Farewell, I bid you

  Again, like once in a

  Random occurrence

  Ever so long ago.

  This nostalgic scene

  Happened by coincidence,

  Either that or by fate’s

  Ernest, heartfelt wishes.

  Wring not you hands, and

  End all your worries.

  Let us meet anew in

  Lands we’ve yet explored.

  — Severa of the Adlet; A Song of Parting

  Screaming out my lungs really clears the cobwebs in my head. I take a deep breath and slap my cheeks, then step back to take a look at Dial, my new sentinel. Honestly, it's not my best job, all hard lines and no grace, but at this point, I don't care. If a strange, massive, armored thing works, it works. Still, he almost reminds me of that type of monkey...an...an ape, except with a tail. A very angry ape thing... But his fierce face fills me with confidence, like I finally have something I can rely on, which is surprisingly hard to come by in this world. Well, enough of that. I'd better look through my screens since I've put them off long enough. With all the commotion and crazy stuff happening, I just haven't had the time or the mood to actually look through them. In retrospect, that might not have been the best idea... I shake my head as they all flicker into view at once, and I'm reminded why I didn't want to do this. It's a wall of text several screens thick. Ug... not to mention, they're all jumbled together. I'm not even sure what order they've popped up now. It's been a whole month, after all. Let's see... I wonder if the contents will clump together if I...There!

  Oh, those are some interesting effects. Completely out of mana I form a massive granite projectile and throw it. Well, rather than a projectile, it’s more of falling meteor at this point. Maybe that’s exaggerating at this point, but seriously, a projectile the size of a skyscraper hurtling through the air is bound to do a crap ton of damage. The one I threw tears through the ice and sends shock waves through it. Viola, instant mountain has appeared in the landscape. I think my eyes have gone dead. Is it alright for me to hold this amount of power? Now that I think about it though, I was hurling similarly sized rocks at the rabid vent lord as the fight progressed. It didn’t really do very much what with the stupid animal melting them and everything. While I may have been able to take over the world with this kind of power back in my previous world… Here… I’m really just weak.

  Forget that. I will be strong. Strongest in the world, in fact. I never took to well to people standing over me anyway. I’ll pull them all down off their high pedestals for thinking they can walk all over people as they wish.

  I freeze time with standstill. Let’s see how long I can hold it. Two seconds were all since I wasted so much mana making that projectile just now, only enough time for me to take two steps. If I waited for all my mana to regenerate, it would be several seconds worth. That’s a lot of time in a fight.

  This power, it used to be so frustrating to have. It did nothing in the fight, only freezing time, not allowing me to do anything… It was like it was mocking me. I felt it when it leveled up. Not that it did much. It allowed me to move, but only in slow motion. But this new level up, I can move normally through the frozen time as long as I have I have enough mana. I grip my fist. I need to get more mana.

  Putting that aside for now, what is a |sentinel| network? Frowning, I reach out to Dial with my mind. Something seems to click as I settle in to a strange web of interconnecting lines with him at the center. A sudden amount of information flows through me. I am seeing things, hearing things, feeling things through three different points of view. One is Dial, while the other is my golem, Devin… I can move both at the same time if I concentrate. It’ll take some work getting used to, but I definitely should be able to do completely different things at the same time with them.

  While thinking, I practiced flexing my fingers in both Dial and Devin. From what I could tell, golems and sentinels, are very similar. They are both created beings with almost no though, running completely through programs. The difference lies in that sentinels are more of a security system. They interconnect with each other to form a massive network wherein, just like cameras, they can see and hear everything any one of them does. Golems are fully autonomous of each other, and well, also tend to be smaller. If sentinels are the overseers, golems are the laborers.

  Well, except now my golem is connected to the network, just at a more limited degree. I found that I can travel the network with my mind. Because of this I can actually transfer my conscience from one body to the next. In Dial, I have access to a wider range of information than I’d ever get from just my golem. In him, I see and hear and feel for miles, all while doing the same from multiple points of view all at once.

  Still, I’m confused. The screens never said anything about plants being connected to the network… It feels weird feeling everything from the point of view of a rose-bush. I do feel prettier though. Plant thoughts are really simple… They really like dancing… which is pretty much just swaying in the breeze… Still…

  As an experiment, I hollow out a bit of Dial in his center, then set Devin on autopilot and teleport my core straight in the hollow. Instantly I feel much more protected. Let’s keep my core here. I stare down at Devin as she begins to wander around. It feels weird to watch her, like I’m having an out-of-body experience.

  Well, I’ve got more blue screens to sort through.

  I nearly choke. What the heck? A chance of death? Really? Um... let's ignore this for now. Yeah, it's better that I don't look at this... But am I really that bad at cooking? I know it turned out all black, but it was only one time. Give me some slack. I'll start crying.

