomorrow the laws of physics would implode and turn every molecule on the planet into a nuclear bomb, or something equally absurd and lethal. The collapse of the System had always felt terrifying, but now it felt dozens of times more dangerous than ever before.