–

  Rick lay there watching, waiting, wondering when the question would come. Artigan must have known the core problem at hand. This little apex could never solve this problem by himself.

  Still, he was making progress. Artigan seemed to have found a preliminary path for the rest of his circulatory system. Holding his antimagic skill until the energy backlashed into the hand was definitely one of the more unique methods Rick had seen. Naturally, Rick himself was the only one he knew that had even attempted such a thing.

  It did come with problems. Firstly, that [Volatile Antimagic Skill] wasn’t all mana. It came polluted with qi and aura, undoubtedly a function of the Trial System picking the most efficient design for the skill, though less ‘correct’ when used as a method to create a circulatory system.

  Sure, Artigan would get a usable circulatory system out of it, but something designed for a mana core?

  Inefficient. Incorrect.

  The second problem? Artigan’s style of volatile mana preferred to arc downwards. It found the path of least resistance first, branched outwards. Starting the circulatory system in the hand was most possibly the worst decision Rick could think of.

  Idiocy.

  Again, it would work. But Rick couldn’t help but look away in disappointment.

  All he could think of was that he would be stuck here, in this godforsaken cave for the rest of his existence. He had been attempting to find weaknesses in his banishment, figuring out if he could push the tiniest traces of mana into the surroundings.

  It didn’t work. [Remembrance of the Fallen] was something far, far beyond his understanding.

  Though, perhaps there would be a way to negotiate with the Witch Pioneer for his release. Surely she had use for a brilliant mind such as his.

  His mind started to think. Remembering anything he could bring to the table.

  It was a couple hours later when a grunt of pain echoed out in the cave. When Rick glanced at Artigan, he was shocked to find that the elf had stabbed himself in the shoulder with a knife glowing with volatile mana. Artigan let go of the knife and dropped his left arm to a more neutral position, pointing downwards.

  Technically the knife was still in contact with Artigan’s body. So when the skill backlashed through the knife, it flowed into his shoulder. His right arm was using aura to block off any possible sparks that could arc from his shoulder back to his torso. Only allowing one route to follow.

  The volatile energy traveled down the arm, like a great lightning bolt, it shot down the path of least resistance first. Right towards the hand. Then hundreds of splits exploded outwards from the main branch. It had hundreds of exit points on his arm as it leaked the energy.

  Artigan raised his arm in pain, staring at the hundreds of little fractalling sparks that came from the skill’s natural behavior. Each branch he would have to memorize if he wished to make his arm perfect for the realm evolution.

  “Fuck.”

  –

  It was… a familiar scene to Rick. The self-mutiliation and progress. Two steps forward to find out that there were still a hundred steps to go. Sometimes everything backfired and forced you to restart.

  Progress was continuous practice. Evolution was about experimentation, trying something new, even at the risk to yourself.

  That was what would differentiate between those that reached the apex and those that would

  This Artigan wasn’t satisfied with his station of being apex of the fourth realm. He wasn’t satisfied at having ripped apart a legend of a bygone era. He was still looking for something new. Something greater.

  For the first time, Rick truly became interested in Artigan.

  You could tell a lot by the way someone practiced and experimented. Self-mutilation and suffering excruciating pain when you had healing potions wasn’t anything special to Rick. Only the weakest of wills would hesitate at that.

  No, what interested Rick was the fact that Artigan had multiple individual parts first. Then, once he had a clearer idea of the tools he had at his disposal, It implied two things. First, Artigan had failed before and had learned from it. Failed enough times that he did not utterly rely on intuition.

  It showed a level of maturity that Rick had not expected from someone with the Apex title at the fourth realm.

  The second and most important implication of all? When the time came, Artigan did not hesitate despite his past failures. Rick could understand someone rising to the top of the fourth realm. Continuously challenging the impossible and coming out on top. Like the second coming of the Passives Pioneer. That was who he had compared Artigan to at first.

  He was not interested in someone that followed her path. She would never be able to rise without an environment to challenge her. Somewhere her path would stop and die.

  But Artigan wasn’t like her at all, he was more like… Rick himself.

  And now he wanted to know more. How did someone like this appear and already reach the apex despite having failed multiple times? How could someone like this have chosen the [Rogue] class and not the [Mage] class?

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  No matter what, this Artigan had to understand that he was hurting himself in the long run by going down this path. Not unless he truly believed that the Witch Pioneer was the enemy that he had to defeat at any cost.

  And if so, then what the hell happened in the rest of the world that the Witch was raising up a threat that was truly hostile to her?

  So many questions and Rick was finally realizing that he didn’t have a single answer, and the only person who could answer his questions had ripped him apart and tried to kill him.

  Artigan’s words rang hollow in his head. Rick hadn’t been curious at all who he was dealing with, and now he was truly regretting it.

  Rick kept watching, completely entranced. Artigan scrawled on the ground, trying to draw the dizzying pattern on his arms to memorize it. When they started to fade, he stabbed himself once more with a knife. This time he didn’t wince despite what Rick knew had to be agonizing, burning pains in his arms. Complete and pure focus on memorizing every single path that followed. Rapidly sketching them out with his injured left arm.

  Too much blood got in the way of the drawing and Artigan was finally forced to take out a small vial of a moderate healing potion. He carefully poured a couple drops into the wound, screamed once more when he realized the magical liquid and the dregs of volatile energy in his arm

  Still, Artigan did have the foresight to use a moderate healing potion. Perhaps the fact that he waited until the second stab to start using the healing potion meant that he understood the risks and dangers with what he just did.

  The focus and the quiet madness in Artigan’s eyes drifted him back into his own memories.

  –

  “I will not have you spreading your madness to others. Leave this place.”

  The Witch Pioneer stood in Rick’s way, trying to push him away from a group of elven refugees. Rick understood her as being weaker than him, hiding behind trickery and false images to make the Pioneers look more powerful than they really were.