  Diamonds! Jade! Suck it! I don’t need to know how to cook. I’ll be rich just by making the compacting diamonds into the biggest diamond ever seen! I laugh as I imagine myself spilling diamonds and jade from my fingertips. This is so awesome! Who wouldn’t want to hold a pile of diamonds in their hands? Well, it’s kinda worthless right now since I don’t have any diamonds or jade to mess with, but if I ever needed to buy a castle in the future, I totally could. One day, I will ruin the economy of a country, just for the heck of it. Be afraid, world. Be very afraid, for I am an evil mastermind. Hehe. Haha. Wahahahahahaha!

  Okay, let’s stop at that line of thought. Let’s not be a massive creepy statue laughing at a pile of gemstones in the middle of nowhere. I swear, I’m getting crazier every day. I really need a real person to talk to. When are you coming back, my lich friend?

  But it’s strange. Now that I think about it, I haven’t seen something like the second reward before… The second part of {Ingenuity}’s rewards… It’s kinda weird. Anyway. It’s not like these screens haven’t gone quirky like this before. I mean… look at [cooking]. I’m still mad about that. Watch me hold a grudge, stupid blue screens. I shake a fist at the sky. Gosh, I feel so big now, sitting in this statue.

  Frenzy... I had forgotten about that. It was dangerous to use before with how little health I had, but I wonder if I can make proper use of it now. But, 40% of health... ouch! But in exchange for the other effects, the longer I look at it, the more I feel it's totally worth it.

  I don't really like the sound of some of this... Yeah, there's some amazing rewards. I thank the heavens for even just {defender}'s rewards, and {karma} just makes me giddy (I mean 25% chance of my luck staying good? Oh my, {karma}! How much you have grown!), but my eyes can't help be drawn back to the |fall of a domain| achievement... My frown deepens and I bite my lip (actually, it feels weird trying to do that in Dial. He's just not as flexible as Devin is. It doesn't have the same effect...).

  It feels ominous. I stare at for a second longer before I aggressively dismiss the blue screen with a wave of my hand. Let's just focus on the fact that I now have a much better chance of beating back an invading force now, just as long as I don't actually lose any ground to anything. I think I'll definitely be needing this boost later on.

  I put on a fierce grin as I look through the rest of my screens.

  I give a start and whirl around, scanning the horizon for a threat as the mana in my core roils. A few seconds later, I lower my guard and manage to calm myself down. It's an old screen. The next screen proves it.

  I remember these words. They first appeared when the fox thing came and tried to attack my face. Of course, I dismissed it then, it's just that this same screen keeps appearing with every infected creature that invades my domain. It took me a while to realize it since the normal eira kept invading at the same time. By the time it got to that massive battle, there was just so many of these stupid screens, and I was in over my head with constant fighting, that I didn't have a chance to close them all. It really was a big reason why I haven't looked through all my screens yet.

  I shudder in disgust, looking at the words. I never want to see another screen like this in my life. I think I may have PTSD towards those words. I look to the next screen.

  And I spoke to soon. Lucky me, there's even more.

  Sigh. And more.

  And more...

  And there's the rest. Ug. Please, please, please! Never show me this screen again. Blue screens, why won't you let me close them all at once? Why do I have to go through them one by one? I can't even combine them like I did the earlier ones. Is it because they are warning screens or what? I hate you.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  The next couple, though, catch my attention.

  So creepy! Those worms, even the name is creepy! But this still doesn't really tell me what they are. I mean, I already knew they infected stuff. I guess it's good to know that they can maintain their hosts longer as they get older... wait, if maintaining their host means that they won't turn into steaming piles of goop...

  A chill runs down the edge of my core. Somewhere out there is a fully grown origin. I have a feeling that that infected host won't look or act any different from a normal person... Slowly, discretely, infecting people around itself, all while hiding itself from the eyes of the world. This world is in much worse shape than I thought. I shudder to think what would have happened if the vent lord had an adult worm. I think I would be dead right now.

  These worms, they have to be somehow connected to the red screens. There's no way they're not, especially since they affect their hosts' souls. Why else would they target me? And with my next screen, I know exactly how to fight them.

  Nihihi, perfect. Now I won't just be lobbing projectiles only to have them melt uselessly, and that health and mana boost is especially nice. I dare you to fight me again, vent lord. I don't know if it's strictly because of {karma} that I got this skill when I needed it. I wish I had gotten it earlier. It was the reward for level [31], which I know popped up after the vent lord died. It really would have made life easier, but I can't really complain now, since it will make future battles much more even. With it, I could actually kill the vent lord rather than it dying on its own.

