System Change

“What was all that about?” Alanah asked as Derek came to stand beside her. They both stared at the spot where Asher had just disappeared from.

“I wanted to see what Asher thought about the space made when I Void Travel…” Derek said. “I didn’t expect the beast to have such a reaction to it.”

“So… Asher is okay in there?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Derek said. “He seemed to be in pretty excruciating pain, but he was also pretty adamant about not leaving. It seems that the beast took quite a liking to that space. He thinks that being in there will speed up his ascension. Hopefully, he’s right, and he doesn’t end up biting off more than he can chew.”

“Well… it was Asher’s own choice,” Alanah replied. “Anything that happens to him from now on rests solely on his own shoulders… You gave him what he seems to see as a great opportunity. It’s up to him whether he can grasp it or not.”

“You’re right,” Derek said. “Well… good luck to him.”

“Indeed…”

“Okay,” Derek said as he turned to Alanah. “What now? More Void Beasts, or are you really finished?”

“I am fine with what I have for now,” Alanah said. “I have more than enough to last me for quite some time. Hopefully, they will have the same effect on my body wherever it is that I end up.”

“So, you’re not freaked out about hunting and consuming them?” Derek asked. “After meeting Asher?”

“Not really,” Alanah answered. “Maybe if they were all sentient and intelligent, or were also system users… But they are beasts before they are anything else. Their intelligence is only gained through this… evolution.”

“That’s… one way of looking at it,” Derek said.

“Do you not see it the same way?” Alanah asked.

“I’m not sure what I think about it, really,” Derek said. “Honestly, I’ve kind of stayed away from consuming Void Beasts for the most part. I mean… I haven’t not consumed any, but I haven’t actively sought it out. Not necessarily for any moral reasons… just that I haven’t felt the need to do so. I’ve grown pretty strong without doing so, and I still have a lot of room to grow from here without doing so. Also… I forget about it pretty often.

“It’s probably hypocritical considering the fact that I’m pretty much shoving Void Beast meals and potions down everyone’s throats so they can grow faster and stronger without gaining levels…” he said with a shrug.

“I’m not sure about that,” Alanah said. “At least with the Void Beast meals and potions, you are thinking of those you care about before yourself since you already have the strength. It will allow them to grow faster and not become as much of a burden to you—not that you seem to care whether they are a burden or not. Not to mention your earlier cheating when you changed systems…”

“Yeah… there is that, isn’t there?”

“Yup,” Alanah said, mimicking Derek. “Now, you asked me what I want to do now?”

“Yeah,” Derek said. “What are you thinking?”

“I don’t have all that much time left here,” Alanah said with a sigh. “I’m not sure if we’ll have enough time to both visit Stonehelm and travel across the sea, and there is something important I must do on the other side of the sea. I’m hoping we can get back in time, but if not, you will have plenty of time to visit their underground city. The only real reason I wanted to go there was to speak to the family of the blacksmith who crafted my armor and weapon and give thanks. The gear has accompanied me for many years and has yet to fail me. Are you okay with that?”

“Fine by me,” Derek said. He wanted to visit the dwarves’ underground cities. He also wanted to see if they could make him an even better set of armor, since Tyron’s specialty was weapons, but he could do all that any time he wanted—there was no rush for him to do so. “This is your trip—I’m only along for the ride.”

“Then, shall we get to it?” Alanah asked. “Do you need to do anything in the city while we are close by?”

“No,” Derek said. “I’m always close by. What about you? Is there anything you need to do?”

“I have already made all of my preparations, so I am fine,” Alanah replied. “In that case, let’s go.”

For the rest of the day, Alanah took Derek through different cities’ teleporters on their way to the sea. They didn’t stop anywhere important, other than a few street vendors selling some food that Derek was unable to pass by, and the duo eventually ended up in a city near the edge of Indria—just beside the sea.

After walking out of the city, the seemingly infinite sea came into sight, and the two turned towards it, then began walking that way. During the short walk from the city to the sea, as Derek was thinking about Asher and everything that happened with the beast, his eyes widened and he said, “Shit!”

“What is it?” Alanah obviously noticed that something was wrong with the way Derek was acting and asked.

“You remember that Void Beast I tossed in my Time Prison?” he asked.

“Oh…” Alanah muttered. “I had completely forgotten.”

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“Yeah… me too,” Derek said. “With everything that happened with Asher, it completely slipped my mind. I wonder if it’s still alive.”

“Oh…”

“Yeah…” Derek said. “I’m going to check on it real quick.” He didn’t know what to expect when he opened the door to his prison. Whatever happened to Asher had hit the Void Beast pretty hard, and Asher was stronger than the beast he had captured by a lot. With a deep breath, Derek focused on the skill, then reached out and tore open the space, causing the entry door to his Time Prison to appear.

Derek reached out and opened the door. He half expected the Void Beast to come running at him again, but it didn’t. Instead, it was very quiet—almost ominously quiet. Derek slowly took a step inside, then looked around. Finally, his eyes scanned over what looked to be a shadowy lump in the center of the prison. Is it dead? He walked forward so he could get a better look at it in the nearly dark prison.

“Huh…” he muttered as he came upon the figure. With his right hand, he reached down and grabbed it, then he picked it up. Turning around, he walked back to the entrance of the prison, then outside. Once outside, he laid the figure on the ground.

“That’s…” Alanah raised her eyebrows.

