Chronicles of the True Wizard

Chapter 215 - Book 17

Heading back through a portal, Felix flew into his personal, once vault now compound, and found everything had been trashed.

Running down the halls, Felix saw room after room completely emptied out, walls destroyed and much of the structure he had carefully carved out completely collapsed.

Most of it he could easily get back as the most important items were in his Soul Space, Inventory or in his head. Mostly the frustration of being robbed was what got to him. The one thing he couldn't easily replicate though, was Zero.

Running over to the room where Zero had been training, Felix found an empty room.

Shit. I already killed everyone on the map so where the hell did all of it go? They couldn't have gotten out… could they?

Opening his map back up, Felix's face contorted in confusion as he still saw a marker in his vault indicating a large collection of treasure was there to be found. Zooming in, he narrowed down its location to a large pile of rubble that he began sifting through.

Removing a dozen meters worth of gravel and rock by sticking it all in his inventory temporarily-now that he had more points than he knew what to do with-Felix finally spotted a bunch of crushed plants and various metals. Curious as to how they ended up here when they should have been across the compound, he continued to clear out the rubble even though most of what he found was useless to him now that they had been crushed.

He found a number of corpses and plants, construct parts and bodies in various states of disassembly that had once been spread throughout his compound. Finally, he spotted a recognizable arm and immediately grabbed hold of it. Trying to stow it in his inventory though, Felix found it impossible.

What in The System?

Clearing out the rest of the rubble, Felix dug Zero's body free and pulled him out manually.

"What the hell happened in here?"

Zero looked up at him then pointed at the rubble.

Felix walked back over and continued stowing the rubble until he found Mecada's Sword and a whole lot more ruined treasure. Looking down at the blade, Felix tried to figure out what could have happened but didn't have any good explanation so he turned back to Zero.

Without being connected to Mark and with no way of communicating other than through charades, it wasn't exactly easy to get an explanation from Zero. Now that Felix had his Soul Marks though-the combined anima and mana spell-he could trivially connect Zero to Mark without modifying Zero's construct body to implant a full portal spell form.

Reaching down and placing his hand on Zero's chest, Felix used the Soul Tendrils-that he was finding vastly more useful than he had originally foreseen-and carefully inscribed his modified spell form within Zero's soul.

Unfortunately, his Soul Marks weren't perfect by any means. Even though they were based on portals targeting anchors instead of coordinates, they didn't behave like portals that targeted anchors did. The mana cost scaled proportionally with the distance between the two marks and the anima cost, scaled exponentially. On a single planet, within the world event of Bastorus One, the cost wasn't huge and was easily manageable even for the hundreds of Seeing Eye constructs he had deployed.

Based on some fairly simple calculations though, unless the scaling curve changed for some reason, neither Felix nor Mark would be able to sustain even a single connection across planets. Connecting Mark to Zero now was a temporary solution to facilitate communication but Felix's dream of having Mark coordinate Zero's memories at all times while they completed missions from the adventurer's guild was still a ways off.

Zero could go out and complete missions on his own or complete tasks off world, he just wouldn't be connected to Felix or Mark at all so they would have no idea what was happening until he came back in range and synced, assuming he wasn't stolen or died.

Alright Mark, can you communicate with Zero and tell me what happened?

Yes. Developing custom communication protocol… Syncing memories… Would you prefer I convert this specific memory into an understandable format and show it to you directly?

Actually, yes. Assuming it won't take days…

Affirmative. Converting now… Estimated time remaining is approximately 11 hours.

Alright, that works. I need at least 7 hours or so to regenerate my mana pool anyways.

Dropping to the ground and falling into a meditative pose-for no reason other than being accustomed to the specific sitting position-Felix entered his Soul Garden and began manually drawing in mana as fast as possible from the Aether. Using the same vortex visualization he had used way back in the tutorial his mana regeneration, even while meditating, was orders of magnitude faster.

That rate only lasted for a few minutes though as he drained the Aether immediately surrounding him and it sluggishly moved to replace what he was draining.

He already knew this would be an issue and he had a plan. Opening up portals with a very specific, calculated size, Felix connected his surroundings to 6 different locations across the world event. The locations the portals connected to were all calculated to both maximize the distance between them, minimize interference while also targeting low mana viscosity environments. Notably one of the portals connected him to where the Rakyt city had once stood because the mana around it was incredibly fluid.

