Weapons of Mass Destruction

Chapter 893: To stand before him

Returning from my mental space, I form a few of the evil pyramids I still use in my training.

With my remaining mental capacity, I read the description for 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 the big part it’s played in making my mind as durable as it is, yet I don’t believe that’s all it’s done. It might be a symptom of arrogance or one of my more reasonable delusions, but I think my mind is more durable than it should be based on the rarity of this passive. And damn, is this a hill I’m willing to die on.

Still, I don’t think I should use that as a basis to start focusing on passives that’ll make my mind more durable. Even if it is just my particular combination of active skills, traits, subclass, and constructs.

I’m not planning to replace my healing passive, I like it quite a bit, 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 higher mental loads and make better use of my skills, and that would surely mean less damage to my body. The logic is just flawless, and I am sure no one could make any argument against something like that.

So that’s why, after training, thinking, and scrolling through what seems like most of the system shop several times over, there’s just one passive I can really say I like and think will be a good fit for my combination of skills.

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 it’s not something I have much of a need for. Yes, it would be useful, allowing me to unburden my mental capacity and store my mental constructs, arrays, assorted triggers, and other things. With the way it scales with mana and based on its rarity, it should allow me to store some truly insane works.

For example, an array meant to deploy, continuously duplicate, and grow, pulling on ambient mana to expand, modify, and spread through the entire continent. I wouldn’t even need to do it all manually. I’d just have to be sure I had enough mana to power it, pull it out of the Vault, and trigger it. Simple as that.

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

I am once again getting caught up in theorizing. Simply put, I picked it because of the part about scaling with mana. That part isn’t really all that common, especially not with the passive skills I generally 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 when they say they’re “lacking liquidity”? I’ve become 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 furthermore, were passives always so expensive?

Well, it seems that I’ll just have to make my way to beyond.

POV Talon

It’s 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 still regarded as highly volatile, leaving people uncertain of what to expect from him. He’s presumed to still be 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.

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A new manaless zone on the 3rd floor, the 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 besides.

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

“Hey, you,” a voice sounds at my side, one that instantly sends shivers down my back.

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

Just looking at his face instantly annoys me. I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s some sort of passive he has, but the sheer arrogance and confidence in it trigger me in all the wrong ways.

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’ve always called you.”

“You never called me that.”

“I did. Deep down in my hearts. Okay, look, I’m busy, my pirate friend owes me money, so I’ve got a meeting planned with her soon. I already met up with Duncan, and he said he put the fishing cash into some Local Safekeeping Account for the rich where I can go to have it withdrawn. You have to tell me where to find the place.”

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

“See, it wasn’t that difficult after all, 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 early this time. 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 would be.”

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

“Well, I can’t say I’m 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 can get you significantly more than you’re expecting.”

“Sounds like we have a deal. Oh, and also tell him that I want to sell some items. Ex-corporation owned stuff and the like, all very cool. 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, don’t even get close to the door, I don’t know how big the explosion’s radius will be.”

“S-sure.”

“There should be some Talnium and other such fancy stuff. Have them appraised so I can have some base prices to negotiate with those three maniacs from Crimson Forge. Also, send this information to any 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 maybe the Primordial Knights will trade some of our own intel with them. Don't share it around too much, but if the info's good, I'm willing to hand over a key to a few of them. If they refuse, tell them I’ll be declaring a 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’s not actually 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 everything? 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, we’ll make it worth your time.”

He even seems satisfied with himself. Like he is some sort of genius that’s fully grasped human psyche.

He’s slimmer than he was when I previously met him, scarred, and there’s no mana emanating from him. It is like he doesn’t 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, perhaps even sickly. Yet every one of his movements is anything but that. They look like there’s no hesitation in them. It is hard to describe, but it is like they’ve become unstoppable? Like even if an entire mountain fell on him, he would move the same without even noticing it?

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

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

“We have a deal,” I finally 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’s probably reading my emotions through slight changes in my body, taking note of my fear as if I were an open book. Yet he doesn’t even seem to be trying to twist it to his advantage, as if this were just the way he is.

When he extends his hand to 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 throughout beyond.

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

Several guilds reject it at first, but after they catch wind of the top guilds accepting out of hand, 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. Without a shred of concern for his image, that of his guild, or the other S rank currently defending the guild, the Guild Master of the Primordial Knights takes barely a minute to break through all their 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 their decades old defenses crushed, all mana batteries drained of their mana, and incredible materials slashed through with ease.

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 simply left disarmed, and some are wounded, but alive.

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

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

It wasn’t all that long ago when people first 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 simple fact.

To stand before him is to know that the second 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 one a tyrant in their own right.

Monsters waiting to be let out of this cage dressed up as a tutorial.