SSSSS-Rank: Negative Leveling

'Lilith, this Paradox title says higher beings can't track me easily anymore. Does that mean we're done with random cosmic beings showing up?'

[Not exactly. You're still an anomaly that shouldn't exist. The universe just has to work harder to notice you now, like you're wearing camouflage against things that see reality differently than normal beings do.]

'Good enough for me.'

He focused deeper, feeling the 150 points of mana flowing through him like a cool river where before there had been nothing but cracked, dry earth.

'Alright, explain mana to me again. Just the basics, nothing fancy.'

[Every awakened person has one mana circle. That circle lets them learn one unique ability. One person, one power. That's the absolute rule.]

'So everyone gets their own special move, like picking a class in a game?'

[Close enough. That single ability becomes everything for them. They push it, master it, perfect it until they eventually awaken their Path.]

'The Path thing you mentioned before. The thing I don't have.'

[Yes. A Path isn't just getting better at your ability. When someone masters their power completely, they create their own personal law of reality. A pyromancer doesn't just throw fireballs anymore - they might awaken the Path of Combustion and start burning things without touching them, making explosions that ignore armor, turning the concept of fire into something more.]

'So my dad's family, the Lurius clan with all their elemental stuff, that's their Path?'

[No, they don't share one Path. Their bloodline gives them strong elemental affinity, but each member develops their own Path from that starting point. That's what makes them dangerous - a whole family of specialists who actually know what they're doing.]

'And I've got nothing.'

[That's not true anymore.]

He followed the flow of mana back to its source, tracing the cool river to where it began, and what he found made him freeze.

Two cores floated inside him.

The first was a perfect sphere of absolute blackness, not shining or glowing but simply existing, a piece of void given form that pulled everything toward it. His core, his negative energy, finally accessible after his body had been rebuilt strong enough to handle it.

But there was a second one, orbiting the darkness like a captured moon around a dead star.

This one pulsed with brilliant, chaotic light, positive energy that felt completely wrong inside him, vibrating with memories of cosmic rules and natural order.

'Lilith, why do I have two cores? What is that second one?'

[The black sphere is your Negative Core, finally yours to use now that your body won't collapse from the strain. The other one is what's left of the rabbit.]

'What?'

[When you absorbed that conceptual entity, you didn't just take its power. You took its essence, its mana circle. That's a positive-type core, and it's bonded to your soul now.]

He could feel them fighting each other, the black sphere pulling while the white light pushed, locked in an unstable standoff that felt like it could explode at any moment.

'Great, I'm a walking bomb. Can we get rid of it?'

[No. Removing it would tear your soul apart. It's part of you now.]

'So I just walk around hoping I don't randomly explode? That's the plan?'

[The instability is definitely a problem. That positive energy is fundamentally opposed to everything you are. You can't use its power directly, and right now it's more dangerous than helpful.]

The white core felt like grabbing a live wire with wet hands, all that power burning wrong against his nature.

'There has to be a way to use it. Power is power, and wasting it is just stupid.'

[There's a theoretical solution, but it's never been done because nobody's ever had two opposing cores before.]

'Of course I'm the first. What's the theory?'

[You could convert it, use your Negative Core like a forge to break down the rabbit's positive energy and remake it into something compatible with your nature. Not destroying it, but corrupting it to match your alignment.]

'Corrupting it. Yeah, I like that. How?'

[You'd need a catalyst, somewhere the boundaries between worlds are weak, a place overflowing with raw mana to fuel the conversion. Basically, you need an active high-ranking Gate.]

'Oh come on, why can't things just be simple. Where the hell am I going to find a high ranking gate here?'

[You could go back home.]

'Yeah but I have this mission first, which might just get me killed.'

He felt the two cores inside him. One was a sphere of absolute darkness, familiar and his own. The other was a captured piece of light, a stolen rule from the universe that felt fundamentally wrong. It was a problem.

'So I've got this unstable, positive-energy bomb inside me.'

'And the only way to fix it is to find a high-ranking Gate.'

'Which is a problem, since I'm in the middle of nowhere with a B-Rank hunter trying to kill me.'

[Your mission does present a significant obstacle to your long-term stability.]

'Understatement of the year. My chances of taking down Silas were basically zero before. What are they now?'

[Slightly higher. Your physical and magical parameters have increased dramatically. However, the B-Rank hunter Gorgon Silas is still overwhelmingly superior. His Path of Petrification is a conceptual power that your statistics alone cannot overcome.]

'So brute force is still a stupid plan.'

[Correct. A direct confrontation would result in your defeat. You require a more strategic approach.]

He pressed his back against the cave wall, crossing his newly healed arms. Rebecca slept in the cart, mumbling something about pickles in an ongoing dream debate.

'I need something smarter than running at him swinging. Silas turns people to stone with his eyes. What if I could just... switch that off? Take his main weapon away?'

[Such suppression would require specialized nullification abilities, typically manifesting only in S-Rank hunters who dedicate their entire Path to negation.]

'The shop, then. Your co-creator's supposed to have all kinds of impossible stuff in there.'

[A reasonable avenue of investigation.]

The blue screen materialized.

'Search for suppression.'

One item appeared.

[Sigil of Binding - One Time Use]

[A conceptual weapon from beyond this reality. Completely seals the target's primary Path and all mana-based abilities for ten minutes. Effective on A-Rank and below. Consumed upon activation. Cost: 30,000 Negative Points]

'Thirty thousand? I have two hundred and fifty. That's not a price, that's a bad joke.'

[The item guarantees victory against a B-Rank opponent. The cost reflects this advantage.]

'How exactly am I supposed to get thirty thousand points in a week?'

[Negative Points generate through completing hidden objectives and achieving the impossible. The system does not adjust difficulty for Host convenience.]

'Maaan, aren't you suppose to be helping me?'