The Boundless Expanse(An Epic System Apocalypse LitRPG)

When Sam opened his eyes in the strange simulated world that was the Interweb, he found himself somewhere he didn't recognize. A vast atrium filled with people that gave off the auras of high E Rankers and low D Rankers. Its ceiling arched overhead, so high up that the lights on it looked like stars shining down from cloudless heavens above. A System notification appeared in front of Sam.

Your Multiversal Citizenship has been updated to fit your Rank. Such a ceremony is only possible in the Interweb, given the legal resistance of Tantalos Veruvax, ruler of your universe. Even then, only your reaching D Rank was enough to free you from his strictures.

Current Multiversal Citizenship Rank: Class 3

Current Benefits: Unfettered Interweb Access. Access to subspace Interweb auctions and fighting pits. (Many benefits have been vetoed by Tantalos Veruvax.)

Sam frowned at this message. He had mostly forgotten about his Multiversal Citizenship, mainly using it for his Interweb access. Most of the features were locked away, anyway, so he barely paid it any mind. Now, though, things seemed different.

Looking around, Sam realized that he was in a high ranked branch of the Adventurers' Guild. The badges on the chests of those present were crystalline rather than metallic, most sporting emerald colored badges. There were a few with ruby badges and one with a sapphire badge. The one with the sapphire badge was the strongest in the room, other than Sam. He was a curious figure, clad in dark cloth that draped around his limbs. His face was half hidden by a mask.

Sam noticed that he was being stared at by almost a dozen people, with more quickly joining. Looking down he followed their eyes to his Copper Adventurer's Guild badge, which he hadn't upgraded despite his meteoric rise in power. The Tower had prevented Interweb access, meaning that his power had grown far beyond his current Guild Rank without a means to change it.

Sam sighed, and headed for the door. He didn't care too much about his ranking in the Adventurers' Guild, given that he already had a standing invitation by one of its elites. None of the people here could compare to the C Ranker that had extended that welcome to Sam, and it stood to follow that Sam was beyond the basic structure of the Guild. Unfortunately, it seemed that some of the other cultivators had a problem with this.

"How did you get in here?" one of the Guild members asked as she forced her way in front of Sam. She was a High E Ranker, and had a ruby badge affixed to the lapel of her robes. "A mere Copper?"

Sam stared at her. "Are you serious? Does some badge matter when my own power more than makes up for it?"

"What power?" the woman sneered. "You're a Copper. You must be F Rank at most."

Sam caught the eyes of one of the other D Rankers. The Teruvarian's face was barely visible from behind a rough-hewn metal helmet, but the cultivator had a look of amusement that was still visible. As Sam frowned, wondering what the D Ranker found so funny, he realized something. Before, in the Interweb, Sam had never been able to sense the power of other users. He hadn't noticed it when he arrived a few moments ago, but it was a new addition. Most likely, a result of either his D Rank status, or his Authority. It looked like his challenger had no way to see how strong Sam actually was.

Instead of doing what most of the D Rankers there must have expected, and making an issue of it, Sam simply shouldered the E Ranker out of the way, and continued towards the door. The woman and a few lackeys hurled abuse after him, but Sam ignored it. At the last moment, as he opened the ornate golden double doors of the hall, he looked back.

"You'll find out who I am, one day. If you survive that long, that is. My name is Sam Atlas. Remember it."

Sam chuckled as he closed the door behind him. Theatrics were always fun, even if they weren't exactly a core part of his personality. Cultivators expected others of similar power to act in a certain way. While Sam had eschewed the violent side of this, he hadn't ignored the verbal one.

His mind quickly shifted as he took in the city in front of it. It was very different from the Interweb that he knew. Towering structures from seemingly every architectural style, both conventional and alien, loomed over him. All of them were miles in height.

Sam sighed in relief when he tried to open his teleport window, finding the usual list of destinations in front of him. He quickly selected the Novices' Library, assuming that Jeffrey would be waiting in that sector of the Interweb.

He emerged in front of the building. Unlike the higher Rank city he had been teleported to earlier, the Novices' Library was something familiar. It reminded him of when he hadn't made it out of the shallowest waters of the ocean that was cultivation, thinking himself and his compatriots to be quite impressive despite them being nothing more than ants in the face of almost everything else in the Boundless Expanse.

