Chapter 893 - To stand before him

Back out of my mental space, I form a few evil pyramids that I continue to use to train.

With my remaining mental capacity, I read the description of one of my two low pristine passives.

Cognitive Hyperprocessing Vector (Low Pristine) - Your cognition gains a compact internal framework vector that reduces thought into a refined conceptual structure. The model allows efficient manipulation of intricate concepts and maintains stability through heavy mental load.

I know I can thank it for a big part in making my mind as durable as it is, yet I also believe that is not all. It might be my arrogance or reasonable delusions, but I think my mind is more durable than it should be based on the rarity of this passive. And damn, this is the hill I am willing to die on.

Still, I do not think I should use that as a base to start caring about passives that make my mind more durable. Even if it is all thanks to a combination of my active skills, possibly traits, a subclass, and some constructs.

I do not plan to replace my healing passive, as I quite like it and it does decently. Well, decently-ish. As much as possible with the state my body is in.

BUT.

If I have a stronger mind, I can handle mental loads and use my skills better, which surely means less damage to the body. Logic like this is just flawless, and I am sure no one could create an argument against something like that.

So that is why, after training, thinking, and scrolling through what seems like most of the system shop multiple times over, there is one passive I really like and think will be a good fit for the combination.

Memory Vault (Low Pristine) - A memory storage state embedded in the subconscious layer. This passive skill requires a continuous expenditure of mana to remain active, with its total capacity scaling proportionally to the user's mana reserves.

It is a simple description and not something that I would need that much. Yes, it would be useful, allowing me to unburden my mental capacity and store my mental constructs, arrays, my triggers, and other things there. With it scaling with mana and based on its rarity, it should allow me to store some insane works.

For example, an array that would deploy, continuously duplicate and grow, pull on ambient mana, expand, modify, and then spread through the entire continent. I would not even need to do it all manually. I would just have to make sure to have enough mana to power it, pull it out of the Vault, and trigger it. Simple as that.

Though, without me being able to modify it on the spot and with how difficult it would be to stop, it could go very, very wrong. I can imagine some asshole messing with it, changing a few bends, and causing that array to explode instead of giving me my desired effect.

I am once again getting caught up in this theorizing. Simply put, I picked it because of the part about scaling with mana. That part is not that common, especially not on the passive skills I would find useful.

So I confirm the pop-up window.

Do you really want to buy the following passive skill for 24,999,999 shards?

Memory Vault (Low Pristine)

Yes / No

I press to confirm, and then a new window pops up.

Insufficient balance.

That causes me to shake my head in surprise, and I swiftly open my status and scroll down.

Shards: 10,881,116

Could I possibly be broke? I would have sworn I was rich.

Is… is this what people mean by lacking liquidity? I became so used to calculating my net worth in assets and investments that I completely overlooked my available shards. And who actually scrolls all the way down every single time?

And were passives always so expensive?

Well, it seems that I will have to make my way to beyond.

POV Talon

It has already been a few weeks since Morwag and Weslin left the tutorial, and a similar amount of time since Nyssa Volare was last seen.

So far, the other guilds have been careful not to provoke ours. Even with his frequent absences, Guildmaster Gwyn is regarded as highly volatile, leaving people uncertain of what to expect from him. He is considered still alive, even after all the craziness that happened with the 11th floor of the tutorial, and his trip with The Boys is already becoming a sort of legend here.

A new manaless zone on the 3rd floor, destroyed healing guild’s headquarters in the 1st City on the 2nd floor, the death of all the lurkers on the 1st floor, and so much more.

I, for example, am enjoying the current situation. All of it is a mess, but it also offers an opportunity, and I made sure my salary scaled to my usefulness. By the end of the tutorial, I will make sure to use my charm and my extremely rare primordial energy that is Stellar Wind to become one of the richest attendees. Hell, I might even combine another set of upper arcane passives. Just how crazy would that be?

“Hey, you,” a voice sounds by my side, and it instantly sends shivers down my back.

Of course I recognize it right away, how could I not? So I force a very polite smile as I turn towards the Guildmaster Gwyn, who stands there out of nowhere.

Just looking at his face instantly annoys me. I do not know what it is, maybe some sort of passive he has, but the sheer arrogance and confidence in it triggers me the wrong way.

I think someone once said that it makes you admire him or even look up to him if you are much weaker, but once you get to a certain power level where you are one of the stronger people around, just seeing it makes you angry.

And my words reflect that, almost against my will. “Did you forget my name again?” I blabber out in a harsher tone than I expected.

“T-” he starts, narrowing his eyes. He looks less like he's struggling to remember and more like he's calculating his best exit strategy, before tossing out a quick save, “Big T. That’s what I always called you.”

“You never called me that.”

“I did. In my hearts. Okay, look, I am busy, my pirate friend owes me money, so I have planned a meeting with her soon. I already met with Duncan, and he said he put the fishing cash into some Local Safekeeping Account for the rich where I can get them out. You have to tell me where I could find that place.”

“It is on the same street as the headquarters of the top guilds. Small blue building with one window and a door.”

