Merchant Of Yliaster

In the orbit of Planet Sendir, a spaceship strained as it tried to escape the chains of post-system gravity. The ship, which moved through an intricate combination of magic and science, strained as it was exposed to conditions which was only guessed from the planet below, and the guesses were proving to be wrong.

Inside the ship, an unnatural harmony was present, as pilots and engineers worked with unseen efficiency, solving the problems one after another like a well-oiled machine of the old industrial age.

On the helm, a woman in a tactical spacesuit stood, her red hair tied to a neat bun that could fit inside a helmet if the need for it arose.

There were no visible signs of communication in the ship, and the only sound was the ship itself straining under the unrealistic commands of the crew.

Ella sighed as she watched the planet Sendir getting smaller below her. Despite the recent times on the planet, there were still some good memories in her mind about the planet. Maybe they were the memories of a young girl who saw the world through rose-tinted glasses, but there was still a feeling of nostalgia as she stared at the planet below.

She knew the ship would exit the atmosphere fine, as it had been proven before that it could as long as the systems were controlled properly. The only prerequisite had been an AI powerful enough to adapt to all changes when they were exiting the planet.

This proved some problems, as AIs were temporarily extinct after the initiation. Right now, they were just poor imitations of the early language models humanity invented thousands of years ago.

In the end, I'm doing what they want, but I will do it for myself, Ella thought as she intricately controlled the mental web covering the ship. Psychologists of old would be delighted to see the representation of the collective mind, as she barely had anything other than just linking the minds of everyone.

The memories of Clementine were still there, and she still remembered the Zephyrian harmony. Emotions flowing through a world covered with the web of thought. Any death was mourned by all, and any injustice was felt and corrected immediately. No grudge was long-lasting, and no anger was unjustified as emotions were felt by any who listened.

It was interesting to see how people could be in harmony when they knew what each other felt and thought, and what their justifications were. Ella was happy to say that the web of thought inside this ship was the most meaningful thing she had ever done with her abilities, yet only a poor imitation.

None inside the ship was brainwashed, and none were under any mental control. They were just shown the true life of Ella Crain, an ambitious scientist who became the experiment herself, and they were willing to help.

As she watched the world below her getting smaller, a countdown reached zero.

The Official Start Of Phase Two Commencing.

True Nobilities are awarded.

Welcome to the Grand Continuum,

Nobility Rank Given: Primarch

Level Of Nobility: Universal Apex

Title Bestowed: Weaver Of The Second Web

Planetary Vassal: Pending

Ella smiled, ignoring all of the details and changes to the system interface, looking at her title. A confirmation lay before her eyes.

"It was real then," Ella spoke, being the first person to speak in the now silent spaceship.

Herman walked through the streets, no one seeing him as he passed them by. He moved through crowded streets, which at one point got even more crowded due to a stubborn driver trying to pass through with their car, denying the changes that came with the initiation.

He watched the car pass by, seeing that it was being driven by an equally unreal man as the other people around him. Threads of their already weak perception were cut as he moved through the crowd, none realizing that they were letting the precious butcher of the city go.

In the streets, many people with medieval-looking armors were present, and Herman couldn't help but note that almost all the threads coming from these armors were similar. The materials were prepared by him, he was sure.

So that was my purpose? Herman thought as he kept moving for almost an hour. His journey brought him to a small hill, and he stopped beside a shepherd girl who was dealing with her sheep.

He glanced at the sheep and marveled at the movement of the threads. To think that he was fascinated by butchering dead or almost dead animals for so long. Many thought that animals lacked distinction, personalities, and emotions.

To Herman's senses, this idea was preposterous, yet he figured one didn't need his senses to come to this conclusion. There was, though, a different reason why he stopped here.

He glanced at the shepherd girl, an interesting variance over the boy shepherds of the stories he used to listen to when he was a kid.

The girl was walking with a smile on her face, and for a moment, Herman could swear that the sheep was also smiling. An intricate flower of threads connected the girl to the sheep around her, and Herman could detect no skill in use. He observed the girl, making this one of the few instances that he used the skill.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Shepherd - Level 14

There was no magic in the connection between the girl and the animals. He found the idea even more magical. For a moment, the girl felt real to him. In his daze, he didn't realize that an important time had come.

Official Start Of Phase Two Commencing.

True Nobilities are awarded.

Welcome to the Grand Continuum,

Nobility Rank Given: Primarch

Level Of Nobility: Universal Apex

Title Bestowed: Butcher Who Admires

Planetary Vassal: Pending

A vassal? Herman thought, looking at the notification. As he questioned, information flowed into his mind, similar to the time when he was given skills by the system. Apparently, universal apex, as a nobility level, meant that he could choose a single vassal on every planet. This vassal would be considered to have the highest nobility on the planet.