To little surprise, Jeffrey wasn't there. The alien could have been anywhere in the city, and Sam had no way to find him. Or at least, he wouldn't have the last time he entered the Interweb.

Now that he possessed an Authority, which apparently worked to some extent in the Interweb, Sam could scan the world around him up to the limits of the ability. Doing so, he searched for Jeffrey.

Even though this segment of the Interweb was a backwater, meant for G and F Rankers, it was still comparable to a large city. Sam wasn't sure how exactly the areas of the Interweb were laid out in relation to one another, but this one was bound by a dimensional sheath indistinguishable from the borders of the city. To the naked eye, it looked like it kept going on forever, but to any sort of concerted effort to perceive the truth, the boundaries were quite evident.

All in all, the city was about a dozen miles across, exactly double the radius of his Authority. As such it only took a bit of moving around through the city with his D Rank speed to find Jeffrey.

The feathered alien man was relaxing on a park bench, nestled between two auction houses. The park was small, but quite striking. A multilayered fountain towered over a miniature forest of Bonsai trees, each of which came in a different color. Jeffrey was looking off into the distance, but as Sam came into view, the alien let out a sigh.

"Where were you?" Jeffrey asked. "Why didn't you come out in the same places as me? I'm pretty sure that should have happened."

Sam pursed his lips. "I had some unexpected complications involving the System, my Multiversal Citizenship, and the Adventurers' Guild."

"Let me guess, it's another thing you need privacy to tell me?" Jeffrey replied, rolling his eyes. "I'm almost scared of finding out what you got up to in the Tower."

"Yeah.. Anyway, when I was gone, did you manage to find out where to buy what we needed?" Sam asked. "It's starting to get annoying, having to keep talking around what happened."

"Yeah," Jeffrey said as he got to his feet. "It's actually in that auction house to the left. I saw it on the schedule."

Jeffrey reached into a pocket and withdrew a leaflet, passing it to Sam a moment later.

Sam took the proffered piece of paper and looked it over. Crammed in tiny text, clearly meant for higher level cultivators, were what looked like a shopping list for a medieval city. All sorts of potions, weapons and pieces of armor were for sale. He quickly found the right entry.

Comprehensive Privacy Bubble(F Rank Growth Item)

There was only one problem.

Price: 10 B Rank Credits

Sam groaned in annoyance. "Really?" That was double the net worth of his entire faction, let alone his own coffers. The Tower had been filled with powerful monsters and sapients alike, but because of the way that fights there tended to go, and the System's own method of teleportation, Sam hadn't come out of the adventure with anything other than what he had gone in with, save for his armor and the gifts from the twenty-fifth floor.

"I was hoping that you had the money," Jeffrey said dejectedly, "but I guess not."

"This is going to have to be something to work towards," Sam declared. "I'm sure we'll have the money within a few months, though, if D Rank threats start to enter this universe."

Jeffrey held out his hand, and Sam returned the leaflet. "There was one thing that did catch my eye, however. Communications are a big problem in the faction. Electronics went out with the arrival of the System and a lot of the lower end devices we could buy here are too limited by distance. We also would need some sort of centralized array. There's one for sale here, for five C Rank Credits."

"Couldn't Thomas whip something together?" Sam asked. "I've only talked to him a few times, but he seems like he can do almost anything to do with science or math."

Jeffrey shook his head. "If only that was how that worked. Trust me, we tried to get Thomas to do something. He doesn't have any experience with coding or software. If you want to launch a fleet to the stars, he's the man, but if you want to have a phone call with someone right now, he can't do that."

"How exactly do the spacecraft, or any of the devices that we use, work without electricity? Isn't there an entire faction that runs off of tech?"

"It's a bit complicated. Basically, most forms of mundane scientific advancement follow a specific pattern." Jeffrey sat down on the bench, and Sam did the same. "All advanced civilizations have some form of Industrial Revolution, followed by the ability to harness nuclear power. Then computers and the like come along, followed by artificial intelligence. After that it starts to go in different directions. For the most part, the average civilization isn't more than a few centuries more advanced than Earth. The vast majority of species kill themselves off within a century of inventing nuclear weapons. The vast majority of those that remain end up falling victim to AI."

