Power settled into my bones like a new kind of gravity.
I stood in the center of the Wilshire Grand lobby, breathing air that now tasted of ozone, void, and something else—authority. The Void Monarch Seed was a cool, dark star in my spiritual core, its roots woven through the cracked foundation the System had warned about. The cracks were still there, silver-black fault lines across my soul, but the seed held everything together with a profound, patient strength.
Across the ravaged space, Maya floated six inches off the ground, her hair lifting in an unseen electrical current. When she opened her eyes, miniature lightning storms crackled in her irises before fading to a steady, storm-gray blue. Leo sat cross-legged, surrounded by floating, three-dimensional runic equations that constantly solved and reformed themselves. His fingers twitched as if typing on an invisible keyboard.
PARTY STATUS UPDATED:
ALEXANDER VANCE – WARRIOR (EARLY STAGE)
PATH:Void-Tuned Ascendant → Void Monarch (Seeded)
VOID AFFINITY:12%
TITLE:Pioneer Dominator
MAYA CHEN – WARRIOR (EARLY STAGE)
PATH:Storm Caller → Storm Lord (Seeded)
TITLE:Pioneer Dominator
LEO SANTOS – WARRIOR (EARLY STAGE)
PATH:Runic Scribe → Architect Prime (Seeded)
TITLE:Pioneer Dominator
We'd skipped the entire Late and Peak stages of Apprentice. The forced advancement was brutal, efficient, and left a strange hollowness—like missing the steps of a staircase but arriving at the landing anyway.
"I can see… pathways," Leo whispered, his voice full of awe. "The building isn't just a building anymore. It's a structure of energy, stress points, potential. I can reinforce it. Change it."
"Don't," I said, my own senses screaming a warning. "Not yet."
The connection I'd felt—the thread leading from the node up into the cosmic dark—wasn't just a sensation. It was a conduit. And now, through it, I could feel a faint attention.
"There's a cost," I told them, walking to the now-dormant node. The miniature star had shrunk to a basketball-sized orb of condensed light, cradled in its geometric lattice. The guardian spirit had dissolved back into it. "Claiming this didn't just give us power. It tagged us."
Maya landed softly, the ozone around her thickening. "Tagged?"
"For the hunter." I pointed upward, though the hunter was far beyond the shattered glass ceiling. "The System isn't neutral. It's a filter. Or a farm. We're the crop. The Legendary Seeds? They're… fertilizers. Making us richer targets."
A shiver went through the room that had nothing to do with temperature.
GLOBAL ANNOUNCEMENT:
FIRST TIER 2 NODE CLAIMED.
EVENT CONCLUDED.
NEXT WORLD EVENT: 'ASCENSION TRIALS' IN 47 HOURS, 12 MINUTES.
PREPARATION ADVISED.
"Ascension Trials," Maya repeated. "Sounds friendly."
"It won't be." My void sense, now vastly more sensitive, was picking up new data from the node connection. Not just attention. A trickle of information. A user manual for the hooked fish. "The Trials will be another filter. Stronger cultivators advance. The weak become… resources."
Leo stood, the runes around him dissolving. "So what do we do? Cut the connection?"
"We can't. The thread is anchored in the seed in our cores. Removing it would kill the seed, probably cripple us." I focused on the thread with my will. Immediately, a new, semi-transparent interface overlay my vision, different from the standard blue System screens. This one was dark purple, edged in silver.
NODE MANAGEMENT CONSOLE (TIER 2) – WILSHIRE GRAND
CONTROLLERS: Alexander Vance, Maya Chen, Leo Santos
ENERGY OUTPUT:500 Cosmic Essence/Day (Shared)
DEFENSIVE MATRIX:Dormant (Activation Cost: 1000 Essence)
FACILITY UPGRADES:Available (Require Essence & Runic Architecture)
SURVEILLANCE:Local Area (1 Mile Radius)
LINKED NODES:1 (Wilshire/Normandie – Tier 1)
SYSTEM TAX:10% of generated Essence (Diverted to ???)
There it was. System Tax. A percentage of our power, siphoned upward through that thread.
