Nightmare Realm Summoner: A LitRPG Adventure, page 44
This is part of my rewards from the Trial, so it’s definitely important. I would have loved an actual description, though. What’s this thing do?
Alex studied it for a few more seconds, but no answers emerged. With a small shrug, he carefully set it on the ground in front of him, taking care not to knock it into the basin. The gem wasn’t going anywhere. He could figure out what it did once his main tasks were accomplished.
Alex raised his eyes to the huge ball of mist churning above his head. There was something far more pressing than Title Fragments. He could get some new abilities.
He could finally advance Monster Medley.
The eagerness in his stomach made his insides prickle. Alex hadn’t even cashed in all the energy he’d gathered from the fights leading up to and around the Trial. He didn’t even want to think about how much power that was.
Alex sat down at the top of the stairs and focused himself, pushing the churning emotion away. He had to distill the power before he could work with it.
And that was what he did.
Drip by drip, brilliant blue power rained down from the sky and filled his basin. Alex was only vaguely aware of the process—his full attention was focused on harnessing the power and drawing it free from the misty cloud.
Time slipped by.
The misty cloud shrank.
The Basin filled.
Alex realized he had a very slight problem.
The basin was full—and almost a quarter of the power still remained floating in the air above him. Drawing any more would just send it spilling over the brims of the bowl and into the lake below.
Something told Alex that would do nothing but waste the energy. He hesitated for several long seconds. He’d never left power undistilled before, but it wasn’t like he had much choice. His mind released its hold on the power.
The mist twisted above him. It collapsed in on itself, all the floating particles shifting to create a smaller ball that more properly represented the amount of power remaining. A relieved breath slipped from Alex’s lips. It would wait until he was done with the power that currently filled his bowl.
With this much energy… I wonder how much I can push my Mind Palace.
There was only one way to find out.
Alex lowered his head and drank the glistening liquid.
Icy power poured down his lips and flooded through his body. It prickled against his skull and cloaked him in a freezing blanket. A single ripple passed through the dark lake beneath him. It rolled out from the basin and traveled through the reaches of his Mind Palace.
A rumble shook the lake. Dozens of tiny ripples emerged from the space at its edge. The water broke, rolling away from a large white column as it broke free of the darkness and rose into the air. It continued to rise until it towered easily ten times taller than Alex.
The pillar was a pure, plain white without any decoration or adornment. That did nothing to take away from its grandiosity—but Alex didn’t wait to admire it. He wasn’t done yet. The amount of energy in the basin had been only marginally impacted.
He continued to drink. A thin twister of magic liquid twisted up from the surface of the water as it drained, keeping its connection to his lips.
More ripples passed through the water. A second pillar broke through the dark lake, lifting into the sky as rivers rolled off its surface.
It was followed by a third. The three made a triangle around the entirety of Alex’s Mind Palace. They were perfectly distant from each other and identical in every single way. By the time the third had risen, Alex had drained over half of the energy in the bowl.
He made no move to stop. The advances to his Mind Palace had been immensely useful, and Meiderly’s warning not to advance to Initiate before he upgraded his mind as much as he possibly could still rung in his head.
With the amount of power I’ve got here and how much less energy it takes to level up than it does to grow my Mind Palace, the smartest thing I can do now is make sure the Mind Palace is maxed out in preparation for reaching the Initiate stage.
Alex pulled more power through himself. The ripples passing through the lake below grew stronger, transforming into small waves. They crashed against the base of the basin and the pillars.
Far in the depths below the lake, white chains rattled like thunder.
No more changes seemed to be happening. That didn’t stop Alex. He could still feel energy flowing, and that meant it had to be going somewhere.
Seconds ticked by.
Sweat trickled down Alex’s forehead as the strain from the energy bit at him from within. It was getting harder to continue drinking. The power in him was pressing against his insides and seeking escape.
The fuller his Mind Palace grew, the more it resisted power—and the harder Alex pushed.
He shoved power into it like he was packing a tiny suitcase for a month-long trip. A dull hum built in his ears, and power prickled against his skin. The basin was less than a quarter full now.
The power thrashed against him, driving into his stomach like a physical kick. Alex doubled over, but he still didn’t stop drinking. He yanked on the magic even harder. A loud crack split through the air. He didn’t have time to check what it was. There was still room. There was still a ways to grow.
A second crack split the air. Alex’s jaw clenched of its own volition. His eyes throbbed, and his head pounded with a freezing headache. Every single part of him longed to release the magic.
His hands held the rim of the basin so tightly that his knuckles turned white. Tremors shook his arms and ran up his shoulders.
He drank once more.
A third crack echoed out.
A hammer of invisible energy slammed into Alex’s chest. It launched him from the top of the basin. He hit the muddy ground with a pained grunt, the breath completely driven from his lungs. The world rang all around him.
For several seconds, Alex didn’t move. Then he let out a groan. He gathered himself and blinked heavily before pushing himself upright.
For a moment, it looked like his extra efforts had done absolutely nothing. Then he caught sight of one of his pillars.
There was a single, circular indent in its surface. Alex approached it, shaking off the last of the freezing cold and his confusion.