Drawing mana from within the portals as well as his surroundings, Felix drastically increased his regeneration and managed to fill his own mana pool in just under 3 hours instead of his predicted 7. It would have been faster had he not drained the locations so quickly and unfortunately changing the portal locations wasn't worth it based on his calculations. Changing the locations netted him a small burst of mana that barely made up for the initial mana cost of the portal itself.

Still, under 3 hours was a huge improvement.

After initially opening the portals, Felix only needed to dedicate around 3 quarters of his focus to his regeneration meaning he had plenty of spare focus for other tasks. In his Soul Garden, 3 hours of real world time was a ridiculous amount of mental time for him so 3 hours, even with just a quarter of his focus, was plenty of time.

During those 3 hours, Felix spent a large chunk of time working on various spell forms but more specifically, improving his own measurements and simulations of spell forms. He ultimately didn't create many new spells or improve many old ones but his ability to simulate the effects of spells forms improved drastically. He was very happy with that time spent even if he didn't have anything concrete to show for it because he knew just how beneficial the simulation accuracy would be for him in the future.

He didn't have to wait very long to reap the benefits either as after spending time on improving its accuracy, he began working on a new variant of spell forms that he had been theorizing for a while now, nodeless spell forms. Theoretically, by replacing the nodes within spells with pre-attuned mana, Felix could drastically lessen the complexity of spells and improve their scaling at the same time. As he re

Note: These effects were removed from all skills and items in the multiverse during the 3rd integration on account of being problematic. Only a small few consumable items created with these effects during that time still exist and function. However, previous reliance on assigned numerical values for resistances failed to take into account willpower and personal ability and were removed in favor of the ability to forcefully resist these effects.

Duration: 5 minutes.

Are you fucking KIDDING ME!

The absurdity of being hit by something that The System effectively patched out millions of epochs ago was frustrating enough for Felix to completely push back and resist the remaining sleep effect. The overall strain on his body from fighting the effect remained and so he still felt exhausted in a way but, it was noticeably different from hormones trying to force his body to sleep.

Fully resisting the sleep effect also made it painfully obvious that he was also completely unable to move. The paralyzing effect was much stronger than the sleep effect and even pushing against it with every ounce of his willpower, Felix didn't feel like he was making any progress.

What made his inability to move feel so much worse, was seeing and hearing everything happening around him.

As soon as his body lay still, he saw a massive brute of a man that looked like his head was an octopus kneeling over him and rifling through his inventory. Being stunned, he couldn't manipulate or do anything with his physical form or System screens. Mana and spells were manually destroyed so all that was left was his Soul Space. There was nothing in there he could come up with a use for right now though so, he was forced to helplessly watch as his inventory was emptied right before his eyes.

The octopus head reached down, pinched the air right above Felix and pulled an Imitation System Core from what looked like thin air. Felix knew he was somehow rifling through his inventory though and it was infuriating.

"Hurry up! I want to get back and visit that new bakery that just opened up." Recognizing the voice, Felix felt rage nearly surpassing any he had ever felt before but it quickly died down. She probably didn't know he and Arthur were the same person, at least as far as he knew she didn't. That fact calmed him a bit but all the rage that left him was replaced by deep confusion.

The tentacle faced thief sighed causing their tentacles to ripple, "Yeah yeah. We're going as fast as we can, Melody. This should be all of them then we just have to track down your most recent fuck toy's stash. Any idea where that is?"

Melody was out of sight for him but given the silence that followed and knowing her and hearing the tone that followed, he assumed she was either shrugging with a stupid look on her face or distracted, "Not really. We didn't spend that much time together in the event."

Wait… She's been in my vault before… she knows it's underground and if she were paying any attention, exactly where it is on her map.

Felix struggled a little more, trying to activate any of the skills in any of his items but found all of them blocked by The System directly. Realizing that, he stowed the rings and anything else he couldn't replace in his Soul Space just to be safe. There was nothing he could do but helplessly watch and wonder.

Another voice from someone Felix couldn't see chimed in, a quieter male sounding voice, "Guess we didn't need so many for this one."

Yet another voice responded, an expressive and young sounding female voice, "Yeah but come on. You heard the same rumors we did, we all agreed to stay on the safe side." Though he couldn't see her, Felix could picture her face just from her tone of voice and the way she spoke, not that he could identify her race from her voice alone it was just the way she spoke was typical and familiar, reminiscent.

The quieter male voice responded, "Yes. I'm not happy about having to search through hundreds of caches on the planet, all no doubt well hidden though. The sooner we can start with that, the sooner we can be finished with it"

As he watched the number of cores get plucked down to about 80 or so, the tentacles above him curled into something that he assumed was a smile, though not with any real confidence, "Well actually, you might not have to…"

The quieter male voice stepped in close enough that Felix could make out a scaled elbow that looked more marine than Drakene, "Why are you making me ask. Just talk."