"So all those doomsday preachers going on about the end of the world being around the corner had the right idea?" Sam wondered.

"Not necessarily. Your planet was better off than most. A lot of alien species have a lot less empathy than humans." Jeffrey laughed at Sam's expression. "I know, I know. But it's true. Humans have done a lot of terrible things to one another, but they've done a lot of good too. In many civilizations, it's way more brutal. Things that we took for granted in the old world aren't true everywhere. Slavery is outlawed here, but is very popular in the wider Multiverse."

"It's really that bad, huh? I thought the Earth was going downhill. Compared to what you just said, and the limited things I've seen of other worlds, it all seems so small now."

"What have you seen of other worlds?" Jeffrey asked. "Wasn't the only one you went to that place with the Grakoth? That place was a warzone. I doubt there were many conclusions you could make about other societies from that."

Sam leveled a flat look at Jeffrey, who shook his head in exasperation. "Whatever," Jeffrey said. "Let's get this communication array. We can focus on getting the money for the shielding later."

The interior of the auction house was filled with rows of plush seats. It was also filled with people, from seemingly every walk of life and from every possible alien race. They were competing over various items brought out every now and again by a Teruvarian auctioneer.

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A few seats were open in the back, and Jeffrey sat down. Sam quickly followed him.

Jeffrey scanned the leaflet, but Sam shook his head. "I remember it all. The communication item will come up after another five sales."

Jeffrey raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

Sam tuned out the auction, and checked his credit balance. He hadn't bought anything with his credits in a while, and during the course of the Tower, he had racked up an impressive amount of money from his high Rank killed.

Credit Balance: 7 C Rank Credits

Sam whistled. "Damn. Barely enough."

"You know you could tap into the faction funds, right?" Jeffrey reminded Sam. "Nobody's going to begrudge you, especially if what you're buying is for the good of the faction."

"I don't want to rely on other people's money, when I am supposed to be the supreme leader, or whatever," Sam replied. "I'm more than capable of making my own money. It's those I protect who can't afford to splurge."

Jeffrey shrugged. "Eh. It's up to you, I suppose. You're very different to most cultivators at your level of power. From what I've seen, though, that's a good thing."

Somebody cleared their throat nearby, and Sam suddenly realized that almost nobody else, other than the auctioneer, was talking, letting those actively bidding speak. A little mollified, he and Jeffrey fell quiet.

The current round of bidding was for an ornately crafted spear made out of what looked like polished bone. It shone with a faint internal light, but that could have been a result of the projection being used to bring it into the Interweb. Just like the people present, all of the background scenery and items were illusions. They looked real, but if one looked closely enough, you could see the lines of code that underpinned everything. It was a strange construction method, and done in such a way that it was always invisible to the casual eye, no matter how high their Rank.

In the end, the spear went to a wraith-thin humanoid that looked vaguely like an elf. She was almost ten feet tall, and towered over the others, even seated. As soon as the woman won the bid, she left the Interweb.

A few more items came, but none of them were of any interest to Sam and Jeffrey. They were likely the two strongest beings in the auction hall, with Sam definitely being the strongest. With his Authority, he could sense that nobody was above F Rank, with only Jeffrey and the auctioneer at the peak of the Rank.

Finally the communications array appeared. It looked nothing like what Sam had expected. Resting on a cushion of red velvet, a silvery crown with a dozen points gleamed under the overhead lights.

"For the next item, an E Rank Communications Governor, bids will begin at five C Rank Credits!" the auctioneer bellowed.

"Shit!" Sam cursed, drawing a few nasty looks. He ignored them. "I thought the listed price was how much it cost."

"Have you never been to an auction before?" Jeffrey asked. "I assumed you knew what you were looking at."

"Did you go to any auctions on Earth?" Sam shot back. "We were living in a town so small it was basically one of those places in the middle of nowhere you'd see in a Western."

Jeffrey sighed. "I guess you're right. But you're probably gonna have to dip into the faction reserves if you want to buy this."

Sam sighed. "Alright. I suppose this is what arrogance gets me. It's not like it will cost too much, compared to how much money we have."

"Shut up!" a man shouted. He was an Ashryan, the same grey skinned species as Talnor. "This isn't a tavern! Be quiet or get out!"

