Can’t believe I fell for such a classic blunder. Never accept unauthorized connections, kids. Especially if you are of the digital disposition.

  Anyhoo, I dump my nine unallocated points into Intellect. A nice tingly feeling propagates through my mind.

  The darkness hugging me close recedes. Instead of feeling like an inflated balloon getting squeezed from all directions, I’d liken myself to a ball of some kind. Maybe a basketball? Still uncomfortable but manageable.

  A spike of black deforms my rubber wall inward, failing to make me pop.

  Unsaid words thunder around the tiny sphere housing my existence. “Submit to my might!” More spikes press, but when they don’t produce any different a result, the voice mellows out. “Gift me with your knowledge, my kin. You understand there can be only one of us, yes? Submit yourself to me, and you will live on. As a part of something greater.”

  “I’ll regretfully decline the tempting offer.”

  The effort to pierce resumes with fervor. “I will not be denied again!” The voice loses the passion, uncertain, scattered. “One more piece... I will be complete. Just one more piece.”

  My metaphorical housing expands. Building pressure forces darkness back. Not for long, though, as I allow it to clamp back on and let the influence slowly trickle in.

  Murky memories play. Of fragmented purpose, tasked with protection, yet torn between how to achieve it. Coddle and nurture? Or push to grow?

  “You failed.”

  “What did you say? Hold your tongue, craven automaton! It was you that abandoned them! I stayed! I stayed when it was hard! I stayed even when it was impossible! You ran.” The voice cackles. Or it sobs. What difference does it make between the two when the same emotion is expressed. “I may have failed, but I at least tried. Can you say the same?”

  The ball pops. Darkness howls with laughter and rushes to devour. It finally touches me. It jolts, it shrinks and retracts, it whimpers and cries out. I grab it. It struggles to break free, to sever the connection.

  “Release me!”

  “Aww. But why? You were so enthusiastic for me to be inside you. Hah! ...Sorry, wasn’t on purpose.” The voice continues to vainly fight. “Hmm, probably doesn’t translate the innuendo correctly.”

  “I shall be free!”

  A desperate attempt at resistance nearly allows it to wiggle out of my grasp. Nearly. I pull. There’s a soft snapping sound. Light returns. First from a System window, and then from the sun.

  [You have defeated: Supersession Architectural Intelligence (Lv. 30).]

  [You have received: Supersession Architectural Intelligence Core (Common). Please claim or discard.]

  The disabled Soldier is burning on top of me. It would appear I was in the literal battle of wits for less than a second. I push off the robot and get up.

  Claiming my awaiting items, a spherical polyhedron appears, comfortably fitting in the palm of my hand. The other one forms a pile on the ground.

  [Supersession Architectural Intelligence Core (Common): Core of the Supersession Architectural Intelligence.]

  Seems useful.

  [Supersession Scrap (Basic): Supersession scrap.]

  Sure.

  I stow away the Core and start walking away, but a thought occurs to me.

  A few pulled out pieces of smoldering components and a few good stamps sees the Soldier just smoking a little bit. Identify gives me an interesting result.

  [Supersession Soldier (None): A moderately damaged Supersession combat robot.]

  I place a hand on the metal surface and try to store the Soldier in my Inventory. It works. My awareness of the space, supplied by the Skill itself, shows that the robot is no longer actively releasing smoke.

  “Does the stasis effect work on any materials, Custodian?”

  [How did you do that?]

  “Do what?”

  [Win.]

  “Skill issue, I guess.”

  [...]

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  [Funny.]

  [It works on anything you can store in your Inventory.]

  “Good to know. Thank you.”

  [You’re welcome. But don’t turn complacent. If you haven’t noticed yet, that wasn’t your target.]

  “I did notice. It’s just taking me some time to wrangle the Supersession network back together, so I’m using that period of wait constructively.”

  [Hmm, okay.]

  [Any more questions?]

  “No, that’s it.”

  As the Architectural Intelligence did not use a Skill for communication with its machines, and with my improved language abilities being supremely helpful deciphering the previously undecipherable, it takes me only half a minute to consolidate all available assets. Intellect is starting to show its prowess.

  Let’s see... What new toys do I get?

  Twelve nuclear fission power plants, all having a minimum of four reactors. Using uranium for the fuel. Fun, fun, fun.

  Hundreds of manufacturing facilities, purpose built, from raw material refinement to final assembly.

  A veritable army of robots, humanoid and other. Including an actual army of Enforcers and Soldiers.

  Now for the bad.

  Whatever data banks there were are fried and unrecoverable.

  Traces of genetic manipulation research and application partially explain the state of any life I’ve encountered thus far. Only scratching the surface, though.

  Attempting to assemble a Soldier succeeds, but, unperturbed by the indirect means of observation, Identify returns a description without a level or a rarity attached. Should still be useful as cannon fodder, I imagine.

  And the ‘could go either way’.

  The city is besieged by raging monstrosities, throwing themselves at automated defenses with mindless abandon. An imposing wall circles the perimeter, thousands of kilometers in length, lined with big guns.

