-Robert Fayn-

Sitting in the back of Rom’s Four-Wheel Drive, I internally grumbled that after a week worth of practicing group summoning with Terrin I was stuck dealing with self-puppeteering my real body with Liquid Sugar Cowl, Candyman Form, and Wild Shape of the Surcia-Curcumedioia because we were stuck meeting with the resort union people outside of my Enigma. I guess at least my real body didn’t look like a mess cause of how easy it was to do self-care via my Enigma and physical therapy with Dr. Van Heime kept me from looking like a dried up twig. Observing the inside of the Cesire Babel as we slowly climbed its hundred floors with one of my cake-eye-balls, I telepathically asked the others,

“So we’re actually going to meet the Architect Capita in person?”

“Yes, he petitioned the resorts union to allow us to have the expansion be placed on the eightieth floor of the Cesire Babel,” replied Ras from the front seat, keeping his hand on his card to keep an eye on the amount of mana and money he was funneling into the mezzoflation.

“Still, the seventieth floor? Why couldn’t we have gotten placed somewhere like the tenth or twentieth floor?” The only people that went that high up in a Babel either already lived there, were super wealthy and could afford the rare custom made stuff from those floors’ shops, and or were hardcore mono-climbers looking for challenges in the higher floor system lairs. 

“We’re getting a very reputable area, arguably more reputable than what Terrafisimo gave us in Neo Hollo Oceania.” 

“Yeah, yeah I know we got a really good deal out of that, outer island resort district and all that.” I mean yeah it was a nice pull from Terrafisimo lotto’s but that Hidden City was chalk full of resort districts dotting it, but the same could be said for all the relatively empty spaces meant for dungeon-like distortions and small townships that also filled the bubble space.

“You know for someone who is about to meet a literal god in the flesh, you are acting pretty nonchalant about it,” commented Mita as he tapped his foot against the car’s floor.

“I mean this isn’t the first time I’ve done it. Hell, you guys have seen the Vox Phantasm and have talked to Reagan and Johari multiple times. How is this everything different?”

“It just is. I mean, actual god here.” 

“And I’m a mortal incarnation and vox reborn…” I telepathically sighed as I pieced my thoughts together: dealing with gods to me right didn’t feel like an issue cause I already had connections to multiple of them, not to mention I could feel Driscoll’s nonchalance from his glory days and Surcia-Robert’s survivalistic desire to approach this neutrally but attentive. It didn’t help that I could feel all my other connections tinges the ideas of my thoughts. God I’m going to need an actual therapist after all this.

“We should be fine, we have already resigned ourselves to this fate and are preparing ourselves to handle it,” noted Driscoll from my expanse of blackness.

“You’re preparing for it, I’m just trying to make sure this doesn’t overwhelm me.” 

“Don’t worry! You’ll be just fine, we’ll get our new expansion and maybe also get the quest. It shouldn't be anything we can’t handle,” chimed in Sal doing very little to ease my slowly raising concerns: I didn’t want to deal with another quest anytime soon but I was still being thrusted into one and this probably as the main character of it. I mean I just got off dealing with magi-elitistic psychopaths and am still trying to figure out how to operate with a body that I literally couldn’t move without the use of magic.

“Honestly, I can kind of understand where Robert is coming from, and it’s not cause our spirit contract. This quest is going to happen regardless of what we do and Robert has only two choices in the matter, panic or force himself to try and be calm,” noted Terrin as he looked around the window.

“Seriously, those are the two options you think I have?” I complained with a groan.

“Well, those are your two most common reactions, and at least you aren’t panicking right now.”

“Can you please not put it that way?” With that, the others laughed a bit as that and we all went back to waiting to reach the fiftieth floor: Rom cleanly moving in and out of traffic and navigating the Babel like she knew it like the back of her mechanical hand.

“We have arrived,” commented Rom with her usual monotone voice as we arrived at a plain enough looking building that went all the way up to the floor’s ceiling and adorned with pipes. As Terrin helped me get out of Rom’s Four-Wheel Drive and set me up in my wheelchair with some magical help from Surcia-Robert, I conjured up some more of my cake-eye-balls to get a better look around: either side of the road was dotting with portal stations to other Babels that the Cesire Babel was connected to. Of course the entire part of the floor was busy with all the traffic in and out of it, but that still didn’t stop me from noticing the manalogical aura coming from the building in front of us. Maybe Mita was right… this is an actual god in the flesh we’re talking about here, I thought to myself an internal scowl and we headed inside and were greeted to a lobby that looked a bit like the insides of some sort of machinery more than anything else.