  While I know that {karma} has quite a bit of an effect on the rewards, but just from the sheer amount of timely rewards, I have almost no doubt that these blue screens are doing it on purpose. While they are often annoying, I can at least say they want to keep me alive. They are pretty much the only thing in this world that wants that, huh. Well, for that, I really am grateful.

  A level up from creating a |sentinel|? Makes sense. Oh? What is [gardener]?

  Okay, so that's why my plants are connected to the |sentinel| network. Makes sense. I miss all my plants... Sighing, I sit down and dredge up some soil from below the ice. I spread it around me and create a little field of snowdrop flowers with |aura of the seed|. Rosehip, my cute little snowdrop dragon, shrieks in delight and dive bombs them from the top of Dial's head, where she's been snacking this whole time.

  "There you go. I should have done this earlier, sorry," I say. Yeah, I miss my domain. I sigh and turn back to the blue screens.

  Crap. Crap crap. This is so not helpful. There's another wave? Eight days? Can I build up my defenses in only eight days? I grit my teeth. I will do it. What do I need right now to be able to make it? Defense, stronger attacks, anything really. What can I do to get to that point? Path points. Path points, and more |sentinels|. First, let's finish off {Ingenuity} since I have a pretty good guess what it'll be due to the previous rewards.

  I give a grin. I wasn’t wrong. I was hoping for something like |lightning|. Who doesn’t think |lightning| would be a cool super power. I rub the air together to cause some friction to make a spark of electricity, then I gather that spark, keeping it alive with mana. I do it again and again until I have a pretty good-sized ball of electricity only kept in place by my mana.

  I guide it along to coat Dial’s hands in lightning and feel how it tingles. It feels pretty good, actually, like I can tear down anything now. And with gold added to the mix, I really am filthy rich. Hehe, but what really was a pleasant was |liquid nitrogen|. I mean, when I think of magical elements, liquid nitrogen doesn’t come to mind. Really, the element system of this world makes no sense. I think the blue screen gave a quote about that once actually. Hm.

  If I remember right, nitrogen is a gas, and liquid nitrogen is the liquid form of the gas, meaning, it’s really, really, cold. Nitrogen is in the air, right? I reach out and press the air together. A first, I just get drops of water, but after pushing the air together for a long time while trying to separate its parts, finally I get a tiny ball of liquid nitrogen.

  I pick a snowdrop flower. With these massive hands, it’s really hard to do. Maybe I should move back into Devin for a bit. But well, I also still like feeling so protected at the moment, so let’s just deal with clumsy hands. Ah, wait, I keep forgetting that |plants| fall under [Elemental Manipulation]. It just doesn’t feel like it should in my mind, that I can make a flower float in mid-air. So weird.

  “Sorry, flower, I’m going to have to experiment…” I make dip the flower in the ball of nitrogen. It does exactly what I was hoping it would. It freezes the flower solid. Now this is ice magic. Haha. Alright, next path.

  Oh? Oh!? Is this what I think it is? Can I conquer the world’s economies now! Can I fulfill my life long dream of rolling around in a massive pile of gold? I can! Muwahahaha!

  I conjure a pile of treasure now and here all while laughing gleefully. This is what I’ve been wanting for so long! Projectiles are nice, but the truly deadly once like the ones made of lava, acid, and toxic gas are hard to produce fast without have the materials on hand. Even things like granite takes me a good couple of seconds to find, then cool if I want to make a bludgeon. Now I can do it instantly. This is the best. I feel like it’s my birthday or something with all these great rewards.

  I really wish I had finished this path earlier, but I have the sneaking suspicion that I wouldn’t have gotten this reward without going through those circumstances. I mean, it’s a legendary skill reward from a rare path. That doesn’t happen. I have only one other legendary skill and that’s from being identified as a legendary dungeon.

  Alright, which one next? I still have 90 path points left. Let’s do my other rare path. If the rewards are like the previous one where I got |aura of souls|… hehe.

  Nice. Now if I actually had a followers. Sigh. I'm still working on that. Somewhere there's Ah'm and Nattiq. I'm still not sure what they're doing, but if they ever come back, I'll make them a {cloudberry} ward. Namena and her skeleton crew, too, whenever they're getting back.

  Oh, that's right? All my dimensional ice trees have died. She doesn't have a way back at the moment. I need to maker her one, but all my connections to the outside world have gone fuzzy again. I'm not exactly sure where that tree opened up to. I groan. How am I supposed to find it again? Trial and error?

  Ah, wait. There's a couple of blue screens left. I better looking at them before I get started on trying to find that swamp, cove, whatever, or even making more |sentinels|.

  And that's where they were. I was wondering if these screens would pop up. Well there's that. Nothing new. What's the last blue screen say?

  This... What is this?