Nic had inherited an untidy stack of notes from the elven bowmaker, which the old man had said came from a colleague who’d since passed on- someone who’d studied both the elvish art of greensinging and the universal art of runescribing. Just by the tone of his voice Nic knew this person had been a legend in their own time.

They were written on white bark paper and incredibly messy. The worst thing about them was they were written by a genius, for a genius. For someone starting out it was like trying to jump into music with a complex symphony.

But the runescribing half, Nic could at least start to understand, and learn about through trial and error.

Summoning Inkspur from his shoulder, Nic had the little wyvern fill a saucer with dark, magically infused ink before sending the beast off to curl around the Esper fruit tree in the Saturnalia. The little axolotl people born from Nic’s blood seemed to worship Inkspur- which Nic felt was a bit ironic.

But the draconic being really did enjoy being a god. Throughout the hours of the night, Nic could hear him bellowing commands to his followers. Something about building a statue.

Nic sketched five new runes over the course of six hours. None of them were complete or perfect, each lasting only a few seconds once he imbued them- but each one built his understanding of the design in the elven researcher’s notes. To truly master these new runes he’d need time and experimentation; because the form in the notes had been altered to intertwine the runes and make them dependant on the others, Nic would have to use trial and error to discover the original, separate forms and use them outside of that specific design.

This was all fairly common in complex runescribing- altering the symbols beyond simple replication and inversions was the sign of true mastery.

The first rune he completed burst into a green flame. It shed no light or heat, but instead caused the nearby weeds growing from the broken stone floor of the temple to expand upwards. Nic noted it as ‘growth slash life’ in his own set of scribbled notes.

The second rune was different. As it was completed, Nic felt a sudden feedback sting through his hand. As he quickly pulled the brush away the paper was torn apart in a flash of Essence and a roar, like a terrible beast had manifested within the darkened temple.

The mantis guards poured in, and Nic had to quickly explained himself before Nylea waved them away. She stayed after, watching him, curious eyes glowing faintly in the dark as she made them tea out of the Esper fruit. She added one of the crystal blossoms that grew from the teardrop jewel to her own, warming her hands as she shipped.

While he waited for the tea, Nic flicked open his cultivation map and casually poured five thousand points down into Poison Mist’s Secondary Shard. It was a long way to go, but over the course of two more days and the last of the night he’d be able to build up enough Essence to fully open the node.

After a bit of consideration Nic noted the second rune as ‘beastly?’

The third rune dissolved the paper in a tide of black blood. Nic simply wrote ‘life slash blood.’

The fourth rune was- violent. Nic actually had to lunge for the paper and tear it apart as the final design began to resonate, draining life-force from everything nearby in golden ribbons that flowed outwards from the drained victims.

By the time he had, several small lizards and insects crawling on the temple floor were annihilated. They had been sucked down to dry husks like they had been dead for years.

The fifth rune, despite Nic’s caution, was nothing so dramatic. This one was a variant form a rune even Nic knew, with his limited training and self-taught skills. It was a barrier design that he found easier than the rest.

By the time he’d finished learning just five of the eight outermost runes in the pattern, Nic was truly exhausted.

“Are you planning to add these to your armor?” Nylea asked, softly.

“Yep!” He answered without thinking and she looked at him with amusement in her eyes.

It was a second before he remembered and went to pick up Inkspur. The little wyvern was watching the axolotl-people build a massive, towering statue of a dragon, wings outstretched and claws reaching down to crush the skull of a rat-like monstrosity.

“Wait, wait! It’s almost complete! My MASTERPIECE!” The wyvern protested.

“Shhh, I need you to translate. Be good and I’ll give you a beetle…”

He turned back to Nylea, petting Inkspur under the chin.

“I was thinking about it- but I haven’t even scratched the surface on this. This-” He tapped the feathered end of his quill against the central rune of the entire design, a huge twisting seal where individual brushstrokes writhed like snakes and small inner rings of densely-packed script presented so much complexity they could be entire designs in their own right. “This is just so much work it might take me days to make a single copy. I might be able to add it to my armor given enough time, but...”

“Mhm. But it’s skin inscription.” Nylea noted.

Nic’s eyes widened.

“You can tell by these…” She leaned over his back and pressed a finger to strange nodes on each rune that Nic had struggled to understand. “These are where the designs bind to nodes within your body. These bits here, these are reservoirs to store energy, but only skin inscriptions would use them this way- they’re designed to flow back into the body if you absolutely need energy, so you don’t end up wasting strength recharging the inscription in a deadly fight.”

Nic grimaced. Sketching out this massive unknown design would have been work enough using inanimate materials to bind it in place.

Doing so on a living being…

Well, he’d have to find someone he wouldn’t mind turning into a pile of ash. Probably several somones, before he got it right.

But at least he’d learned why none of the runes had survived being inscribed onto paper. Altering the places Nylea had pointed out should stabilize the designs enough to figure them out better.

“Thanks, Nylea. You probably saved me a few days of confusion.”

She just smiled and drifted away.

But he sighed, stretching out his arms and twisting his neck until the muscles and soft, slimy bones made satisfying little popping noises. It was late, and his cultivation base was halfway to overflowing again. He needed to find something else to do with himself or he’d go stir-crazy and lose his ability to focus.

