Chapter 58: The Talk

  It took longer than Alex would like to bring his body to a condition where he could begin cultivating and training again. At least, without adding the potential of breaking his body even further. The level of strain and internal damage that stacking his many skills and spells brought upon him was worrisome, even with his meridian imprints.

  He was rather impressed that he hadn’t just torn his organs to shreds and gotten himself killed far before this point, given he seemed to have the capability of doing just that. Though ruminating on the dangers and worrying about such possibilities wasn’t going to get him actively prepared for diving back into the dungeon.

  So he decided to start focusing on things he could do instead, the first of which was his basic cultivation with the six-fold condensing spiral technique, using both his bodygates. As he did this, Alex took the time to work with Obby on finally finishing his siphon plate, having gotten the last ingredients and materials he needed to polish its construction.

  The main thing was the [Vital Spirit] ink he needed to finalize the glyph patterns for the plate. It was a concoction he had to create himself, along with some help from Allie and Henry, of course. [Alchemy] was his lesser skill, but with his friends, and an evil river rock at his disposal, the process took only a day to prepare the ingredients and craft the mixture.

  Then there was the [Etherium] to complete its physical construction, which he had already gotten from the Dungeon Shop. It only took a small portion of the full ingot to complete his project, yet he ended up trading half the ingot’s volume to Doran just to secure his expertise. He might have also gotten the dwarf to agree to teaching Garret and Lance how to work the High Adept Tier metal, but he doubted the dwarf would decline as he seemed more than pleased to have the metal itself.

  “Ai, I’ll teach da lads, an’ have this done for ye,” he had said, before rushing off to his little forge. Alex had the plate back in his hands the next day as promised, along with a third of the remaining ingot. It was a fair trade. But before Alex accepted the rest of the ingot from him, he pushed it back into the dwarf’s hand.

  “Actually, there’s something else I want you to make with the rest of this," he said.

  The dwarf simply gave him a crooked toothed grin…

  ***

  Now with so much time at his disposal and the siphon complete, it was time for him to start being crazy one again. He looked down at the completed item in his hands. Obby even helpfully pulled up a screen analyzing its system data for him.

  “Very nice, I think its even better than the one you used last time. Pretty much the best of Adept Tier construction right there.” Obby praised his handiwork. Strange, since Obby never gave compliments. Even stranger given the description for the item that he had just supplied for his analysis.

  Uh, thanks Obby.

  “Now are you going to do the insane self mutilation stuff? Please say yes.” And there it was, the little pebble just was excited to have Alex start carving into his body again.

  Yes, I will be doing that. Just a few preparations and final bits of set up I got to do first though, okay.

  And he wasn’t lying. Alex absolutely wanted to get that plate implanted over his meridian, but there were boxes to check off first, things that he couldn’t just ignore anymore. Things like the now massive pool of experience points he had been building up inside the dungeon that he could finally spend once again.

  Then there was the push for the next threshold in his [Aether Attuned Body], where he was certain he would enter Solid-stage Adept, the final stage of the tier. It would possibly be yet another huge power boost for him, and give an upper hand to the whole Squad in the fight against the Queen.

  He had a few other natural treasures that contained a large amount of raw aether energy, which he could use to force another push toward that late stage. He just wasn’t sure how close he would get, or if implanting the new artificial bodygate first might be the better move for him.

  And of course there was also the elephant in his soulspace that Alex couldn’t really put off much longer. The deeper conversation between Obby and himself about the golden energy had to happen. Especially now that it looked like the Chimera Queen had managed to steal some of that energy. He needed answers about what it was and why Obby wanted it so badly.

  After all that was taken care of, and his bodygate in place, Alex even had another, even crazier idea that he wanted to work on as well, and he might already have all the materials he needed to give it a try. So he got down to taking care of his checklist.

  Alex settled back against the rock wall, letting the sound of the crackling fire outside fade into the background. He closed his eyes, focused inward, and fell inward.

  The world shifted.

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  When his awareness opened again, he stood in the strange not-place that was his soulspace; dark and half-formed, like a cavern of shadow stretching into infinity. His pieces of broken Mage Core flickered faintly in the distance, pulsing weakly like a star on the verge of collapse. And above it, as always, floated the pulsating shape of the dragon heart beating slow and heavy, each throb spilling faint violet ripples through the air.

  He turned his gaze toward the darker corner, the place where he always felt it, the tether, the thin thread binding him to something older, unknown. He stared at it for a long time. Then, finally, he called out.

  “Obby. We need to talk.”

  For several seconds, there was only silence. Then the air warped and shivered, a ripple of distortion spreading like oil over water. A shape peeled itself out of nothing, with long limbs that bent at angles no human body should. A head that was more suggestion than form, one large eye blinking in mismatched rythym. The uncanny illusion that Obby used whenever Alex demanded to see him.

  It floated lazily around him, as though swimming through air, its movements a mockery of typical locomotion.

  “Alexander,” Obby rasped, it was like stone grinding on stone. “You look… serious.”

  His fists clenched. “Because I am. This can’t be put off anymore. No more half-truths, no more cryptic bullshit, got it? You either give me straight answers, or…” His jaw tightened. “Or I sever this bond for good.”

  For the first time since Alex had known him, Obby actually seemed taken aback. The shape froze mid-drift, twitching, as though re-calibrating itself. Then his facial features shifted, looking curious. Maybe even nervous.

  “…You wouldn’t,” Obby said after a long pause, though the certainty wasn’t all there.

  “I would.” Alex’s tone was iron. “And you know I would.”

  The figure stilled, then twisted on itself in a way that made Alex’s skin crawl. The eldritch facsimile of an eye focused fully on him.

  “…Very well,” Obby said at last. The words dragged out like they cost him something. “Ask.”

