Dark Matter Ascension

Jace plummeted through the fog and mist as he hurtled towards the ground. As a lush forest came into view, and the treetops grew ever closer, he detonated his Dark Energy Mine. Using the Sliver Arc now integrated into his armor, he pushed himself to the canopy and entered the enormous forest.

The trees were easily sixty or seventy feet wide, with enormous branches. A flight of birds with flaming wings that left behind a flutter of viridian sparks launched themselves away from Jace as he broke through the topmost branches, and his mine's anti-gravity effect ended as he alighted on one of the branches. A message popped up in his vision.

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[Batch Quest: Harvest components from tagged creatures.]

[Current Progress: 0%]

[Time Limit: N/A.]

[Reward: Astral System Integration]

[Sender: Dark Between Stars]

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Jace drew his sword; still ablaze with Void Blade as the entire environment was bathed in a starry, light-blue glow for a moment before it returned to its normal colors of bright, vibrant greens. "Ollie, what was that?"

"An area scan," Ollie stated. "Xera's got the whole planet mapped, and since it is part of The Cosmic System, and we got local administrator access, I can do pulses to detect locations of things related to you in a limited area."

Jace saw highlighted silhouettes through the trees; bright, glaring red that was on the edge of irritating to his gaze, a deep, burnished orange, and a deep blue. "I'm guessing red is for things I need to cull?"

"Yup! Red is something to cull which also has valuable components – aka, we do not dust them. Orange are things we cull which we do dust, and blue we stay away from."

"Should be easy enough. Wildlife doesn't really stand a chance with my clo-"

"About that," Ollie interrupted. "Dark Matter Cloak will keep you hidden, but this whole world is alive and powerful. The mere absence of the ambient environment you are occupying will be detected by anything on this world."

Jace felt dismay, "That sucks. One of the best Skills I have made completely useless?"

Ollie frowned, "I know, it sucks. And what is worse is that even though you are believed dead, the fact that your stealth variant was ever invented means that it is now a known variable. Others are using their Cosmic or Ascended power trying to replicate it, whilst others are finding ways like gravitic sensors for detection."

"It is an arms race," Quinn stated over the comms. "You come up with a new stealth Skill, over a few months, people come up with their own version, or variant versions, and defenses against it. You need to utilize it differently."

"How?" Jace asked.

"Skill Ascension," Ollie stated.

"I thought I can't wrap myself in Void. That it'll make me disappear or something."

"You can't," Xera interjected. "But I came up with an idea. Quinn, mind tossing him an Uncommon (Variable)?"

"Sure," Quinn replied.

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[Gift Received: Uncommon (Variable) Boon.]

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"Now," Xera stated. "I want you to use that Boon on Skill Ascension. We are going to tap into the Edge Advanced Class, more than the Void Ascended Power."

"Alright," Jace replied. "Ollie, do it."

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[Using Boon: Uncommon (Skill Ascension).]

[Applying to Skill.]

[Skill Name: Dark Matter Cloak.]

[Ascended Power applied: Void.]

[Reset accumulated Ranks?]

[Yes / No.]

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[Confirmed.]

[New Skill Name: Void Stalker (Rank 1).]

[Effect: Uses Void to eliminate all traces of the user; making them nearly impossible to detect.]

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"In this way," Ollie began, "You do not wrap yourself in anything – meaning that you no longer present yourself as something in an environment as a disruption. It eliminates all trace of you being there."

"This feels like a downgrade," Jace replied. "I can't be invisible anymore?"

"It's not bad," Xera replied. "Given the new defensive countermeasures being developed, this is that 'next step' in the arms race Quinn mentioned. Means of detection will be fooled by this, including the gravitic sensor power many Black Hole and Supermassive users have access to. Instead of being a void in the gravitic field, you will be akin to a small blip on a radar screen – easy to miss unless one is paying complete attention to their detection. Plus, it is less energy intensive. The downside is that once you attack someone, they will know you are there. But if you are just sneaking around? Far better."

