It was a bit creepy, not a true horror like the weird [Abhorrent Cave Crawlers] I had met two of already were, but there was still that weird feeling that just wouldn't go away. I still carefully burned my way forward free of the purple stuff, not risking anything that didn't need to be risked.
I need to come up with a name for it soon, just calling it 'purple stuff' felt a bit stupid. It felt a bit like moss, just in purple instead of green, so maybe I'll just use that.
The closer I got to whatever I was sensing, the thicker the purple moss covering the tunnels got. It took me more and more time to scorch my way free, and my progress slowed down significantly.
I quickly skimmed the top of my status page for my mana and was happy to find that it was still almost full.
[Name: Hanah Mayflower
Race: Human
Level: 29 (Tier II)
Mana: 1067/1260 | 9500/9500
Being efficient with my mana usage was the main cause that made me slow down through the thicker moss growth, but I wasn't willing to spend more mana just to arrive wherever I was going to arrive a few minutes or hours sooner.
I didn't think that I was on a time limit, so I didn't act like I was. Creeping close with vigilant steps, the moss soon grew so thick that the ceiling growth met the floor growth, effectively sealing off the way forward. It made me feel even more creeped out, but it still wasn't anything I couldn't handle.
After what felt like hours of fighting my way through the jungle of dense purple, something finally changed. The somewhat tight cavern I was making my way through suddenly widened up significantly. There was still a lot of the moss, but nowhere close to enough to fill up the entire space.
The moss wasn't all there was, though. Square in the middle of the room was something extraordinarily weird. Like someone had ripped open the very air itself, a black rift just sat there, floating in the air without a care in the world. It was hard to tell in the dim light of my own fire, but the air around the rift also looked a bit distorted. I had obviously never seen anything like that before, but I thought it looked like I imagined the distortion around a black hole had to look.
Even more creepily, though, the moss seemingly originated from this rift. Like a mountain in the middle of the chamber, it reached up from the floor to touch the bottom of the rift. Actually, it should be said the other way around. The moss wasn't reaching from the floor to the rift. Instead, the moss grew from the rift to the ground, spreading in every direction from there.
What the hell? How long had that been here? It has already spread quite far, but is it still actively expanding? I hadn't focused on it when I first encountered the edge of the purple moss, but it could very well still be slowly spreading itself through the caverns.
Just what the hell is that stuff? What is with this rift? Why did I feel this pulling feeling that was gently guiding me to this place? What does all this mean? And just what the hell am I supposed to do here? Do I just ignore it and move on, or do I try to do anything about this?
I racked my brain, but I couldn't come up with any satisfying answers. For my first course of action, I would try what had always worked to some extent. If you weren't sure about something, throw [Identify] at it and see what sticks. And so I did exactly that.
The moment I invoked [Identify], all hell broke loose. Not in an action kind of sense, but metaphorically. Unlike what I had ever seen before, three system windows opened themselves up in front of me, not just the one I was expecting from [Identify]. What I read on them was enlightening, even more confusing, and extremely disturbing all at once.
[Realm Rift:
A permanent hole in the fabric of reality, usually caused by either the intrusion from somewhere outside of the realm or from the inside of another realm. In both cases, a rift simultaneously represents an anchor point and a pathway. In the case of the latter, the connection is only one-directional. In the case of a bidirectional pathway, passing through them is highly risky and thus strongly discouraged.
(Hint: Rifts and holes in the fabric of reality go against the natural state of the fabric. They can either be mended manually by corresponding skills or stimulated enough to repair automatically. Unlike holes, rifts are not natural phenomena. They are manually created structures for the single purpose of invading a realm. Weakening the integrity of the fabric of reality surrounding structures like these causes them to unravel, which is usually sufficient to remove them.)]
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
This was the first window, the expected one as a result of casting [Identify]. Still, what I read on there was far from what I expected. As would usually be the case, I thought it would give me either nothing, just the name of it, or a cryptic sentence with barely any meaning. Instead, however, I got this.
A long description and an even longer hint. When it comes to the 'fabric of reality', the system tends to get really talkative for some reason. I didn't mind it in this case, but it was weird nonetheless.
Also, hello? What do you mean 'invasion' from some other realm? How does one even get the power to do something like that? I highly doubted that even the strongest people I knew, Instructor Austen and Instructor Carmelia, could even remotely do something like this. They were powerful but not that powerful.
The hint is rather helpful, though. The gist of it is basically that I can make use of [Unstable Space], the third ability of my skill [Regalia: Starfire Corona], to destroy these 'rifts', right? It warned me of overuse of that ability back then, but this was the closest thing to explicit approval it could possibly give me. After all, a permanent hole sounded a lot more threatening to me than the possibility of some permanent weakening did.