The tentacles shook his head, "Our guess for how many Melody's lover had was 80 right? I just surpassed 180 from Arthur's inventory alone."

Felix heard the expressive female voice almost cheer in excitement, "So Arthur killed or forced Felix to surrender I guess. So all that's left is implanting the tracker and forcing him to surrender?"

Melody sighed, "That means our cut just got halved and we still have to hand off the quest thingies and collect his bounty so hurry up."

Leaning over him as the last of the cores were plucked from his inventory, the expressive female voice turned out to be a small creature that looked like a tiny humanoid dinosaur. Her features were all soft and round and her skin was green without any scales but the shape of her head with the rounded snout reminded him of a tyrannosaurus or a brachiosaurus. Reaching forwards, she had only four fingers but two of them looked like thumbs, and she poked his cheek with a finger, "You guys really think we had to waste the stun on him?"

"Yes. It's safer. We couldn't have kept it anyways." The quiet voice didn't sound exasperated in the way they spoke but the words they used and their aura told Felix otherwise.

She sighed and stood back up then walked out of Felix's vision, "Yeah yeah, but still… a 5 minute stun is…"

The quiet voice responded, apparently the only one willing to entertain the expressive girl's constant jabber, "Worth a lot and was probably one of a handful left in the multiverse. Yes."

She poked him again, "You know, based on the rumors and all that, why in the heck was Felix worth just as much as-", she kicked Felix-or Arthur-in the side, "-him."

The quiet one responded from what sounded like a fair distance away, "No clue."

Groaning, the expressive female kicked Felix repeatedly in the side too lightly to really do any damage and more out of boredom, "Are you done yet?"

Reaching down and plucking out the last few cores, the tentacle faced individual stood and nodded, "Yup, he's all yours. Melody, let's go drop these off."

Not much more was said but based on sounds alone, Felix was pretty sure Melody and the tentacle faced thief were gone leaving the expressive and tiny dinosaur chick and the quiet fish scaled guy. Stepping onto his stomach and finally fully in view, Felix saw that the dinosaur woman was just over a couple feet tall at most. Walking along his stomach, she inhaled and smiled widely, "So, what do you think I should do to him first?"

"I don't care but we have to implant the tracker first."

"Oh right." Reaching into a pocket on her loose single piece of clothing, she pulled out what looked like a small cylinder. Dropping to one knee on his body, she pressed one end onto his chest and a moment later, Felix felt like someone had shot a literal bullet into his soul.

It pierced the outside layers of his Persona's soul rather easily but couldn't quite make it through the outer layer of his real soul beneath.

"You think it worked?" She looked over at her partner but either got a non verbal response or none at all because she turned back to Felix and shrugged, "Let's get started then, shall we? Wait, he can surrender even while stunned, right?"

"Yes. He can surrender through a System screen."

The System made the screen appear in his vision as if to taunt him and Felix immediately closed it. He still had 2 minutes left on the stun so in the meantime, he dulled his sensation of pain as much as possible and repaired his Persona's soul. Destroying the tracker would have been trivial as it was just some anima spell or something that he could obliterated in an instant but he specifically didn't.

The System couldn't prevent him from using his soul for anything internal which meant he could destroy it whenever he wanted to but, he didn't want them to realize he had done so. He wasn't sure if they had some way of knowing it was destroyed so for the time being, he left it.

Dino-chick started out slow and built up the pain and she was pretty good at what she was doing but she clearly didn't want to kill Arthur and so, she would never let his health drop too far.

After just a few seconds that she probably hoped felt like forever for him but in reality, was just annoying, Felix shifted his consciousness into his Mind City and met with Grim.

Felix specifically ignored the topic of his current predicament, "Thoughts?"

Grim already knew what he was thinking, "I'm in agreement with your assessment, so is Orion and almost all of the residents that watch."

"Any bright ideas as to why someone would impersonate Melody?"

"It could be anything but our best guess is for you, as Felix."

Felix sighed, "They thought I was still running around in here and wanted me to think she had betrayed me."

Grim nodded, "Probably to stop you from calling on her for help."

"Okay. Any ideas?"

"No, not enough information. Contextual and just… in general. You know exactly who has all the contextual information and knows the participants making them the perfect person to figure it out though."