Void Stalker (Rank 1), Jace thought. He saw the grey white of Void power wrap around him in a tighter and closer-to-armor wrapping than the Void Shield which was about an inch away from his body. "Oh, that works, I guess." He checked the 'kill list' and the Batch Quest Xera had sent. "What's this Astral System Integration reward?"

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Xera's voice was excited, and she spoke rapidly. "Well, I figured out how we can backdoor the Astral System and we can use it for ourselves. I cannot just give you something outright since I am not an administrator – I must use a Civilian interface persona to assign a Quest which grants the reward. And…I need you to be stronger before you integrate this new System. Preferably Tier 10. Tier 9, at a minimum."

Jace understood, "We will get enough Stardust here for that?"

"We should," Quinn said. "The materials from these creatures are quite valuable. Hide, scales, claws, teeth, something called Chi Spheres that can be harvested from the center of their mass – a whole bunch of components that we can sell for a hefty profit."

Jace looked around and identified the closest red blob a short distance away. "Well then, time to get to culling." He leaped from tree to tree, feeling the branches slightly move and dip with his motion as if the forest itself were alive and aware of his presence. Dappled sunlight glimmered down in beams through the trees and between bunches of branches. Jace could see the thousands of highlighted creatures all going about their business – odd squirrel shaped entities with deer antlers and hued the colors of the rainbow were chattering about in the boughs all around. The same type of birds that he had startled were preening themselves, as brief sparks of light flitted from their wings only to be seemingly absorbed by the canopy above.

On the ground, lush grass and moss grew in varying patches, as terrestrial animals moved about; rabbit-like creatures that were the size of small dogs, with large singular horns that they used to help root about the bases of trees being the most prominent. The sounds of insect life – buzzing, chirping, burrowing – was all around Jace.

But he pushed all of that aside. He had a job to do and could revisit this world once he rescued Chroma. I'm adding this place to my world tour list, he thought.

Stopping on a small branch that his legs were able to anchor onto for support, Jace saw his prey. Ten feet tall at the shoulders; a quadrupedal creature covered with scales. It looked like a horse, mixed with some type of eagle, and it was covered in scales that accompanied a lush mane. Enormous, razor-sharp horns jutted from the top of its head. The creature was grazing on some of the grass.

"That is a Zifran," Ollie stated.

Jace nodded and jumped from branch to branch until he was over the top of the creature. Should be easy enough, he thought as he held the Void Blade point-down. Just drop down, right into the skull. He stepped forward and let himself plummet the twenty feet onto the creature's head, sword pointing tip-first, as it stabbed down into the creature's skull. He felt the creature collapse under him, and he rolled with the collapse, ending up on his feet. "That was easy," he stated as he summoned his sword back to his hand.

"Not so sure," Ollie stated. The Zifran exploded with crimson flames as it stood up, "Everything on this world has cultivated its power. Expect cheat-death Skills, random powerups out of the blue, and what would be referred to as 'breaking limits'."

"That's bullshit!" Jace shouted as the thing stood up in front of him, reared back, and released an enormous, ear-shattering roar that scattered all of the wildlife, flattened the grass, and summoned a dark storm cloud overhead that began to rain fire upon him. Priam's barrier blocked all of it; and since it was fueled by the power of Star and Gigastar – this level of heat did nothing to it. "They just randomly get stronger?"

"Especially against strong foes," Ollie said. "This is going to be a challenge!"

Jace raised his sword as the creature charged at him. It came barreling towards him, the horn on the center of its head elongating and igniting with crimson flames. Jace rolled out of the way of the charge, slicing a line through the side. But where he sliced, gouts of lava burst out and coated the barrier – Priam's shield cracked but ultimately held as the thing finished its loop, turned back to Jace at the end of its charge, and then lowered its horn.

