Still itÆs not like there arenÆt difficulties with all three of the images I donÆt need to force an answer right now especially since the Stillborn Phoenix loves those ugly slugs Randidly pulled himself out of the Stillborn Phoenix image and then out of his mental projection He stood and stretched looking down at the island The constant Nether had shifted the vegetation to a strange blueish sheen that made the island look partially glazed in plastic But that was the most innocuous of the shifts in the vegetal life
If the island were divided into thirds around the central volcano one third would belong to the training individuals who continued to exhaust themselves and sip from the environment Nether one third would go to the mutated ants and their swollen queen and now a third belonged to the unruly and weirdly intelligent jungle collective Thick vines had woven themselves around the tree trunks so thickly that they hung like physical walls And in the center of that dense area one tree had shot upward to almost double the size of all the others At this point it was almost half as tall as the volcano itself a second sort of monument on this previously nondescript place
As he stared over at it the wide frawns of the tree waved in a way that ran counter to the motion of the wind
Randidly could only laugh at the effect he had just by existing somewhere You know I remember them saying that the second step of improving your image is to exert your will on the universe And not that I wanted this to happen but their is something inherently poisonous about power Once you possess it it taints everything around you
That thought made him shiver Then he thought about the gleaming eyes of Devick which gave him an entirely different sort of chill She possessed an entirely different sort of poison Randidly rubbed his face IÆm safe for now isolated away from time at the bottom of the shaft I just need to make good use of this time to improve So that when I return to the Nexus IÆm ready
Okay thatÆs enough training for now He bounced up to his feet and did some more stretching until his hamstrings and shoulders both pleasantly popped After slapping his cheeks he started sending out messages First to Neveah then to Nrorce and Tatiana and Sydney and a half dozen other important figures in Kharon and in his life
After a few awkward bits of conferring and juggling schedules he arrived on a satisfactory date In three weeks Randidly would be hosting a bbq on his new island NeveahÆs delight seeped through their Soulbond even if she kept her message perfectly polite she was quite happy that he was taking some time off of his own volition
Feeling her pride and joy Randidly rolled his eyes In the end this is less about a healthier emotional lifestyle and more about variety I can feel it from the way Penance affects me Significance comes from living and breathing in the moment Taking advantage of the time you have And since I have so much time here the best way to facilitate growth is to switch often and throw everything I have into those activities while IÆm doing them
So three weeks of training Randidly rubbed his hands together Then he called up the Hierarchy of Burden and began
Chapter 1902
Congratulations Your Skill Nether Sensation has grown to Level 707
Congratulations Your Skill Cutting Tide of Amenonuhoko has grown to Level 730
Randidly released his tight control over the Nether flows no longer trying to contrive every rippling interaction between the elements of his Nether storm and instead simply observed the way the changes spread outward His eyes one emerald and one swirling black followed the varied pattern interactions both breaking down into organic elements and moving together to become something larger
A strange shadow began to stretch across the sky Long spindly fingers of the patterns wormed together like larva squeezing out of a wound Yet somehow this wasnÆt a change in lighting the very character of the rainstorm seemed to stretch into a grotesque caricature of itself Randidly bit his lip tracing the slanting lines of the clouds
Somehow the formerly innocuous storm began to lean back on itself His instincts whispered quietly of danger and wrongness quite like attempts at human animation from the pre System era approaching the uncanny valley All the mundane details of the storm remained the same the heavy layered clouds the precipitation slanting and splattering off the alien trees and the constant feel of the wind against his face
Yet underneath it lurked a wholly unnatural pattern that perverted what a storm was supposed to me It twisted and bloomed a stinking and rotting rafflesia
I can learn a lot from the bone charm but its patterns are dangerous Randidly reflected on his small adjustments
By and large it was an unsuccessful attempt to improve his ominous Nether storm But certainly it was a valuable experience testing his theories Thunder rumbles and blue bolts of electricity danced across the heavy clouds Even the increasingly sophisticated society of ants paused in their vine clearing duties to glance up at the clouds overhead
Randidly had no idea what they saw with their limited sense but they swiftly shifted and trundled their rain slicked bodies back to their mound Their feet moved in unison
Crackling his knuckles Randidly checked his Status screen He had trained without pause for the last several weeks and now there were only a few days remaining until the large barbecue that had been spread throughout the training zone and even to Kharon the one opportunity he would give the Vulpis Squad to cease handling the electromagnetic radiation from the Hierarchy of Burden and relax
However Randidly felt somewhat aggravated as he felt the stretch of training coming to an end If anything he felt like he needed a few more months before he deserved a break He might not have as distinct a goal as when he was motivated by revenge against Wick but he wanted to stay active Those thoughts he kept close to his heart because he knew how Neveah would react but one of his main goals was to improve his Stats and felt quite far away
The Stat Evolution Path cost ten thousand PP Currently Randidly only had a little over two thousand PP even after he sat down with Neveah and began to grind up his long disused Aether and Engraving based Skills Still half as much would likely get him the PP he needed Randidly only needed to use five thousand PP in order to trigger another PP Tithe
Skill growth was slow right now but it would steadily accumulate And if he could increase his Endurance to something useful it would begin to accelerate even further He could push forward with the Hierarchy he could expand his experiments with Nether he could specialize his emotional affects for each image
Randidly looked down at his hands and flexed them He vocalized the secret thought that drifted across the surface of his mind isolated and unmoored A constant remnant of the toils that had brought him here Will I be strong then
Of course he could only catch glimpses of the swirling layers He dare not look any deeper than that the only way to extract the secrets of a Nether Prince was by entering it and consuming it as they had done on the frontlines And Randidly dearly didnÆt want to do that to the last remnant he had of Helen
His eyes ached as he stared at the inky darkness but no tears began to fall from his eyes He simply stared blankly at the glossy surface of the Nether sphere Belatedly he realized he should have brought flowers or something
His gaze sharpened Because he could sense a very familiar sensation hovering around the edges of the Nether Prince With great care he stretched out a hand and brushes his palm against the strange energies radiating from its edge The corners of his mouth curved downward the energies that Randidly sensed were the very same types of radiation that he dealt with through the Hierarchy of Burden
Randidly raised his gaze Do you have any idea why these energies are seeping in around her