"We can see it now," Maya said, her eyes distant as she accessed her own console. "It's like admin privileges."
"We need to understand exactly what we're paying for," I said. "And we need to turn this from a trap into a weapon. Leo, you said you could see pathways. I need you to map the energy flow of this entire building. Find where the System's thread physically manifests. There will be an anchor point."
He nodded, his fingers already moving, pulling up complex holographic schematics of the building's new energy grid.
"Maya, the perimeter. We have a temporary lull, but claiming this will have shown up on every cultivator's map for miles. We need early warning."
She flexed her hands, and arcs of blue-white electricity shot from her fingertips, zipping out through broken windows and vents. "On it. I can set up a electrostatic net. Anything with a strong energy signature crossing it will trigger a lightning strike. Small, but loud."
"Good."
While they worked, I turned my attention inward, to the Void Monarch Seed. It was more than a source of power. It was a repository of instinct. When I focused on it, concepts floated in the darkness of my mind:
Consume the unreal.
Your silence is a weapon.
The void is not empty; it is full of endings.
And one more, clearer than the rest: To ascend is to become a problem the System must solve.
I walked to the edge of the lobby where my Void-Forged Staff lay. As my fingers closed around it, the weapon hummed, resonating with my new seed. The void energy within it felt like an extension of my own will. I concentrated, and shadows pooled around my left hand. They solidified into three twelve-inch claws of pure, light-eating darkness that curved from my knuckles. Void Claws. They didn't feel like weapons; they felt like fingers of a hand I'd always been missing.
I dismissed them with a thought. The cost was minimal. My affinity was growing.
An alert pinged in my node console.
SURVEILLANCE: MULTIPLE SIGNATURES APPROACHING SOUTH PERIMETER.
CLASSIFICATION:Cultivators (Mixed Intent).
COUNT:7.
HIGHEST THREAT:Warrior (Mid Stage).
Kaelen Throne was in London. This was someone else. A local power, drawn to the beacon.
"Company," I said, my voice carrying easily across the lobby. "Seven. One Warrior."
Maya's electrostatic net flared once, outside. A warning shot. "They've stopped at the edge of the plaza."
Leo looked up from his holograms, face pale. "I found it. The anchor. It's in the sub-basement, two levels down. The System thread isn't ethereal. It's a physical, quantum-filament cable, thinner than an atom. It's… plugged into the building's new ley line nexus."
A physical cable. That meant it could potentially be interacted with. A vulnerability.
"Can we cut it?" Maya asked, joining us.
"I don't know. If we do, we might sever our own connection to the node. Or trigger a System backlash." I pulled up the local surveillance feed through the console. A grainy, energy-based image formed, showing seven figures at the ruined plaza fountain.
The leader was a woman in tailored business attire now ripped and stained. She held a sword that was a shard of jagged darkness, but her aura was golden, warm. A contradiction. PATH: JUDGE OF CONTRADICTION (WARRIOR – MID STAGE). Her title:
The six with her were a mix of Late and Peak Apprentices—a bruiser with stone fists, a man wrapped in bandages that leaked mist, a woman with vines for hair, and others.
They weren't attacking. They were waiting.
"They want to talk," I said.
"Or they're assessing defenses," Maya countered.
"Same thing." I made a decision. "Leo, keep mapping. Find every connection, every vulnerability. Maya, with me. Let's hear the deal."
We exited through the main doors. The plaza was a charnel house. The bodies of monsters and cultivators were already being slowly dissolved by the hyper-accelerated, System-altered environment. The air smelled of copper, ozone, and blooming, alien flowers.
The Dealbreaker watched us approach, her expression unreadable. Up close, I could see the strain around her eyes. The golden aura was strong, but it had cracks, patches of that same contradictory darkness as her sword. Her path was literally tearing her apart.
"Pioneer Dominators," she said, her voice smooth, practiced. A CEO's voice. "Congratulations. I am Selene Vance."
A shared surname. Coincidence. It had to be.
"Alex Vance," I said, not offering a hand.