"Well, it might as well be you," he said, looking at the oblivious girl.

In the world Nedu, a mountain stood proudly on the northern continent, its peak piercing through the clouds. The mountain looked like it was trying to reach the stars, and it was approximated to be the highest mountain in the federation before the initiation.

On top of the mountain, a monk stood cross-legged, his form covered with a sheet of ice. At this altitude, everything was frozen, and no living being with any intention of surviving existed.

Still, if one looked closer, they could see that the ice around the man was covered with small droplets of water, as if the weather itself was fighting to freeze the man, and was barely succeeding.

No one knew of the man who lived on top of the mountain Morb, and no one would know for a long time.

Winds howled, completely dominating the small sound of cracking ice, and the figure's eyes opened, revealing a fiery red glow inside them. He read the system window before him with excitement, and the ice around him was gone in a moment, directly vaporizing.

Official Start Of Phase Two Commencing.

True Nobilities are awarded.

Welcome to the Grand Continuum,

Nobility Rank Given: Primarch

Level Of Nobility: Universal Apex

Title Bestowed: Jailor Of The Great Flame

Planetary Vassal: Pending

The monk got up as his figure started to gain a red sheen like molten metal, and he smiled as if there was something really exciting. For the first time in thousands of years, the peak of Morb was clear of ice.

A cyborg walked in the comfortable weak gravity of the Cereb asteroid belt, moving with a stability which was only possible due to his enhancements. His body was completely unaffected by the incredible magnetic fields passing through it, as they found ways around it a long time ago. This fact made his defeat to that green-eyed man even more ridiculous, but Oscar was anything but a sore loser.

His mind was troubled, and he desperately tried to plan his way out of the dilemma they were in. Knowing that there was a nobility system coming didn't really excite him, but the possible level increase coming with the second phase did.

Cereb had been in war with its own creations long before the initiation, and the new mana environment made everything much more problematic. Despite space having much less mana than the planets themselves, they quickly realized that this was not the case for the asteroid belt.

No one thought anything bad would happen when they sent random organisms into the asteroid belt as an experiment to see whether they could survive or not. Oscar failed to understand the motivation behind the uncontrolled experiments done by the dumb scientists of old, but their creation was great nonetheless.

In the end, they managed to create a lifeform that could survive in space, but also they managed to let it evolve unsupervised for almost three centuries before the closest planet to the belt was stripped of life in a single day by the not-so-grateful creatures.

Oscar saw the initiation as a potential for salvation, as if they managed to improve more than the stupid tardigrades using the system, maybe they would finally be able to finish them all. Not being trapped in the home of the creatures would be much better, though, he admitted. As he thought, he watched the timer trickle to zero.

Official Start Of Phase Two Commencing.

True Nobilities are awarded.

Welcome to the Grand Continuum,

Nobility Rank Given: Primarch

Level Of Nobility: Universal Apex

Title Bestowed: Holder of the Line.

Planetary Vassal: Not Applicable

Oscar just stared at the title, his face slowly twisting in irritation. His mind, which was trained with military tactics for years of painful academy education, really didn't like this title.

"We are in space, where do you even place the fucking line?" he asked, frustrated.

Garland gazed at the man who was trying to describe to him an impossible commission with great disinterest. Words blended together, and when he found that he was starting to imagine the contents of the approaching dinner, he got up, cutting the man before him abruptly.

He grabbed a datapad from the table, his own made, as only working datapads all were, and gave it to the man.

"Just write everything here, and you guys will receive it as best as anyone can build it," he said, and left the room without listening to the man's answer.

Garland knew he was talented, and he knew that he would be able to invent whatever they were asking of him. His customers usually greatly exaggerated the collective knowledge of their race, asking for things only found in stories, but Garland tried not to limit himself to what was possible.

It was just that he was so hungry. He was sick of the synthesized food, and he was contemplating inventing a way to create plant life from scratch now that they couldn't import it. As he was busy imagining a plethora of dishes, he ate throughout his life while munching on a sad nutrition bar, the annoying construct people called the system interrupted his thought process.

Official Start Of Phase Two Commencing.

True Nobilities are awarded.

Welcome to the Grand Continuum,

Nobility Rank Given: Primarch

Level Of Nobility: Universal Apex

Title Bestowed: The Hungry Inventor

Planetary Vassal: Pending

"Damn right, I am," Garland screamed, throwing the worthless bar in his hand into a plasma fire nearby.