While the first system window was still somewhat in the realm of normality, the second was a lot more ominous.
[You have discovered an active invasion into this realm. As the primary discoverer and holder of skills sufficient for closing rifts, you have been tasked with the aversion of this invasion. Failing to defend against the invasion may result in permanent destruction or fragmentation of this realm. Please tread carefully.
You have been granted the achievement and title [Sentinel of the Realm].
Effect:
This title will be displayed instead of your race when targeted by [Identify]. The effect can be disabled at will.
Increases authority over realm laws. (Hint: Among other things, this facilitates the manipulation of the fabric of reality. Any manipulation will be easier, faster, and less costly. This will significantly help you when attempting to close rifts.)
2x Experience gain from closing rifts and slaying invaders.]
I was almost at a loss for words when I first read that. Because, seriously? Me? Now responsible for defending an entire realm against some random invasion that threatens the livelihood of an entire dimension? How would I even do that? I'm still stuck in some stupid cave somewhere in the vast expanses of this realm. I also can't split myself into multiple copies of me, so how could I possibly take care of who-knows-how-many rifts that are probably strewn all over the place at this point?
Unless I had a lot of time available or got significantly stronger very quickly, this wasn't going to end well. I held a bit of hope about maybe some good experience gained from closing the rifts, but I won't be able to tell how effective that is going to be until I've successfully closed a few.
At least the system was helpful enough to give me something that supposedly makes all that a bit easier, even if it doesn't tell me how much easier that is going to make it. I also wondered what other benefits having 'more authority' could bring along with it, but now was not the time for that. I still had another window to look over and a dangerous rift to close.
The third and last window was even more unexpected than the two before it were.
[GLOBAL WARNING:
Signs of an active invasion into this realm were discovered. Any appearing anomalies may be connected to this invasion. Active rifts usually appear as stationary black-colored holes floating in the air. Passive or infantile rifts usually appear as intangible distortions in space.
A suitable [Sentinel] has been designated as the primary line of defense.
The previously summoned [Hero] has been designated as the secondary line of defense.
Closing rifts of invaders now grants Experience.
(Hint: Failing to defend against the invasion may result in permanent destruction or fragmentation of this realm.)]
The system had the ability to send global messages!? Doesn't this mean that literally every single conscious being in this entire dimension now knows that some random 'sentinel' (me?) was selected as the primary line of defense!?
Can I not, please?
Also, isn't selecting a single tier two person as the primary defense a really shoddy defense response? There are undoubtedly more suitable candidates for that out there, no?
It was also a bit funny and ironic that I and the [Hero] Blake got mentioned in the very same system message, even if I was the only one to know this at the current moment.
Still, I was glad that it didn't include my name in there for some reason. While it would have certainly been funny to see the faces of my classmates, who must undoubtedly have declared me for dead by now, as they read my name in the text of a global warning message from the system, it would make Blake aware that I was still alive and also potentially knew about how he tried to secretly murder me.
I would have to fight him sooner or later anyways, but there was no need to already make him aware of this impending fight right now.
Before turning my attention towards the ominous rift still hovering soundlessly in the air, I took a peek at my status.
[Name: Hanah Mayflower (Sentinel of the Realm)
Race: Human
Level: 29 (Tier II)
Mana: 992/1260 | 9500/9500
Achievements: [Hero Candidate], [Predator III], [Molten Rebirth], [Slayer of the Leviathan], [Sentinel of the Realm]
Class: Broken Star (Epic+)
Active Skills:
[Celestial Fire Lv. 21]
[Broken Sky Lv. 1]
[Regalia: Starfire Corona Lv. 19]
Passive Skills:
[Thermal Conversion]
[Broken Celestial Physiology]
[Regalia: Starfire Corona Lv. --]
General Skills:
[Identify]
[Heightened Senses Lv. 8]
[Pain Resistance Lv. 15]
[Fire Resistance Lv. 7]
[Mana Sense Lv. 1]
[Corrosion Resistance Lv. 2]]
With this new achievement, my achievements section was getting quite full by now. Apart from that, there wasn't much new stuff to see, though. [Celestial Fire] had leveled up to 21 in the mayhem of scorching away the alien purple moss that possibly came from another realm.
It was a bit weird that I didn't get any experience or anything from that stuff, though. [Identify] worked fine on the rift, but not at all on the purple stuff coming out of it. Just what the hell is it exactly? If it was alive, I should have gotten at least a few levels for how much of it I destroyed, right?
But if it isn't alive, how does it spread? The only thing really remaining now was for that moss to be a single organism. If that were to be the case, I wouldn't get any experience because it isn't completely eradicated yet. Still weird that [Identify] does nothing, though.