The indent was perfectly smooth. There was no sign of the stone that had once been where there was now a fist-sized socket. Alex glanced over to the other pillars. They each bore the exact same impression.
His gaze drifted over to the gem sitting on the top of the basin, then back to the pillars. He arched an eyebrow.
One quick trip to the top of the basin—which was now empty—and back to the ground later, Alex lifted his Aspect Gem up to compare it to the hole in the pillar.
It was a near-perfect match.
“Not suspicious in the slightest.”
A faint pressure pushed up against Alex’s hands. He blinked, then tried to bring the gem a bit closer to the socket. He had no plans of actually sticking it in yet, but the pressure coming from the pillar grew even stronger when he brought the gem closer.
It was like trying to touch the positive ends of two magnets together. Alex pushed a bit harder, but the gem ground to a halt nearly a foot away from the pillar. It stubbornly refused to move any closer, no matter how hard he shoved on it.
Alex let out a grunt and let the gem lower. It seemed his Mind Palace had absolutely no plans of accepting the gem quite yet.
At least I know what it’s for… vaguely. I’m going to have to fish for information to figure out what this thing is for. At least it looks like this isn’t part of what I need to upgrade before I can advance to the Initiate stage. It must be something I have to do after I get stronger.
Alex walked back up to the edge of his basin, scanning the lake for any reflections within it. There was nothing. Its dark surface had returned to a perfect black. No more hazy apparitions hid beneath its surface.
He climbed up to the top of the basin and sat down, then sank into meditation once more. Alex condensed the rest of the swirling mist into raindrops that fell into the basin, filling it just over a quarter of the way full with magical energy.
Then his eyes opened once more. Alex looked down into the swirling water, taking a moment to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything.
Nothing came to mind. His Mind Palace was completely prepared. There was no reason to wait any longer.
He drew in a deep breath, steadying himself, and then reached down.
The water twisted up to meet his hand.
Power slammed into him in a wave.
Your stage has advanced to Novice 8.
Your stage has advanced to Novice 9.
Your stage has advanced to Initiate 1.
Your Mind Palace has evolved from Establishment to Illusory.
You have unlocked [Riftwarped] Domain Qi.
60
The System messages slammed into Alex one after the other, but his attention was completely fixed on the final one.
You have unlocked [Riftwarped] Domain Qi.
Riftwarped Domain Qi?
That sounds fucking sick.
But what the hell is it? When I was in the Nexus Point, one of the silhouettes mentioned Qi as well. He said I didn’t have it yet… so this is what he meant. It gets unlocked when you reach the Initiate stage.
Given the amount of stress that guy put on Domain Qi, It seems like I just got a huge power-up.
Alex’s head tilted to the side as more pieces of a massive puzzle started to slowly slide into place.
Even before the apocalypse had come, a true coincidence was rare. Things often tended to depend on each other in one way or another. That was especially when they happened at once.
His Mind Palace was linked to his level. Meiderly’s warnings implied that advancing stages would somehow cap or otherwise lock in the Mind Palace, which would be why it was important to completely fill it before progressing.
That leaves me with two things.
My new Soul Manifestation and this new Riftwarped Domain Qi energy. I’ll take a look at the former in a moment, but Domain Qi has to be related to either my Soul Manifestation, my Mind Palace, or possibly both.
Probably both.
Everything has to be connected somehow. The thing I need to figure out is which threads lead where and what I can do to optimize everything beyond the obvious “just keep following Meiderly’s advice.”
A new thought passed through his mind. He’d pushed his Mind Palace as hard as he could with magical energy, but was it possible there were other ways to make it stronger?
The presence of the indents in the pillars implied that there were. Fortunately, they’d only shown up after he’d finished his Novice level Mind Palace—or as the System had referred to it, taken his Mind Palace from Establishment to Illusory.
The name Establishment makes sense, but what does Illusory mean? Given what I know right now, it probably has something to do with the Riftwarped Domain Qi that I got right when I leveled up.
His gaze flicked over to the letters of gold that floated in the air before him. He’d been ignoring them as he dug through his thoughts, but if he wanted to get any level of proper analysis done, he had to actually finish completing the level-up process.
You have amassed 10 Units of Soul Energy.
Please select an Auxiliary Skill to upgrade.
The corner of his mouth twitched up in a smile. 10 Units. He could barely contain his excitement.
As Alex watched, the blue gems on the mantle of Alex’s basin shimmered with light. Black letters traced across the white marble surface.
[Requiem to the King] (Novice 1)
[Monster Medley] (Novice 2)
[Riftwalk] (Novice 4)
Alex studied his options for a moment. Of his points, 3 were from leveling up to Initiate 1 and 7 had come from the Unstable Nexus Core Shard.
He hadn’t forgotten the message he’d gotten when he’d used the item. Something called a Singularity Core—the same skill that had somehow caused him to get Requiem to the King as his first Auxiliary Skill—had “enriched” the very same skill.
Enriching is definitely a good thing.
He was definitely spending at least one of his skill points to upgrade that, which left him with 7 more to play with.
