Akevorax calmly relaxed beneath the safety of his barriers. All the stress and worry hadn’t caused him to forget what caused all of this too. Once Adret found herself bathed in a sweltering hot flame, he left her to find out what tempted the Nexus enough to trick him. Asking directly, “What’s this bet then?”

A series of boxes unexpectedly exploded in his vision.

[Challenge Initiated: Discover the source and origin of the tier 7 lightning formed by great runes within the sub-realm PM–266045 without any aid from the Nexus]

[Challenge Conditions: The Nexus cannot be used to answer any queries which require Authority.

You must complete the challenge before leaving the sub-realm (Defined by travelling >3,000 kilometres away in any spatial field)

Time limit of 7 days]

[Challenge Rewards: 3 Authority points. Full explanation on natural phenomena. (Information redacted until completion). A ‘Congratulations’ message]

[Challenge Failure Penalties: -2 Authority points. Full explanation on natural phenomena. A ‘Try harder next time’ message]

[Do you accept the Challenge?]

Akevorax read through each one carefully, trying his hardest to catch out any tricks the Nexus may have included within. He understood the purpose and intent behind everything on his first read through, but one bit of information stood out blatantly with a bit of thought.

“What possible information could you want to hide unless I succeed?” No response came, but he repeatedly glanced up at the mountain peak in the far distance for a few minutes at the least. Several ideas came up, but he ignored the dumb answers immediately, the Nexus wouldn’t waste his time with useless things. And nothing overcame those basic rules which forbid the discussion of Exeters. Outside of some highly niche cases.

Some powerful skill or spell which worked best with his strange accumulations? Or maybe even just knowledge of incredibly valuable items… It could also just be an outright leak of information on eternals back home!

“Fine… I accept, but this really isn’t a bet. I have 13 points, so either I get an Authority upgrade or I’m set back a few months,” he weighed the losses out loud without any notable emotions to either result.

[Challenge Accepted]

[It’s been quite a while since we last used this outdated function. Do try not getting yourself killed as well]

“I’m not dumb enough to underestimate that sort of lightning,” he rolled his eyes and flew off towards the mountain. On the way, a barrage of bolts struck him in flight, but as the strongest was a wayward mithril tier bolt, he ignored that minor damage before landing just a few seconds away from the mountain. Moving at his top speed made no sense in this environment.

Research came after sufficient safety. As the next bolt was just 40 minutes away, he played it safe by leaving arrays at ascending points on the mountain. These acted as dummies for his first test on that lightning bolt.

However, when the screech of lightning came once more, the sky blue flash of light punched with futile essence into the mountain’s peak. None of the arrays drew even a speck away. The same could not be said for what came after, even after the dispersal of such a weighty attack, all that lightning sprayed out violently in all directions. This instantly destroyed the fourth and fifth arrays, whilst his third one withstood drastic damages, over half the junctions exploded!

And that third array rested at the mountain’s mid-point! Roughly two kilometres down from its peak…

In other words, such a position destroyed large portions of his body but failed to kill him. Anything less than a kilometre probably evaporated his body instantly. Some outward thoughts said otherwise though, “With divinity it’d be fine… Not like I used that strong of a material for those too. And I have good lightning resistance. I think it’ll be fine to watch from there.”

His half-confidence would have left a grimace on anyone listening.

With the hour timer set, he flew to the peak in a single swoop. Just in the residual bolt’s presence, the electric air filled him with a warm spirit. Compared to the dull state not too long before a strike, where he only sensed heightened elemental density, it charged the air with a vibrant energy which sent shivers throughout. Anyone without some degree of lightning resistance couldn’t even approach the very peak, and he still hovered about 100 metres away. Such a short distance, but with every movement forward, his body relented to such power. Unlike the indiscriminate explosion which destroyed Alkuthuzen’s sub-realm, ignoring the fact it left him gravely injured for two months, this weaker power stood superior simply because it contained some ‘intent’.

What he knew about sub-realms claimed this was already impossible. Intent required a will, an ego, so how could a half-born existence create such a thing?

Golden runes cladded Akevorax’s body once more and the drilling charge bounced off his scales. To need divinity already… He clicked his tongue in frustration before leaping to the mountain’s highest point in a single jump.

From here, he sat at the small sub-realm’s highest point, a place where one ruled over all land below, and now situated directly below the bulging clouds, he instantly made sense of the lightning’s desire. At a distance he’d already realised it, but to feel it himself made everything clear as day. The sky blue lightning– No. He had to stop thinking of this just as ‘lightning’. What exactly caused this eluded him entirely.

But its rage stood strong. A mountain dared attack its sovereignty and left a peak pointed towards its domain. Refuting its heavenly might.

What sort of god stood about as a mortal charged into the heavens?