“Yeah…” Derek said. “This is the Void Beast… I think.” Before them lay a dark gray and purple figure. It no longer looked like a Void Beast. Somehow, though, it was still breathing. As he scanned the beast, Derek gulped. One leg looked like it had before Derk had tossed the beast in. But the other… it more closely resembled a chicken’s leg—it looked brittle. As for the beast’s torso… there was a giant chunk of flesh missing on its right side, and the skin on its left was loose and sagging.

As it lay there, its maw was open, and it was panting. The thing was, many of the fang-like teeth were missing. On top of that, one of its eyes had grown dim. Feeling sorry for the beast after speaking with Asher, Derek bent down and cast Rejuvenate on the figure. His skill stopped the bleeding in the beast’s abdomen and closed the wound, but the chunk that was missing did not grow back.

At least its breathing got better, Derek thought.

“What happened?” Alanah asked.

“This is what happens to most things that go inside that place with me—whether they are beside me or inside my prison. Though it does seem that this Void Beast had at least some resistance to it. Any other beast that has gone in with me has been killed almost instantly, and I stood inside and spoke with Asher for a short time this time. Much longer and I’m sure the beast would have died, though,” Derek explained.

“Oh…” Alanah said with a gulp. “What do you plan to do with it?” she asked.

“There is no sense in it suffering,” Derek said. Then, he quickly thrust out with his palm—aiming at the beast’s head. His palm was infused with void energy, so when he struck, it only took a couple of seconds, then the beast was dead. “That’s… rough,” Derek said. “I think this is what Asher was going through, but his body was somehow able to withstand it. I wonder if it was because of the pureness of his void energy, or maybe the evolution of his body.”

“Maybe a combination of both,” Alanah said.

“Probably,” Derek replied. “Do you want this corpse?” he asked.

“No…” Alanah said. “I don’t think anyone should consume that. At least I wouldn’t want to.”

“You’re right,” Derek said, then he bent down and stored the corpse in his ring. “I’ll take care of it.” Derek’s mood was a bit off after that. He had found a way to give his Time Prison a chance to level, but it seemed that it meant excruciating torture for the beast within—and he wasn’t one for that. He could pack it full of the strongest beasts he could find, and they would all have some sort of chance at living if he had to use Void Travel, but it just wasn’t worth it to him.

And it wasn’t like he could just take the beasts out of the prison and tell them to stay there until he got back if he needed to use his Void Travel ability. Or could I? He thought back to the way the beast had acted before he put it inside. No, he thought. I bet that as soon as I go into the void, the beasts will become active again. He could test it out, and he would test it out, but he very much doubted that was an option. No sense in dwelling on it for now, he thought, then he raised his head up and looked forward. The sea was quickly approaching.

“What are we going to do from here?” Derek asked once they reached the edge of the sea that seemed to stretch on forever with no other land in sight. Technically, they could have left the continent from many places, but Indria was the kingdom closest to the other continent, and it was easier to travel by land for as far as possible than to just head straight there.

“I was thinking that we could just go,” Alanah said. “I have a small boat in my storage ring that we can use as a place to recover when we get tired, but the fastest way would be for us to go as far as our mana can take us before doing so. It has been a long time since I crossed, and I did not do so easily, so I’m unsure of how long this journey will take.”

“That’s fine,” Derek said. “And do you have a way to make sure we’re heading in the right direction? It’s not the easiest thing to do when you are surrounded by nothing other than water—at least, it doesn’t seem easy to me. I would hate to miss the continent by a few hundred miles, then end up back in Cydaria.”

“Mhm…” Alanah nodded, then pulled out what looked to be a compass. “Once we get far enough away from this land, and are finally closer to the other continent, this device will point us to where we need to go. We need only to check it occasionally to correct our path. Though, I don’t think we will have any problems as long as we just try to go in a single direction the entire time.”

“That’s convenient,” Derek said, talking about the compass. “How does it work?”

“It is a device that seeks land. So, it will always point to the closest large landmass possible,” Alanah explained.

“Oh,” Derek said. It wasn’t as cool as he had thought. He thought it was some kind of gps-like device, but it turned out that it was just something that sought out large masses of land. Still, it was more than enough for their trip. As long as they headed in one direction far enough, eventually, once they were halfway there, the device would point them in the right direction.

“It’s primitive, but you can adjust how large of a landmass you want to be directed to,” Alanah explained. “That way, it doesn’t take you to any small islands out in the sea.”

“Oh,” Derek said. “That’s better than I thought. I didn’t know you could adjust the parameters. It won’t be too bad then.”

“It is quite amazing what a combination of earth mages, runesmiths, and blacksmiths can do together if they put their minds to it,” Alanah said as she put the land finder back into her storage ring. After that, she looked at her surroundings. In the distance, they could see a city wall, and even some of the guards stationed on top. Alanah sighed. “I think I’m going to miss all of this when I leave.”

“Hey.” Derek put his hand on her shoulder. “If wherever you’re going is anything like I think it’s going to be, you’ll be so busy growing more and more powerful that you won’t even have the time to miss anything here.” He grinned at her. He knew it was basically a lie—there was no way that she wasn’t going to miss all the relationships she’d cultivated over the years, no matter how busy she was.

“Sure…” she said, then, changing the subject back to their journey ahead, she asked, “Are you ready?”

“Let’s do it!”

After that, two of the strongest, if not the strongest, people on the entire continent set off over the sea. Derek couldn’t wait to find out what was waiting for them on the other side, and he also couldn’t help but wonder what Alanah had to do over there that was so important to her. He certainly knew one thing, though. Whatever it was, as long as she would have him on her journey, he would be by her side.