Her eyebrow raised a fraction. "A fortunate omen. Perhaps. I represent the Bunker, a collective of survivors consolidating power in the Financial District. We have claimed two Tier 1 nodes and cleared three dungeon zones."
She was establishing credentials. "And you want our Tier 2 node," Maya stated, lightning crackling in her palm.
Selene's smile was thin. "I want an alliance. The map is changing. Individual strongholds will be picked off by the next event, whatever these 'Ascension Trials' are. My scouts have reported coordinated movements from System-spawn. They're not just random monsters anymore. They're organizing."
That confirmed my suspicion. The Nexus Scavenger had been intelligent, following logic. A pack of them, working together…
"Your offer?" I asked.
"Mutual defense pact. Shared intelligence. Resource exchange. You keep primary control of this node, but you grant my people access rights for cultivation. In return, we extend the same from our nodes, and our warriors help you defend when the challenge cooldown expires." She gestured to the bruiser behind her. "Garrett speaks highly of your skill, if not your judgment in letting him live."
Garrett, the Earth-Warden from the subway node. He stood with the group, his expression grudgingly respectful. He gave a short nod.
So Selene had recruited him. She was competent.
"And the chain of command?" I asked.
"Consensus of controllers. For major decisions, we vote. You have three votes here. I have four from our two nodes. My other allies have three more. A council."
It was pragmatic. It also meant surrendering a degree of sovereignty. But her point about the System-spawn organizing was critical. We couldn't fortress up and hope to survive. The System would simply send bigger hammers.
"We need to discuss," I said.
"You have one hour before our offer is retracted," Selene said. "The landscape is shifting by the minute. Hesitation is a luxury we can't afford."
She turned and led her group back toward the Financial District, leaving Garrett behind as a liaison. Or a hostage.
Back inside, Leo had news. "It's worse than a cable," he said, his holograms showing a cross-section of the building's foundations. "The System thread is a root. It's branched. One goes up, yeah, to space or whatever. But others… they go sideways. To other nodes."
He expanded the schematic. Faint, ghostly lines connected the Wilshire Grand node to our Tier 1 subway node, and from there, to other glowing points across the city. A network.
"It's a mycelium," I realized. "A fungal network. We're just one fruiting body. The System is the organism underneath."
"And if one node falls," Maya breathed, "the network knows. It can respond."
That changed everything. Isolating ourselves was impossible. We were already part of the System's infrastructure.
"The alliance," I said. "We take it. But not on her terms. We need to see their nodes. We need to understand their part of the network."
I opened the node console and initiated a message to Selene's registered controller ID.
PROPOSAL: Alliance ratified by reciprocal node integration. Full mapping data shared. Joint defense protocol established.
The reply was almost instantaneous.
SELENE VANCE: Agreed. Sending coordinates for summit. One hour. Come armed.
The location was the US Bank Tower. Another skyscraper. Another likely node.
"It's a trap or it's genuine," Maya said.
"It's both," I replied. "She'll be testing us. We'll be testing her. That's how this works now." I looked at Leo. "Can you build something in an hour? Something that can scan a node's connection to the network without triggering alarms?"
He grinned, a flash of the eager student he'd been a day ago. "I already have the runic array designed. I just need… a power source."
I pulled the Crystallized Mana Shard from the Nexus Scavenger from my pocket. It glowed with a steady, warm light. "Will this do?"
His eyes widened. "Perfect. That's a structured data crystal. It's not just energy; it's a storage device. I can use it to record the network signature."
As he got to work, I felt the subtle thread from our node pulse once. A gentle tug.
SYSTEM TAX COLLECTED: 50 COSMIC ESSENCE.
DIVERTED TO: [CLASSIFIED]
The payment had been automatically deducted. Our first tithe to whatever was at the other end of the line.
We were cultivating. We were growing stronger. But with every ounce of Essence we generated, we were also feeding the very thing that had turned our world into a battlefield.
The Ascension Trials were coming. Not just a test.
A harvest.
And we needed to be sharp enough to cut the hand that would reap us.
---
[End Chapter 5]