A beam of brilliant, ruby energy began to shoot out towards Jace – but his thoughts were quicker than it could fire. Void Counter (Rank 8), he thought. The ruby line vanished, and the Zifran let out a snort of rage. Thankfully, Jace did see the crimson of [Rending] still spreading – which meant that the Void was spreading.

"Crap! Turn that off!" Ollie said.

"Why?" Jace asked as he used his grapple to ascend to a tree, dodging another charge.

"We need to harvest it. You can't do that if it is destroyed by Void!"

Jace deactivated Void Blade, "No Void Beam either?"

"Unless you don't want the components," Ollie replied as Jace jumped from the tree to another as the one he was standing on was incinerated by sparkling, orange flames that began to lick away at the surrounding trees. But then those trees seemed to come alive, to an extent, as their bark seemed to slide over the ignited sections to snuff it out.

Great, Jace thought, None of my damage Skills can be used. So, what, I'm just supposed to keep cutting away at it with my sword? He glanced down to Nethaldrim, then back to the Zifran. Cocking back his arm, he threw it. But the creature parried the blade with its horn before rearing back once more, letting out an ear-shattering whinny. Jace summoned the blade back to his hand, activated the blades on his Steelstalker Sabatons, and jumped down once more.

He caught the thing on one of its legs, slicing through the appendage – but once more he was blasted with lava from the wound. Priam's barrier broke, and Jace saw his energy slowly start to drain as Void Shield was fueled. The Zifran turned around as its leg grew back, and it kicked out with a hoof that Jace was able to deflect with his sword. Ducking underneath the creature, he stabbed upward, planting his blade deep, and then ran forward; completely gutting the creature.

The thing collapsed to the ground, and then once more ignited with brilliant flames as it stood up, its wounds healed over, and its leg grew back. The flames that billowed were more intense; so intense that the trees began to uproot themselves and move away. "Oh, come on!" Jace shouted. "That's not fair!"

"Welcome to a world of cultivation," Ollie replied. "Most of the time, those cheat death Skills have a handful of uses. Just keep killing it."

Jace felt himself getting irritated, and he tapped into that to activate Wrath's Embrace (Rank 10) [Focused]. Running forward in a blink, faster than the thing could react, he lopped its head off, cut all four legs, and for good measure removed the tail. All in a single, smooth charge that took less than a second to execute. The things' parts began moving, trying to get to each other, but ultimately it stilled. Jace let Wrath's Embrace fade, but kept Void Shield active. "So," he said as he took in a sharp inhale, "I have to dismantle them to get around it."

"We won't know from a single sample size," Quinn said. "Put the thing into your TPSB. You should be able to fit three corpses that size before you have to pop back to The Cosmic Corridor. Then, I can warp them from your TPSB to Xera's warehouse, where it can be disassembled, processed, and the components sold."

"Good thing I don't have to butcher it," Jace replied as he touched his shin to each piece of the creature, and it was sucked into the TPSB. "Now to find the next one." Turning around, he saw another glow through the trees not too far off – another one of the same creatures judging by the outline. Go in, kill it, then dismember it. And if it works a second time, then I've got a means to get around this stupid cheat death Skill.

"Being a bit hypocritical," Ollie stated.

"What?" Jace replied as he jumped up into the trees to traverse the forest more rapidly.

"You have had several near-death experiences – in fact you have experienced body death. The NICIF has saved your life several times now. Is that not the same as their cheat Skills?"

That gave Jace pause, "I mean…I guess it's similar."

"It is the same," Ollie replied. "Just a different means. Magic and cultivation versus magitech nanites keeping your brain intact."

Jace got into sight of the second Zifran. Keeping his blade out, he dropped down from above – not stabbing the blade into the brain but instead chopping off the head. Lava spurted out from the stump, but Jace kicked the still-moving head over to the foot of a tree. Let's see how th-

His body was thrown forward, and he went sprawling onto his face. Rolling over and kipping up to his feet, he saw the body of the creature prance over to its head, where it reattached, and then the thing let out a loud, braying neigh. "Really?!"