He’d already decided that he would be upgrading Monster Medley as well. Since it was a Novice 2 skill, it would cost 2 Units to upgrade, so he’d be left with five points and an interesting situation. Both Monster Medley and Riftwalk would be Novice 4 and thus cost 4 Units to upgrade.
I can get either of them. Then again, there’s a chance I’ll have to use a point to upgrade my Soul Manifestation or something. I should probably make sure it doesn’t need something like 5 Units or some crap like that before I go using them on something else, as I’m pretty sure upgrading my Core Skill is the most important thing I can do.
Alex summoned his status sheet with a thought and scanned it until he found his Core Skill.
[Spatial Mirrors] (Initiate 1) – Spatial Mirrors contain the Evoker’s bonded creatures. They can only contain bonded creatures that originate from the Mirrorlands. The creatures stored within Spatial Mirrors can be summoned at will. Upon death, the creature’s energy will return to the Spatial Mirror until it recovers.
Available Spatial Mirrors: 3
Domain Energy [Illusory]: Riftwarped Qi
Hell yes.
A grin split Alex’s lips. He felt like a pampered child on Christmas morning. Advancing to Initiate had earned him his third Spatial Mirror. It looked like it was going to be time to return to the Mirrorlands soon. He was steadily advancing closer and closer to having an actual army to call his own.
There was only a small change to his Core Ability. A single line at the end—but that one line carried quite a bit of information with it.
I already suspected this, but this just about confirms it. Domains, the Qi, and my Core Ability are all heavily linked, if not the same thing. The Mind Palace almost certainly has a huge amount of influence over them, which is why Meiderly put so much focus on it.
I still don’t know which element directly changes which, or if it’s all a soup where each ingredient affects something else. I suppose that, for now, all I can do is start hunting for information while making sure I don’t advance before every single part of my Soul Palace is completely at its peak.
“So at the Adept stage, I should unlock my actual domain,” Alex mused. A vision of Berith destroying the enormous Riftwarped Monster flashed through his head. If that had been a domain, then even getting a portion of those powers would be incredible. “I wonder just what it is that this Riftwarped Qi can do… but I can’t get ahead of myself.”
He dismissed his status screen with a wave of his hand and turned his attention back to his skills. The System had decided to be kind and didn’t demand extra Units of energy to upgrade his Core Skill. He’d gotten access to Riftwarped Qi energy entirely for free. That let him save everything to upgrade his Auxiliaries.
And, of those abilities, Alex was starting with Requiem to the King. He had to figure out what the Singularity Core meant by enriching a skill. The instant Alex’s mind was made up, his Mind Palace responded.
Black lines flowed down his mantle, running from the blue gem that aligned with Requiem to the King. Three small boxes appeared beneath the gem.
(1 Unit) Synchrony: Summoned monsters regenerate faster while you are meditating.
(1 Unit) Encore: Intensify the pull of your soul, summoning every regenerating monster back to the plane you currently reside in for a brief period of time.
(1 Unit) Support Song: Empower your voice with magical energy and rally your summoned monsters, empowering all of them for the duration of your song.
What the fuck is up with Encore? Bring every single dead monster back to life? That’s bullshit!
I want it. Getting enriched is absolutely a good thing.
Alex paused for a moment—just to make sure he hadn’t missed something good on one of the other two abilities. Support Song could not have possibly been farther from what he was aiming for if it had tried to be. Alex had never dismissed an option faster in his life. The absolute last thing he wanted to be doing in the middle of a fight was singing to his monsters and deafening everyone in a five-mile radius around him with his horrible pitch.
Synchrony was definitely a useful skill. Getting his monsters back faster was always going to be convenient. But compared to Encore, the skill was just mediocre.
Alex could still hardly even believe his eyes when he looked at Encore. It was the first upgrade that Requiem to the King got, and not particularly useful if he only had a single monster, but when he had two, three, or more… the ability’s potential was immense, and it only grew even more with every single extra monster he got.
A vision passed through Alex’s mind. His entire army, defeated after a grueling fight—only to be ripped back from the clutches of death and return to the battlefield once more. Even if it didn’t last long, that was a trump card like no other.
Alex selected the option without a millisecond longer of hesitation. If this was what the Singularity Core, whatever it may have been, did when it enriched an ability, Alex only knew one thing for certain.
He had to get more Unstable Nexus Core Shards.
Blowing out a slow breath to try and contain his excitement, Alex turned his attention back to the golden letters in the air before him. There were still seven points he had left to distribute. This was almost too much.
He wanted to get back to the real world and test his new abilities out so badly that he was tempted to do it on the spot, but he still had more points to use—and he knew just what he was going to use the next four of them on. The most important thing he could do to grow his own power was to grow the power of his monsters.
He had so many Soul Flames waiting to be used that choosing any skill over one that would make them grow even stronger still would just be foolish.
Alex selected Monster Medley.
The marble mantle wiped itself clean. A glimmer of light shimmered within the centermost blue gem upon its surface. As Alex was growing used to, black lines raced out from the gem and slithered down to form into new boxes.
