Chapter 1338 (2/2)

Of course, there was an obvious benefit to this; it was akin to moving into a larger and more well-built home. Randidly’s Nether continued to refine itself into a thicker and more powerful form with the extra space. But he was leery in having such an obvious tell about his ability to utilize Nether. Some might mistake it for just a rather peculiar image, but the truly powerful people, and those who spent time on the front lines, would likely recognize it immediately as Nether.

Considering Nether was supposed to be Randidly’s hidden trump card, it needed to be addressed.

Shrinking his Nether Nebula down to its previous size was obviously the most simplistic answer, but that would be difficult and sacrifice some of Randidly’s newfound power. Instead, Randidly sat in a meditative position and attempted to control his Nether much more skillfully than that.

Randidly’s larger Nebula now produced an aura of Nether, that couldn’t be avoided. But Randidly’s thought was to use his prodigious Control to flatten that aura into something akin to a disk that would be able to slip out through the thin Nether crack in the System without constantly disturbing it. He could inject energy into that disk if he needed to explode with the full force of his Nether, but in its base state, it would provide Randidly with only a weak amount of connection in an area around his person.

So he steadily began to work.

Congratulations! Your Skill Nether Sensation (L) has grown to Level 167!

…

Congratulations! Your Skill Nether Sensation (L) has grown to Level 174!

And the work was extremely difficult.

Sweat dripped down Randidly’s brow as he furiously struggled to marshall the uncooperative Nether and press it into a thin disk. The problem was that Nether had an annoying tendency to congregate naturally. But Randidly was truly one who rose to his power by relying on his Control. Bit by bit, he forcefully imposed his Willpower on his Nether. There were bulges and distortions, but Randidly systematically pressed everything down until it could spread through the crack in the System without disturbing anything. A perfect disc was gradually achieved.

Congratulations! Your Skill Nether Sensation (L) has grown to Level 175!

...and once the Nether was in that state, Randidly tied up almost all of his mental energy keeping it there. Chuckling darkly to himself, Randidly released his tight reins on the energy and it rapidly spun back to be an ambient cloud around his body. But he did send a message to Neveah, outlining the problem and asking for some help designing an array based in Aether that could be used to add structure to the Nether.

In the meantime, Randidly cracked his neck and then pulled out his Philosopher’s Key. With a twist, he arrived on the roof of Kharon’s Town Hall and proceeded down to Tatiana’s office.

To Randidly’s surprise, he actually found her in that room, bereft of Wolfram and the assistance of his fellow extremely large ogre secretaries. Tatiana held up a finger for Randidly to wait while she quickly signed several papers and then tossed them into the mail chute at the corner of her office. The papers were whisked away to the workroom below, where they would be copied and distributed to the recipients.

Randidly thought it was strange that Kharon had instituted a mail delivery system, but Tatiana had cheerily replied that ever since learning about calligraphy, the ogres took great pride in sending handwritten letters. It was obviously slower than sending a message, but a lot of people seemed to enjoy the act of writing.

When she finally turned around to address Randidly, Tatiana paused. Pursing her lips, she scanned him from head to toe. “There’s something… different about you. I can’t quite put my finger on it…”

“I’m working on it,” Randidly said with a sigh. At least this proves that Rose’s reaction was indicative of a problem.

“It’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Tatiana rubbed her chin. “You just… feel immense. In a way that’s difficult to understand…”

“True, there are some benefits to it,” Randidly admitted. “But to a certain type of person within the Nexus… this effect will be recognized for what it is rather quickly. And I want to keep my Nether as a secret for as long as possible.”

To that, Tatiana nodded. Then she glanced over toward another stack of papers on her desk. “If you came down here, I assume it’s for business? If you have free time, there have been seven requests for meetings that I’ve put on hold for at least today.”

“The meetings can probably wait.” Randidly rolled his shoulders. Neveah just then sent him a reply and he quickly scanned her proposed plan and nodded in satisfaction. This will work. Then his attention focused back on Tatiana. “Schedule three of the most important for after dinner tonight and I’ll see to them. But for now… I want to make preparations for Kharon to move. Head for Vye’s current position.”