"Yeah, she's not coming back into the event.", Felix shook his head, "They aren't gambling on anything so they definitely have her distracted out there. Who knows, maybe there actually is a bakery that just opened."

"Any ideas how to break out of this?"

"Nope, you're jus-", Grim's head cocked to the side, "-actually yes. You think The System didn't account for time dilation back then or do you think it was always like this?"

Felix frowned until Grim presented him with a projection of his stunned System screen and saw what he saw, the time remaining was being reduced in Soul Garden time, not real time, "This must be a weird interaction, they would have planned around this otherwise. I bet you perceptual time dilation wasn't a thing back then." Checking to be sure, Felix saw his health sitting at around 80%.

The dinosaur woman seemed to believe she had much more time at her disposal than she actually did.

Felix looked back at Grim and nodded, "Alright, you know the plan. Make sure everyone is ready."

Grim nodded in turn and Felix watched the rest of the time on the screen tick down in his Mind City.

As soon as the time left on the stun ticked down to 0, Felix had the forms for multiple spells emblazoned in the forefront of his mind and they were nearly instantly constructed and cast as a result. First he released two Persistent Force Spheres that simply resisted all movement around the quiet guy and the dinosaur girl. The rest of the spells he had prepared he simply held in place but didn't cast, just in case.

Finally free, Felix identified the dinosaur-chick as he sat up, reached forwards and carefully manipulated his spell holding her still so his arm could pass through it.

[C - Epic] Iadrel (Lvl 1452)

Slowly wrapping his fingers around her tiny neck to ensure his grip was absolute, Felix looked over, identified the quiet guy and made sure he wasn't going to escape somehow. He was obviously surprised but rather calm, especially compared to Iadrel.

[C - Legendary] Hadaaz (Lvl 1401)

Keeping Hadaaz in sight, who looked like a fish man except without scales on most of his face, Felix shifted his gaze to lock eyes with Iadrel as he stood. He realized as much as he should have been mad or frustrated, he was just annoyed and was ultimately just resigned to what he had to do, likely a product of the relaxing effect meditation had on him.

"Who."

Iadrel opened her mouth a few times to speak and Felix knew he wasn't crushing her windpipe so after a second of silence, he sighed.

Reaching forwards with his other hand, Felix wrapped his fingers around her jaw and physically tore Iadrel's head from her body then walked over to Hadaaz and took hold of his neck as The Devouring Rings collected Iradrel's body and soul.

"Who."

Hadaaz didn't even open his mouth and just closed his eyes, resigning himself to his fate. Felix killed him in the same way then activated both rings and began tearing through their experiences. Luckily, the promise of a bounty that amounted to a ridiculous fortune and being relatively recent was enough for the experience to be significant, at least for Iadrel.

The exact numerical values were a little fuzzy but from context, Felix figured he and his Persona were worth about 100 S5 if they could implant a tracker and force them to surrender. As for the person who wanted to personally kill him, they used a broker when hiring the thieves and torturers so Felix couldn't identify them. Given the bounty though, it was either a god, a child of a god, the Drakene or many of them pooling resources together.

Figuring out who wanted him dead was ultimately a waste of time and Felix only did it because his entire Mind City was already scanning everything else. He was just hoping if he did figure out who it was, there was a rare chance he found information that was useful in hunting them down.

As soon as he was done, Grim spoke into his mind, Nova is fine. Worst case scenario for the quest though.

Looking around, Felix sighed as the entrance to the quest that had previously existed, was gone. Opening his quest screen, he groaned in frustration.

Quest: The Grand Design

Collect all 256 of the Imitation System Cores. [Complete] (256/256)

Assemble all 256 Imitation System Cores at the specified location. [Complete]

Enter the facility.

Insert the cores into their respective receptacles. [0/256]

Note: All Imitation System Cores must remain within the event at all times going forwards.

They made the hand-off and the client is already in the facility. Any ideas where it is or how to get in now?

No. Your map is empty despite being entirely revealed.

Felix opened his map for himself and panned around out of frustration and desperate hope that he would notice something. As Grim had said, the entire surface of the planet was revealed and all the cache locations he saw, he already knew about before. There was nothing new or different from before and definitely no quest marker.

What about the construct?

Lost connection instantly. Portal was severed.

Great. Now-

Felix's thought was interrupted a moment later as a sleek, matte-black flying vehicle zipped over the horizon and closed the distance towards him in a matter of a few seconds.

Turning to the side and stopping Erevos in the air a safe distance from him, Melody peered over the side of the slicer, only revealing her eyes like she was hiding, and met Felix's eyes.