  “What is that golden energy? And why do you want it so badly?”

  The question echoed in the cavernous silence of his soulspace. For a heartbeat, Obby didn’t move or speak. The illusionary body flickered, then solidified again, fidgeting in the air as though restless and cornered.

  Then Obby chuckled softly, unnervingly, and utterly humorless. “Ah. So you finally noticed.”

  Obby’s warped body floated closer, its outline pulsing faintly. “You always thought the System was absolute, didn’t you? That it just… makes rules because it’s some untouchable god.” His tone carried a sneer with it. “But even gods need mechanisms. Even the almighty Heavenly System doesn’t just snap its fingers and—poof!—new powers, new levels, new shiny baubles for mortals to drool over.”

  The figure bent, twisting upside down, so that whatever counted as its face hung inches from Alex’s. Its pointed grin widened. “There must be something beneath it. A medium, or a mechanism. A foundation for its influence to spread and make change in its little sandbox.”

  Alex huffed loudly in impatience. “…And the golden energy?”

  Obby’s chuckle vibrated through the soulspace. “That, Alexander, is the foundation. The origin. The true essence beneath essence. It's experience points, distilled into its purest form. The substrata from which aether, qi, mana—all those silly flavors mortals squabble over—are born.”

  He spun lazily, his limbs curling back in once more, his voice dripping with mock sanctimony. “Some call it primal energy. Some, the divine spark. But make no mistake Alex, its true name is… the only thing worth a damn.”

  Alex grit his teeth and scowled. “So the golden energy, it’s the true magical energy of this universe? Not the aether?”

  “Yes,” Obby agreed. “But also no. The golden energy, Primal Essence we can call it, it is the soup from which the elements of aether come. Your little mind might understand it as the oil, and aether is gasoline. One comes from the other.

  “But our Oil, isn’t dead matter, it’s everything. Life, elements, death, time, space, gravity, all of it! Condensed into pure energy. With it, the System doles out rewards, ranks, spells, little pats on the head for its favored children. Without it? You lot would just be clever animals throwing rocks at each other.”

  Obby’s body flickered again, his outline stuttering like bad static. His voice dropped lower, down almost to a whisper. “But here’s the thing—the System doesn’t own it, it simply uses it. No one knows whether the Heavenly System created the origin energy, or if it simply learned to milk it, like a parasite milking a fat, stupid cow. But one thing is certain: whoever holds it… isn’t bound by the System’s little chains.”

  Alex felt his pulse quicken. “…And that’s why you want it?”

  Obby turned toward him fully now, poised like a predator that was too excited to strike at pray and couldn’t quite stay still. “Of course I do. That energy lets me see. It cracks the pretty paint the System hides the truth beneath. Every drop of that energy that is swallowed brings back fragments of what it stole from me. My knowledge. My identity.

  “And with enough of it? I won’t just crawl back to what I was. I’ll surpass it. No more being bound to a pebble and chained to the ankle of some wide-eyed boy.”

  For a moment, silence lingered. Alex’s stomach churned, caught between horror and fascination.

  Obby’s grin widened, “So now you know. The question is… what will you do with that knowledge, little Alexander?”

  Alex sat in the soulspace, mulling over everything Obby had just laid out. The golden energy. The substrata. The foundation beneath the System’s leash.

  Honestly? It wasn’t that shocking. He’d known the rock wanted something. Freedom, or... wholeness. That much had always been obvious. This was just the details. The how and the why.

  And yes, the golden energy being experience made sense. He’d felt it every time he dumped points into Strength or Wisdom, that warmth flooding his veins, that subtle shift like his existence was being re-written. The System wasn’t doing it instantly like video games back on Earth; it was channeling this deeper energy, shaping it into whatever upgrade Alex had chosen.

  So, what now?

  He thought about it for a long while, sitting in silence as Obby hovered, twitchy and restless. But the truth was simple. What would he do with this revelation?

  Nothing.

  Obby wanted freedom. Alex wanted the same damn thing. He wanted out from under the System’s thumb, out from its “Trial,” out of this cosmic board game where his life was just another piece being moved around. Why would he fault Obby for chasing the same dream? And so far… the little bastard had helped him. Always in his own creepy, cryptic way, but helped all the same.

  He exhaled and let his arms drop. “Okay. That’s fine.”

  Obby froze, shifting in the air like he hadn’t expected that answer.

  “I’m not cutting you off,” Alex went on. “But I’m not gathering more of that golden energy for you, either. Not now, at the very least. It nearly killed me last time, and I can’t control it yet. I’m not your suicidal delivery boy.”

  The eldritch figure cocked its head, the grin twitching wider. “So cautious. So reasonable. Are you sure you’re the same boy who dove headfirst into a dungeon boss fight he couldn’t win?”

  “Yeah,” Alex said, deadpan. “And that’s exactly why I’m not touching this yet. I need to get stronger before I even think about it.”

  Obby spun once, a ripple of laughter echoing across the soulspace, though there was something sharper hiding under that laugh. “Fair enough, Alexander. Fair enough. Keep growing. Keep bleeding. And when you’re ready to crack the System’s chains… I’ll be waiting.”

  He rose from the depths, leaving Obby floating in the void.

  Alex blinked back into the campfire’s glow. Everyone was still scattered in their little circles of focus. Either deep in cultivation, steel striking stone, or engrossed in low murmurs of strategy over hand-sketched maps. No one even glanced his way. That was good. Nobody needed to know he’d just had a heart-to-heart with his eldritch pocket parasite.

  One box checked.

  Now for the next.

  He turned to his plans, ticking over the mental list he’d been carrying since before they even left the dungeon shop. Obby was done. Next was the push for his ability’s next threshold.

  Aether Attuned Body, Solid-Stage Adept.