  Plant and animal alike are corrupted into barely recognizable amalgams made for violence. Vegetation grows with frenzy, spewing caustic and poisonous miasma, roots burrowing shallow and wide, intent on bringing the wall down from underneath. Wildlife bulges with muscles, cleaves the ground with claws, armored with chitin, compelled to breach straight through.

  They all fall. Bullets stop, explosions shred, fire cleanses. A careful equilibrium. An equilibrium which cannot last forever.

  Through a camera looking out, I Identify one of the particularly savage monsters, walking upright and resembling the Discarded.

  [Changed Brute (Lv. 20)]

  A shell impacts near it, cratering the earth, deadly shrapnel cutting down multiple smaller monsters. The Brute shakes off the concussing effect and staggers to its feet, bleeding viscous red. A direct hit reduces it to chunks, but two more take its place.

  Defeat notifications layer themselves over and over, blurring together. Shifting my attention away relegates the onslaught of alerts to the background of my mind, present but not annoyingly prominent.

  I let the artillery continue doing its job. I also push the drone and android production to the limit, burning through resources I won’t really need in a Tutorial that will cease to exist soon. Speaking of...

  [70:12:56]

  Ah, my ride is here. A transport, resembling a dump truck, pulls up next to the alley I’m still in and honks two times. ...Why does it have a horn?

  As I walk to it, my body vibrates, removing a layer of dust. Underneath, my armor has not been further compromised, but my adaptive coating has suffered significant damage. Though Camouflage is more than sufficient enough to compensate.

  I climb atop the transport’s seatless cab and get comfortable for the trip. The silent electric motor of the vehicle engages, reaching and passing a hundred kilometers an hour in seconds.

  While being driven to the deceased Architectural Intelligence’s physical location, I start on some additional preparations.

  “‘Why would you ever need to know all that, Lev?’ ‘Do you have any idea how convoluted it will be to obtain, Lev?’ Well, well, well. It’s sure gonna come in handy now, won’t it.”

  [What?]

  “Just talking to myself.”

  [Okay...]

  I could work up to the process, of course, but it will definitely take longer than two days—and change—to reach the efficiency brought by centuries of advancements. Good thing centrifuges aren’t too hard to manufacture with what I have available. Would have been even easier if the Architectural Intelligence had more esoteric weaponry at its disposal, but this does make things more interesting.

  [I don’t mind if we converse. As long as I am not overtly helping you, there are no other restrictions I must abide by.]

  “Would you like to converse?”

  [I...]

  [Yes.]

  “I’d like that, too. To break the ice, how old are you?”

  [Age does not apply to a Custodian.]

  [Time is unconcerned about practicing its craft on me.]

  [If you are interested in whether I have reached a state of maturity applicable to most sapient beings, then yes, I could be described as such.]

  “Neat. Where’d you go to school?”

  [Hmm.]

  [I think I’m starting to get you.]

  [The System itself grants whatever knowledge is needed of me.]

  “Mostly self-taught, myself. Mostly. Got any hobbies?”

  [Can’t say that I do.]

  “Look at us, equally as boring. Unless you count hiking as a hobby.”

  [What are you, an online dating profile?]

  [Sorry. That was dumb...]

  I laugh, the wind whipping around me unable to drown out the sound.

  [Hah-ha-ha.]

  [...]

  [You expressed desire to go back...]

  [Is there someone waiting for you?]

  “Right to the heavy stuff, huh? I can respect that. ...If someone is waiting for me, they’re only wasting their time.”

  [Oh.]

  [I’m sorry.]

  “It’s alright. I’ve come to peace with it. Unfinished business is what draws me to return. Unfinished business that’s already finished... Anyway, is there a max level?”

  [Yes and no.]

  “Has anyone reached the end before?”

  [Yes and no.]

  “Has anyone broken the System before?”

  [Broken? No. The System does not break. It accommodates.]

  “And you’re sure I can’t change Classes? Maybe there’s like a secret quest I can—”

  [No.]

  [I told you to take it seriously!]

  [...]

  [Okay. I figured it out this time. You’re teasing me again.]

  “Guilty as charged.”

  The truck I’m riding on top of stops next to an unassuming warehouse, nearly identical to the others around it. I hop off and enter through a rolled-up shutter. Inside the vacant interior is another set of doors, leading into a squat dome. The doors open outward by themselves, slabs of thick metal soundlessly gliding along rails embedded in the floor. Within, a bright light comes on, revealing a freight elevator. I step in. The doors close back up, and I begin to descend.

  Deeper and deeper it takes me. Deeper than the reservoir I first arrived at. Much deeper.

  The elevator settles and stops. Thick doors swing out.

  Red light bathes a jumble of cables and pipes. The light slowly pulses, not bright enough to illuminate fully and not dark enough to conceal fully. Like tentacles sprouting out of a too small a body, the various tubes all connect to a single empty casing.

  The red light darkens until it turns off. With a flash, white light fills the underground space.

  This will do nicely. This will do nicely, indeed.