In the morning he needed to duel Cegan- which he wasn’t worried about.

And Redjaw would likely be ready to evolve- which he was excited for.

But for now, he needed something to keep himself busy. The fact that he only needed to sleep for a tiny fraction of the night left him with strange midnight hours to spend. Reaching into his bag, he drew out the crystalline palace sculpture he’d received from the Tutelary Spirit, which was supposed to contain a ‘System Adjunct’ who could act as a go-between.

Infusing his Essence into the beautiful trinket, he watched as starlight energy poured through the door. It surged through the air in a sea of purple-blue like a nebula’s cloudy rainbows, and cold points of starlight condensed within, forming a constellation of nodes and lines like a glowing skeleton. As the energy accumulated it took the form of an otter made of starlight, swimming weightlessly in the air around Nic’s head.

“Well, aren’t you adorable. Inkspur, you’ve got competition…”

“I HAVE NO RIVALS!” The little wyvern bellowed, glaring at the otter.

Which responded in the calmest voice imaginable, “You may call me Lute.”

“Alright, Lute then. I was hoping you’d have a message for me? From Tarquin?” Nic was trying not to let the future weigh too heavily on his mind, but the thought of Tarquin alone back in d23 was overwhelming when he let it creep into his head. Having a reason to fight beyond his own survival was like a weight on his heart.

“I’m afraid not. No messages have been sent for you, except for the one attached to your bounty.” The otter responded. Even the serene calm of its voice didn’t stop Nic from scowling.

“And what does that one say?”

“It is from Azmin Hale. She says that if you return what you have stolen, she will give you a quick death.”

Nic snorted. No matter where he went, the arrogant and the rich were all the same. It was actually embarrassing to think that she’d only been cultivating for a month at most, and she’d already begun to think she was a god. He was going to enjoy crushing her- and he wouldn’t have to wait long. Two days until evolution. Two days until breaking the boundary of E-Class.

Two days until he was ready to return the desert and show her that bringing him any death was beyond her.

“Is there anything else you wish? I am your faithful servant.”

Nic briefly considered firing off a return message just to infuriate her- but that seemed a little wasteful. He could always say what he wanted with his own strength. “What can you actually do?”

“As a System Adjunct I can answer any questions you have related to unrestricted information on the System-”

“Although not as well as I can.” Sofia interjected.

“- and provide access to the lowest-tier of purchases. I doubt these will be of much interest to an advanced cultivator like yourself. Simple tools, cheap pills, basic cultivation techniques. More useful to you would be access to the rewards of the Ladder.”

Nic nodded. These were all such fundamental offerings he couldn’t be surprised or excited by them. It was as simple as letting the Natives earn cheap prizes for their first kills before finding a merchant. He was actually more interested in the techniques than the otter might have realized- his own upbringing had only taught him the absolute fundamentals, how to rotate energy through his body and draw Essence from the world through his breath.

The kind of knowledge so basic to cultivating it was taught to everyone, regardless of status. Even an orphan could afford ‘free’.

The offerings might be relative trash, but he knew literally zero techniques beyond the Eight-Eyed Mantles.

“What makes you call me an advanced cultivator?”

“Basic observation.” So the otter understand flattery. Nic grinned despite himself, watching his adorable System Adjunct float on its back through a sea of nebula clouds that emanate from its own dark body. “But also, your ranking on the Ladder is quite high.”

“The Ladder…”

Sofia had mentioned it before, alongside the Grand Design. Two possibilities so distant they hadn’t even registered for him at the time. The Ladder was a simple ranking of power among all entities on the planet undergoing Integration. The Grand Design was more complicated, the ranking among Settlements and the way the System rewarded warriors for claiming territory.

“What is my ranking?”

“You are among the mid ten-thousands.”

Nic slowly blinked, processing that. “Out of how many?”

“Roughly twenty billion.”

Another slow, deliberate blink, letting his eyes rest shut. On City d23 he’d ranked barely on the scale. One warrior with no foundation of wealth or knowledge, lost in a sea of competition.

“Ten thousand? Wait. Shouldn’t there be more than ten-thousand monsters who spawned at E-Class or above?” That couldn’t be right.

“The Ladder is not strictly based on current power. Power granted by monster reincarnations in particular is heavily weighted against in the System’s eyes.” Lute explained in his soothing voice. “The majority of your ranking comes from fast growth, your survival in situations heavily stacked against you, and your ability to comprehend the Concepts.”

Nic frowned. That did make more sense, but it was also unfortunate. If the rankings were based on growth, then it wasn’t that his power was in the top hundred thousand. It was that a hundred thousand were managing to keep pace with him as he grew.

“I need to grow faster…”

It seemed ridiculous, after his hectic pace. But it was what Sula had told him. He needed to find a technique or a great treasure to allow him to gain cumulative growth- to surge forward with each enemy he defeated.

Otherwise the prodigies given the System’s favor would leave him behind.

There was only so much room at the top, and Nic’s entire homeworld was the testimony to the fate of those who didn’t make it. They’d be trapped on depleted, resource-drained husks, doomed to live among the masses of the hopeless.

“Your ranking allows you access to the first three tiers of rewards. Would you like to discuss them now?”

The words snapped him out of his grim vision.

“Of course!”