“Just what the hell is this? A war?” He muttered aloud atop the mountain peak caked in blackness, tendrils of lightning gathered around him to jab into the cladding of divinity at all times. Not maliciously, but as a warning. The lightning filled with rage and destruction gave out a warning to the unknown being stood atop a mountain, who dared approach the heavens.

Contempt and arrogance. That was the intent behind such lightning, the feelings at the core of its creator.

“One side is so angry and petty, and yet the other sits without any response. It’s like a kid trying to beat up an adult,” his pondering face lightened as did his words. A small laugh followed before Akevorax finally stopped engulfing himself in the feelings and powers of this place. There was a time for playing about and a time for research, one he already finished, so now came the part where every stone revealed its secrets. And the best ability came first.

Light swept over the mountain peak, pierced through the black coating which filled this land, and another moment of shock overtook his face.

What lay before him made no sense. It couldn’t just appear like this! These things required careful preparations and ample time! In fairness, this mountain certainly had that latter one in epic proportions… But he couldn’t make sense of its mere existence.

What laid beneath him was not a rocky mountain covered in blackened, charred earth. Nor even a strange mountain of metal which dispersed the lightning elements at extreme speed. He saw a mountain of crystal.

Pure, condensed lightning crystal.

All of it stable without even a hint of clashing structures, something unreasonable in nature as normal formations of crystals created various orientations at a microscopic level. Just these tiny faults caused the unregulated lightning elements to crack it and shatter in seconds. But this mountain overturned that logic entirely!

It was one giant crystal. A single pure crystal of sky blue lightning… The size of a fucking mountain.

A damn handful of the substance could power most cornem tier lightning arrays for hundreds of uses! More efficient, low-power, arrays could easily last years on that single chunk. But the Nexus directed him to a whole mountain!

It didn’t overturn logic because of its size. Any supreme tier, given enough time, could create a similar object, but the Nexus very clearly hinted that it formed naturally. No external inputs caused its perfect creation.

This revelation also unveiled a second major fact about this strange sub-realm, but now also explained how this mountain survived all those lightning strikes. Although, he actually got it the wrong way round.

This ‘mountain’ started off as no more than a tiny crystal cluster, how it came to exist he couldn’t grasp, but as an exorbitant number of years passed, it happened to amass more of that sky blue lightning through chance. Through sparse and infrequent watering, the tiny seed grew into a sapling. Up above, the sky above hardly thought much of it and ignored this vulnerable child’s presence. It allowed the mound of crystal to grow. To expand outward. And in time, reach towards its domain.

But at that point it was too late, the tree could support itself now. A heavy storm no longer toppled its deep roots; a bolt of raging lightning had no effect.

Akevorax continued the observation further as well. At the next allotted hour, he stood somewhat nearby and watched what happened when a new bolt struck this pure crystal mountain, understanding why its growth apparently slowed.

Nothing actually happened when hit, an amusing fact as the mountain flagrantly ignored these strikes, but those moments afterwards interested him most.

In that fraction of a second between the actual hit and that strange explosion of lightning after-the-fact, tiny sparks of lightning entered the mountain and remained trapped there. As though drawn by the greater power below, this lightning at first attempted an escape, occasionally succeeding, but soon settled and willingly joined the crystal formed of its kin.

Meanwhile, that explosion specifically aimed to not damage the mountain! It served as a method for the sky to collect its power over and over, very effectively in his inexperienced eyes, and then it spent exactly 1 hour to recover the lost power every single time.

That last part was still theory for now.

While he understood what happened on ground level, that situation above still confused him. All planes possessed the ability to create elements overtime, sub-realms just focused on a single dominating element as they lacked a method to balance things out. Everything mostly lined up so far. Except for that element creation part… Sort of. Generally speaking, sub-realms struggled to gather enough of any power for those above master tier. It happened every now and then even so, and given the plane’s uniqueness he was willingly to just assume such a thing.

But only for now.

With seven days available, he already prepared dozens of tests to understand things better.

But today’s focus was the incredible mountain. Something he absolutely wanted to take back… So much so that him and Adret shared thoughts at the possibility of creating a Rune tool from such a natural phenomena!

“You really shouldn’t have given me all that information for such a low price. I might need to reach cornem tier myself, but even Alkuthuzen wouldn’t want to be hit by that thing!” Akevorax muttered to himself. This went on for quite some time as he struggled to adapt to the lack of Nexus messages. In the meantime, arrays by the dozen were created around the mountain of crystal for the next few hours.

He planned to move this immovable object, but not today. And definitely not tomorrow.

Just as the lightning failed to make a dent on its sublime peak, he failed to make a single tangible discovery regarding its creation. A concrete theory backed up by magical facts, definitely… But those were called hypotheses.

The first day started with a bang, burned brightly with constant discoveries and ideas, but ended with a frustrated sizzle.