“Greetings, you all must be from Historia Pastoria Sweets, the Architect Compita is waiting for you upstairs in his chambers,” commented one of the clerks in a plain suit the second we entered the building.

“Yes, we are. Has the resort union already arrived?” asked Ras as Rom wheeled my real body in.

“Yes the two representatives, Nathan Rosenburg and Gunther Thompson, have already arrived and have been talking with the Architect Compita.”

“Wait… Gunther Thompson? Isn’t that the really rich dude who works with Reagan Road?” asked Mita with a surprised look on his face: talk about a small world, although it only made sense that Reagan had a contact on the Endless Strip that was also legendary tier. Although I mean the only reason why Mita and I know about him was because he was more famous for being super rich and owning entire chains of crystal-based magic devices and enchanted jewelry stores than being a S ranked member of the resort union with his blackzone, the Private District known as Treasury Gaurden. Of course we knew how scary he could be cause he wasn’t just on par with Reagan but also managed to climb up the ranks as a development zone of a blackzone.

“Well things are getting interesting, I guess we better not keep them waiting,” whistled Terrin as he motioned to the clerk to lead the way. With a silent nod of understanding, the clerk directed us to a private elevator at the back of the lobby and sent us on our way. Sitting in my expanse of blackness with Surcia-Robert and Driscoll behind me, the three of us could feel the manalogical aura become more intense through both my real body and the cake-eye-balls: this was totally when I saw the Vox Phantasm appear to help out Tala, this was all encompassing enough to make my connections to both Gaia and the Vox Phantasm stir.

Arriving in an auditorium-like space, I instinctively recognized both Nathan and then also the Vox Phantasm: of course the Vox Phantasm would be here of all places, we’re were definitely going to be given the quest at this point if they bothered to physically appear outside of the Hidden City. Standing next to the them and staring at us while we entered had to Gunther given his stocky yet slimmish imposing build and abundant yet tasteful amount of high quality jewelry that managed to exude enough ambient mana to be noticed with all the manalogical auras being thrown about: the oversized sculpted gemstones floating behind were also a dead give away. Which meant the goliath of an earthen man standing, well more like looming behind them, with tubes sticking out of his arms and back that hooked up to the wall had to be the Architect Compita. God he is oppressive, I thought to myself as I felt his manalogical aura and feel like I was staring into the horizon, and to make matters worse I knew this was only one of his many bodies scattered around this Babel alone.

“Ah, it seems our final guests have arrived,” proclaimed the Architect Compita with a low rolling voice that reverberated through the entire room.

“Good, they were actually on time,” followed up Gunther as he abruptly conjured not only a frontier core but a split core from a personal subdimension. As Terrin conjured my spirit form, I allowed a replica to be summoned; feeling a small wave of chronophasia, I focused on my connection to the Vox Phantasm and then asked,

“I thought we were only getting one expansion?”

“You’re getting more than this, this is just what the resort union and the Architect Compita is making me supply. You get an expansion and Interconnection plus whatever those two decide to give you and I get a tier. You better make a resort and a bunch of mines in the Interconnection, I heard good things from Reagan and I want to see if you live up to them.”

“So wait... we’re getting more?...” Holy crap, I was just expecting the expansion and getting stuck with another quest, not dungeon core galore.

“Yes, with your first trial, you’ll be given a series of areas that will be connected to the Hybrid System of Warring Cores,” explained the Vox Phantasm with a slight nod. “These areas will include Aux cores and lodestones that will grant you access to this hybrid system along with creating autonomous blackzones that you will have to protect and allies to aid you.”

“As for the trial itself, you will be required to win at ten battles of sufficient size within the scope of the hybrid system before the time of calamity arrives or the four system-made base cores that will appear within your autonomous blackzones are captured or destroyed,” followed up the Architect Compita as he conjured a shimmering hand-sized crystals. “With each appropriate victory, not just be you three but those tied to your Enigma and the system faction you will be joining, Goldenrod Compita-Phantasm, the victor will receive three in the first half and four in the second half and by giving them to you will push you one step forward to completion while giving them a reward of their own. Naturally if even one of you receives one of these crystals during a handout, that victory will count for two victories.” With that, I felt a powerful pull on two of my free system slots as what had to be the Hybrid System of Warring Cores; unable to resist it, I allowed it to begrudgingly happen only to notice the second connection was an empowerment to first with a derivative version of the hybrid system not the hybrid system itself.