  Rick sneered at the do-gooder. “I offer them a path to power. What do you offer them? A shelter and a place to cry?”

  The Pioneers had been doing their best to gather the scattered Realmer populations. Sheltering them from a war they could not win. Earth had come and it was claiming everything for their own.

  As one of the first Destined Settlers, Rick had learned under the elven villages. Their natural magical formations and circulation system were fascinating to study. Oh, some of their deeper advancements were considered sacred secrets but he didn’t really need to study those. Just understanding their baseline would lead you to where they had naturally developed their paths.

  Now Rick was showing another group of elves different paths. Normally such things would have been shunned. The way of their ancestors and the natural mana cores were too considered too sacred to change. Partly pragmatic of course. Over the milleniums, the elves had developed systems that would help them advance into the sixth and even the seventh realm over long periods of time. Such progress was stable and didn’t cost many lives.

  Such stable and slow growth no longer mattered when half your land was colonized by foreign entities and Trialists came in with both unnatural power and weapons.

  Rick had gone back to offer these groups the knowledge he had gleaned. The processes and power he knew was possible for them to develop.

  He had, at least, been fairly honest with them. Rick did tell them that most of them would fail. Though perhaps downplayed the exact costs of forging a different path. It didn’t really matter in the end. When he had helped break a fifth realm bottleneck in under a week?

  All of the lost refugees came to him to risk their lives for more power. Rick knew the feeling well.

  Be powerless once and you would always, seek for more.

  It wasn’t that he needed experimental results from these elves of course. Neither was he coming back here out of some sense of misplaced duty. What Rick wanted was something simpler.

  More powerful [Mages], more [Mages] with more variety, with more specializations and power.

  More of those at the highest realms that experimented and pushed boundaries. Even if five elves died or crippled themselves, having one of them break through the fifth realm barrier was more than worth it.

  Of course the do-gooder Witch could not stand by and let this happen.

  “This is your final warning, Rick.”

  He spat at her illusion. “And what? You think I don’t know you’re all spread thin? Tenth realm or not, you’re all split trying to keep everyone safe while you wage your little war. How many of you lost your safety lives because of that dragon? And look at what your ideals have brought you. They call you Tyrants!”

  Rick laughed in her face. It was the funniest thing in his opinion. One Chinese official had called them tyrants and the title had spread like wildfire. All the countries piling on to declare that the greatest heroes were selfish lunatics that wanted to take The Realm for themselves.

  Rick may have been blind in one eye, but he could still see where being a good person led you in the end.

  “At least I offer these people the opportunity to take their destiny for themselves.”

  “This is madness. Not destiny.”

  “You might be intelligent, smarter than me perhaps. But too much empathy just makes you weak and blind.”

  If the Witch attempted to stop it, he would cut her illusion off. Despite her ascension to the tenth realm she still didn’t dare to fight him directly. They both stared at the experiment that was going on ahead.

  The refugees he taught were only focused on one goal. To become stronger at any cost. One teenage elf had ripped open her mana core in a ritualistic experiment. One he had come up with after seeing how ‘demonic’ classes worked. Her brother took the core from his sister’s chest and implanted it a little lower than his own core. Near his abdomen.

  The girl would die in the coming days and the boy would become greater for it. The harmonious resonation between the two cores would lead to something new.

  And the brother would never forget it.

  Rick just smiled at the experimentation and progression.

  “This is the future of magic.”

  –

  Rick should have realized then, that that was when the Witch Pioneer had prioritized his death above all else. She had always been a do-gooder, a monstrous schemer that was held back by her conscience.

  That belief lasted until all seven of the Tyrants abandoned their war against Earth to kill him. Losing all progress and many Realmer lives just so they could take him out. He hadn’t gone down without a fight of course, even caught unprepared he had managed to take the Mage Pioneer’s safety life.

  Their purge of the other high realm Settlers began with him. He applauded that, that was how the world should work. Utter ruthlessness was required to bring about the world of your ideals. Though he never expected that after the Tyrants had won that she’d end up being a hypocrite.

  Here she was, doing the same thing Rick had.

  Artigan, with madness in his eyes, only focused on one goal and one goal only.

  Revenge? Freedom?

  Rick was never good at reading people. But now he wished he had learned a bit of that sympathetic magic that he knew [Witches] had.

  Still, it didn’t matter in the end. Rick would have his answers soon enough. With the thoughtfulness that Artigan had displayed so far, there was no way he didn’t understand the fundamental problem at hand.

  He would need to ask for help sooner or later.

  After all, to form a suitable sized core, one needed to have enough mana to forge it in the first place, and Artigan did not have anywhere near enough mana for a fifth realm core. Rick estimated that Artigan had barely enough for a third realm mana core. It would be a disappointing and completely useless result.

  When the question came, Rick would be able to set the terms. Rick waited.

  And waited.

  And the moment never came.

  Artigan started drawing a relatively simple mana circle in the air.

  Then Rick saw the beginnings of a mana siphon spell being formed, His jaw dropped when Artigan tried to pour more of his mana into it.

  Naturally the siphon spell exploded in Artigan’s face. Did he think he could just put his volatility attuned mana into a spell circle and it would just work? The idiocy almost made Rick rethink his entire philosophy of judging people by how they experimented.

  Artigan tried for a few more hours before realizing the problem at hand. He finally sat back and sighed.

  Then, Artigan took out a bloody sixth realm flesh golem core from his pouch. He eyed an opening amongst the flesh and metal, measuring whether his knife could slide through the gaps and into the magical center.

  The center with a [Stability Matrix] woven into the core.

  Finally, Rick couldn’t help himself and broke his silence.

  “Are you out of your damned mind?!”

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