Calling down, "You gonna try and kill me?"

Felix shrugged, "Should I?"

"Definitely not. Any chance you've seen a quiet and serious looking caster with red hair and whitish robes?"

"You mean Felix?" Felix-as Arthur-called back, "He surrendered to me."

Melody scoffed and stood up a little, revealing a little more of her face over the edge of the slicer, "What? That doesn't sound like him. Also, I couldn't find him out there… weird. Maybe he was in his- Whatever, why are you just standing around?"

"I was robbed. By you."

Sitting up fully, Melody scowled at him and Felix could tell she was examining him to see if he was telling the truth. She seemed to think he was because a moment later, she halved the distance between them, "Explain."

"I was going in. Got hit with a stun and sleep. Was robbed. Bounty on my and Felix's head. Put a tracker in me and tried to force me to surrender. I killed them."

Her frown deepened as he spoke, "Wait… you mean an item from before the 3rd integration, a real System stun?"

Felix nodded.

"And one of the… thieves, looked like me?"

Felix nodded again, "Spoke like you too."

Melody groaned, "Okay well first things first, it wasn't me. I was just at the opening of a new bakery, lots of people can vouch. Second, I know who you're looking for and I want to help."

Felix snorted, "You mentioned the bakery opening before."

Melody pouted and pounded her fist into Erevo's door, "That wasn't me! How could you even confuse us I mean come on, you have to admit finally seeing me up close I have that… x factor. That je ne sais quoi There's no way this impostor could imitate that."

Felix sighed, "Who am I looking for and how do I find them?"

"My brother."

Felix frowned and figured her heritage was common enough knowledge for Arthur to know, "Which one."

"Talrain."

Felix scowled, "Are you sure?"

"Yeah… Dad was robbed… one of the items that was stolen was a stun item he was holding onto along with a lot of credits."

"Where is he?"

Melody pointed and glared at Felix, "Don't kill me." Then she lowered the slicer and hopped out next to it.

Pulling out the instrument Felix had seen her use in Group Combat class, Melody glared at Felix one last time before closing her eyes and tapping at the instrument a few times. Like the last two times Felix had felt Melody use the instrument, a wave of visible gold shot out of the instrument. This time though, it was noticeably denser and moved quite a bit faster.

There wasn't only one though as Melody rapidly tapped at the strings releasing a torrent of gold in every direction in an ominous symphony that shouldn't have been possible from a single instrument. Felix wasn't even sure if he was hearing anything but his soul was filled with a sense of foreboding. Like he was being hunted.

He couldn't fully dissect what the golden waves did but, he was 100% certain he was able to block them out. They were still by far the strongest thing to have ever tried to touch his soul directly, save for The Endless Hunger. He could tell it surpassed what he felt looking at The Flames of Oblivion but now, with his newest protective layer, he wasn't affected even by this, unless he wanted to be.

Suddenly, she stopped playing and stowed the instrument, "He's still here, below us."

Felix took a step forwards, "How far, which direction?"

She fell back a step, still wary of his persona then nodded, "Directly below us, close to the center of the planet. Here." A screen appeared in Felix's vision and he accepted a marker being shared directly to his map. Checking it, he confirmed the marker's location.

Melody fiddled with her fingers and kicked the ground a little, "When you find him…"

"I'm killing him."

She sighed, "I… yeah… I thought you would say that. If it helps, my father will punish him if he leaves this place, alive or dead."

"You know I consume souls."

"Yeah I was just… hoping. There isn't any way I could like… pay you or… is there something you want that I can help you with… or get you?"

Felix shook his head, "No. Now leave."

She looked up and nodded solemnly then opened her exit marble and threw a hoard of items through. She was evidently stalling but Felix didn't immediately force her out because the quest screen hadn't changed at all so he wasn't entirely rushed. At the same time, while she stalled, he prepared a mold for a portal in his Soul Space and a few other items he was going to need.

Felix was happy to see she pushed Erevos through though and that she didn't leave it behind with what she knew to be a destructive, true-killing monster.

Finally done with stalling by throwing a hoard of items that definitely weren't in her inventory, probably to try and entice him into changing his mind, Melody locked eyes with Felix's Persona then made a pouty and squinting expression, "Soooo… is there any chance you could like… return my clothes to me on the outside?"

Felix's face contorted into a grimace of disgust and she scoffed, "Well, I'm not stripping so… I surrender."

Sighing, Felix confirmed her clothes were in his inventory and made a mental note to find a way to return them when he got back then, got right to work.