“What an interesting quest you got yourself,” chimed in Nathan as the Architect Compita went to dispelling the crystal in his hand and conjuring up a handful of dungeon cores with some lodestones in the mix. It still felt weird to think I was going to need to create and collect the divergent distortion versions of dungeon cores: their natural-esque pillars looked and felt so different compared to the smooth octahedrons that were dungeon cores.

“More like a pain in the ass,” I muttered under my breath as I probed my new system slot’s connections and found a checklist for the quest: first victory, Ras’s upgrade; second victory: Mita’s upgrade; third upgrade, Robert’s upgrade; fourth victory, mirroring Grand Key; fifth victory, base of second Grand Key; sixth victory, potions of Witch Synthia; seventh victory, weapon of Witch Synthia; eighth victory, assorted summons of Dragon Country; ninth victory, GD-Summon of Dragon Country; and tenth victory, second Grand Key. How nice for them to list what we’ll get with each win… and Dragon Country? Isn’t that the artificial world cluster that Driscoll made?

“So are we going to have the split core be used or not? I hate to say it but I am a busy man and I can’t stick around all day,” interrupted Gunther, motioning over to the split core he brought out.

“Yes, let us begin the process, Robert, please activate the split core. I and the Vox Phantasm shall begin the needed race advancement during the process,” agreed the Architect Compita as he and the Vox Phantasm started to glow with intense mana as I felt all the dungeon cores and lodestones somehow attune to my Enigma even before being put to use. Not wanting to piss off a legendary tier blackzone manager on par with Reagan plus two gods, one of which I was technically in service of, I walked up to split core, glowing a soft gold as Rom followed with my real body.

The instant I touched the split core with my spirit firm: the joint psychic scanning began with a rush of vertigo, pain, and mana. Feeling my connections, Sea of Phenomena, mandalas, and system slots all shudder, the psychic scanning touching all my pieces of a being because that my normal primary sapiance was in shambles nowadays. The split image of a giant opulent city with thick walls and foundations and a labyrinthine mine full of gemstones and precious images buffeted my mind. More flashes as I saw Gunther Thompson as it felt like I was getting ripped apart and dipped into molten gold: information flooded into my mind as I could vaguely feel the other dungeon cores and lodestone being whisked away while I was turned the lowest rank of architect descended, an apprentice architect descended, and getting an extra class specialty set for Link-Facsimile and an extra synthesis mandala inscribed. A trinkle of negatively-charged manalogical forces of karma as a huge surge of mana washed over me.

“Interconnection with Treasury Guarden has been established. It has been designated Sweets Golden. Other areas are being formed, the expansion in the Cesire Babel, a divergent distortion-based conquest into the artificial world cluster of Dragon Country, an expansion into an artificial world cluster known as Casino Nebula, and a divergent distortion-based expansion into a type of world known as a spiral corridor with in the Earth I universe group’s neither between space,” proclaimed Sous as I felt another system assistant be formed for me, this one for the Babels and being shared with Ras and Mita due a synthesis feature that was inscribed along with the race advancement’s two racial features. Everything felt like shit, every part of me ached and was mana-drunk and I could tell through my mirroring Grand Key with Ras and Mita that they were feeling the same.

“Couldn't they have made this a little bit easier on us?” growled Surcia-Robert from his corner in my expanse of blackness, fighting to purge the mana-drunkenness with some surcia-curcumedioia racial magic.

“Quests are never easy, especially for those like us with our tier,” explained Driscoll with an overwhelming sense of forlornness and nostalgia that I was feeling because how intense it was: he really was conflicted on my Enigma gaining a route to Dragon Country because of a quest. With a tingling from my new system slot’s connections and my connection to my Enigma, I felt something amassing, the quest was about to start in full swing with a fight: people using the Hybrid System of Warring Cores had already noticed my Enigma’s new areas somehow and were heading toward it.

“Crap… we need to head back now,” I managed to gasp out now, looking over to the Archita Compita and the Vox Phantasm and tugging on my connections to them and hoping for them to do something.

“And we will facilitate that. We hope you learn quickly how to make the fullest extent of your new abilities,” answered the Vox Phantasm, sensing my panic and creating a shimmering portal. “Now go forth and protect your dreams with the best of your abilities.”