“See, it was not that difficult, Big T.”

“Please do not call me that.”

“While I go to get my shards from my pirate, ask the vice guild master if he could give me my annual salary a bit earlier. Also, ask him about my bonuses. You can read through my contract and try to get as much as possible out of him. I think I had clauses where the better the guild did, the higher my salary gets.”

“Do you know Morwag stole that low pristine armor you guys got from Eternal Clowns and left the tutorial with it?”

“Well, I am not surprised." He says, entirely unbothered, "So, will you do it?”

“What do I get?” I ask him.

“That is the Big T I know. 50,000 shards?”

“100 thousand if I get you much more than you expect.”

“Sounds like we have a deal. Oh, and also tell him that I want to sell some items. Ex-corporation owned cool stuff and such. I left them in the closet near my room and put some defenses around it, but you can use this orb to unlock it. If you lose the orb, do not even get close to the door, I do not know how big the explosion range is.”

“S-sure.”

“There should be some Talnium and other fancy stuff. Have them appraised so I can have some base price to negotiate with those three maniacs from Crimson Forge. Also, send this information to all guilds that have gathered information on Champions on the 5th floor. I am requesting this info, and in exchange, I'll give them some valuable items, materials, or the Primordial Knights will trade some of our own intel with them. Don't share it too much, but if the info's good, I'm willing to hand a key to a few of them. If they refuse, tell them I will be declaring guild war on them all, and going after them personally.”

Words get stuck in my throat as I watch him. I hope, trying to see somewhere on his face, that he is not serious. I try to make sense of what he just said.

The guildmaster notices my hesitation because he says, “Yeah, it must sound like a lot of work. So how about you get 1% of it all? We can raise it later if you do a good job or if it ends up being too little. It should be a decent amount of shards and make it worth your time.”

He even seems satisfied with himself. Like he is some genius that grasped human psyche and can now entirely control people.

He is slimmer than when I previously met him, scarred, and there is no mana emanating from him. It is like he does not have any at all. And as always, he carries no weapons, wears no armor, and even his primordial energies are nowhere to be seen.

Currently, he looks like a normal human, probably even ill. Yet every one of his movements is anything but that. They look like there is no hesitation in them. It is hard to describe, but it is like they are unstoppable? Like even if the entire mountain fell on him, he would move the same without even noticing it?

And those eyes… the divine golden light trying to peek from behind the pitch black of his pupils.

More than any of the demons I met, he scares me. Not because he is unpredictable or might snap at any moment without warning. No, it is the knowledge that once he decides to do something, to move, I will not be able to do anything to stop him.

“We have a deal,” I get out of myself and smile.

All of this is useless, of course. His kinetic and thermal senses are well known at this point. He likely reads my emotions through changes in my body, noticing my fear as if I were an open book. Yet he does not even seem to try to use it to his advantage and just behaves in his usual way.

When he reaches out his hand towards me, I reach out with mine and shake it.

Then I mutter, “Did you say fucking Talnium?”

That day, all the requests from the Primordial Knights for information on the Champions on the 5th floor are sent all over beyond.

Bloodline, Silent Veil, Frontier, and Crimson Forge accept the request, with some putting up a few more reasonable requirements.

Multiple guilds reject it at first, but after noticing these top guilds accepting right away, many change their minds that very same day. Some try to ask for better terms, but all of these requests are rejected.

One of the relatively new guilds in the top 10 still rejects it, and just a few hours later, a figure appears floating over their headquarters. With a crown over his head, he gives a timeline of one hour, which the guild uses to set up defenses, hoping to stop him or hoping that the Handlers or Pathfinder Thane might interfere.

No help comes.

There are many descriptions of what follows, though most describe it as pure tyranny. Not caring about his image, the image of his guild, or the other S rank defending the guild, the Guild Master of the Primordial Knights takes barely a minute to break through all the defenses.

The scale of the damage is strictly restricted to the guild, with him even stopping their attacks from reaching further. All of the headquarters is destroyed, entirely. All decades old defenses crushed, all mana batteries drained of their mana, and incredible materials slashed through.

Even then, even with all that scale, not a single pulse of mana spreads through the city. Not a single person dies either, all of them are left disarmed and some wounded, but alive.

An effortless dismantling of their pride, revealing how utterly outmatched they were and how they failed to even register as threats worth destroying.

After it all, he still promises to keep his offered deal.

It was not that long ago when some people started theorizing that the rankings of the current crop of beyonders were inaccurate.

Nyssa Volare is widely considered way beyond the reach of even the most powerful S ranks, along with the man called Christoph, who appeared out of nowhere and blazed through beyond.

Nathaniel Gwyn is like them, and he still has more than a year and a half remaining in his tutorial. His achievements and powers are well known, and no attendee can ignore that one fact.

To stand before him is to know that if he wills it, your mana belongs to him.

And so, more and more people began to view the three of them as anomalies. Outliers outside the rankings and each of them a tyrant in their own way.

Monsters waiting to be let out of a cage disguised as a tutorial.