Chapter 1525 (2/2)

Randidly had spent the week pushing the limits of his images, both in detail but also in terms of Skill Levels. The Stillborn Phoenix had received most of his attention, as he worked those Skills back into his common combat habits. And the gains were bountiful; as Randidly developed himself further, it became easier and easier to raise his lower Level Skills up quickly.

Step by step, he had grown stronger. Feeling pleased, Randidly grinned down at his hands.

But of course, this was only the start. So he took several deep breaths. He had deliberately isolated both his Aether and Nether while he was within the training area, just to avoid any unexpected events while he was affected by the suppression array. So now he gradually re-extended himself into the surrounding space, checking for anomalies. Luckily, none appeared.

Not everyone can just punch a hole in my defenses like Commandant Wick can...

Nodding to himself, Randidly walked up to the Engravings and looked down at the suppression field. It was to the point that even he struggled against it, but he believed he could push it even further. With a careful touch, he began to erase and then redraw the Engravings to form new, even more vicious restrictions.

Congratulations! Your Skill Spriggit’s Tinkering (R) has grown to Level 232!

Congratulations! Your Skill Architecture of the Primordial Ways (M) has grown to Level 307!

This is why people think I’m a masochist… Randidly smirked as he made some minute adjustments to his new Engravings. This should challenge me physically, but perhaps I can go into the Dreamcatcher and reproduce Kaan’s metal pyramids… if I can further my image suppression-

However, before Randidly had even finished his adjustments, he raised his head and narrowed his eyes. His Nether Nebula began to spin more quickly and he could feel the air around him slowly ionizing as energies converged on his current location. The space seemed to buzz and compress. Randidly released a quick smile; it seemed that the significance had successfully been refined by the recruits and was ready for him to harvest.

Or rather, the significance now demanded an audience, whether he wanted it or not.

So he opened himself and allowed the torrent of significance to spiral into his body. But to his surprise, Randidly immediately grunted in surprise. His chest pounded with pain and he could only grit his teeth against the growing discomfort. It felt like every part of his body was covered in a rough, gradually constricting rope. His ribs popped. The rotation of the Nether Nebula slowed, straining to incorporate this new significance into its ecosystem.

At the core of the Nether Nebula, there was an innocuous grey bubble that tumbled weightlessly through the air, with a second, smaller bubble beginning to form next to it. As the Nether Nebula continued to struggle to churn forward, those bubbles began to… fizz. The completely condensed bubble began to rapidly shrink while the smaller one slightly grew. As Randidly watched, an even smaller third bubble formed and gradually increased in size.

“Damnit…” Randidly muttered to himself as he pressed his metallic left hand to his chest. The coolness of the metal was a relief. The pain... was extremely strange. Compared to being submerged completely in lava, it was a mild sort of agony. But it was the most uncomfortable and horrifying heartburn that Randidly had ever experienced. It came hand in hand with a creeping sense of helplessness. As his Nether Nebula struggled to incorporate all this significance and continued to slow, the pain grew worse.

Randidly pressed his eyes shut and began to try and create a flow with his Nether to relieve some of the pressure, but there was simply too much of it. He could have shunted a lot of the significance into the surrounding space, but he somehow sensed that if he struggled with this, his recruits might be crushed by the sudden rush, even if it spread amongst them.

This flow of significance… I can feel the way their time here at this Rally Station has changed so many of the recruits… it seems like all the improvements they have made are compounding the significance…

Randidly held on and endured the strain as best he could. The Nether Nebula continued to slowly rotate. He threw his Willpower behind that heavy spinning, urging it forward. Despite the fact that he knew it was relatively ineffective, he began weaving together the Nether in the periphery of the Nebula, creating some space and easing the rotation. At the core of the Nebula, another tiny grey bubble formed. And then another.

The rotation slowed further. Randidly felt a sharp sense of foreboding.

But then there was a groan from his Nether Nebula as the significance was whipped into a tight core. Five grey bubbles the size of marbles clung to each other, radiating a horrifying weight. His Nether shuddered and imperceptibly grew denser. Then the strain began to ease as most of the rush of significance was accommodated. The Nether Nebula achieved a much more ponderous equilibrium.

I’m still missing something about Nether, Randidly grimaced. His senses carefully inspected his Nether Nebula and the grey bubbles. Perhaps that was incorrect too; Randidly might understand Nether well enough, but he just didn’t know what to do with it.

Randidly released a breath and opened his eyes. His expression turned serious. He certainly hadn’t expected this, but now felt rather dumb for not foreseeing this eventuality when he expanded his accumulation of Nether. This strained episode he had just experienced was probably Nether Sickness.

Aether Sickness occurred when an individual earned too many Skills and Stats before obtaining a Class. The System declared that this was because an individual could no longer simply sustain themselves on ambient Aether and Randidly had never really questioned it because it hadn’t been a serious issue for him. He passed on the System’s message to the people of Expira and they had adjusted. But now Randidly wasn’t so sure that was the full story.

There probably was some truth to Aether Sickness being related to a lack of energy, but its effects should be so sudden if that were true. What might be more likely is that it is a combination of that weakness due to insufficient ambient energy and a sudden complication due to having too much Aether affixed to a physical body without having any structure to it.

It was the equivalent of building up the materials to construct a skyscraper solely on the small plot of land that would form the foundation. If the skyscraper is high enough, obviously the finished product would require more materials than could be contained in that area. Hence the Nexus came peddling a Class, to systematically build a structure to affix images and Skills to.

As to why Randidly hadn’t encountered the problem sooner… it was because, even from the beginning, Yystrix was building something special within his body. Then, when he obtained the Alpha Cosmos, the amount of anything he could physically withstand shot upward.

He had a very big foundation to work from.

But even so, Randidly now sensed he was approaching that limit in regards to his accumulated significance. He had easily surpassed the power of a Nether Gatekeeper, yet now needed to create some sort of order in his Nether if he wanted to expand his significance further.

Which meant the creation of a Nether Class grew a lot more pressing.