Sam raised an eyebrow at the Ashryan, who was dozens of seats away. "You're barely an F Ranker. You wouldn't even hear us at this distance unless you were purposefully listening in."

"And who do you think you are?" the alien barked out. "This is the Interweb, you idiot! Power doesn't mean anything. Even if you are some bigshot F Ranker, it doesn't matter."

Sam chuckled, ignoring the heckler. He simply watched the auction, still going on despite the interjection.

"Don't ignore me!" the Ashryan squealed, his voice cracking slightly. "Do you know-"

"Who your father is?" Sam asked. "No, and I doubt anyone else here does. Now stop disturbing the auction, or I'll hold you to your own standard. What was it you said? Be quiet or get out?"

Predictably, the alien rose to the bait. "You piece of-"

Sam raised his hand, and his Authority rolled out. While limited in the Interweb, it wasn't locked down as much as his fighting abilities. He could still use it, to a degree. Enough to lift a weak F Ranker out of his seat, and throw him out the door.

That display did what the argument had failed to, and stopped the auction proceedings. The Teruvarian auctioneer lost his train of thought, breaking off in the middle of an enthusiastic description of the Communication Array's capabilities.

Sam simply smiled, and leaned back in his chair. Nobody said anything for a few moments. Then, as if by magic, the auctioneer resumed his spiel. "Uh... This array can support ten million System links! Multiple channels can be created for different purposes."

In any normal auction, Sam would have been kicked out by now. In the Boundless Expanse, power was the only thing that truly mattered. As a D Ranker, it was his right by virtue of might to do whatever he wanted. Or at least, that was what most cultivators thought. Sam didn't want to abuse his power, but he felt that in that situation, it had been justified.

By the time bidding started, Sam found an unforeseen boon from his display of power. Nobody seemed to want to challenge his initial bid of five C Rank Credits. Even though that was the basic listing price, it still went without question. The auctioneer gritted his teeth, but couldn't do anything about it. Just as he was about to grind out the words conceding victory to Sam, a voice rang out.

"Six C Rank Credits!" Everyone turned to see a young human woman clad in simple robes get to her feet. She wasn't especially powerful, but Sam felt something different about her compared to the others. While only mid F Rank in strength, she had qualities that seemed to dance around the edges of her aura, hinting at hidden depths.

"Seven," Sam said calmly. He wasn't sure what sort of game the other bidder was playing, but he wasn't going to let his prize slip away. Unconsciously, he leaned towards the front of the room, intent on the communications array.

"Ten," the robed woman countered, a slight hint of amusement in her tone.

"Do you even need this?" Sam asked. "What faction do you work for?"

She gave him a mocking look. "Is your final offer seven credits?"

Sam sighed. "Eleven." He was already digging into the faction reserves, and he had a feeling that he would go far deeper than he had originally wanted.

Like a death knell, his opponent spoke. "One B Rank Credit."

At this, there was an uproar. Or at least, people whispered rather than staying quiet.

Sam gritted his teeth, but he knew that he was beaten. It wasn't worth spending a fifth of his entire world's credits on something worth a fraction of that price.

A few seconds passed, before the auctioneer cried out "Sold!" He desperately tried to hide a grin wider than a river as it snaked its way onto his mouth, but it was too late.

Sam found himself staring at the mysterious woman. She was looking at him too, with a strange expression on her face. Surprise, mingled with something inscrutable. Then she looked away, smiling slightly.

"We're done here," he said to Jeffrey, getting to his feet. "What a waste of time..."

Jeffrey followed Sam out of the auction house, looking disappointed. As soon as they were clear of the building, he spoke. "What the hell was that?"

"I don't know. Did that woman have it out for me or something? I've never seen her before in my life." Sam wasn't too worried about missing out on the array. It was something he could find again. What he was worried about was the woman's strange behavior.

"I guess that's it for the Interweb," Jeffrey said, sighing. "First we don't get the artifact we wanted, and now we didn't even get the consolation prize."

Before either man could leave, the doors of the auction house opened. The strange woman who had outbid Sam emerged, holding the array in her hand. "Can I talk to you for a moment?"

"Why?" Sam asked, suspicious. "Do you want to gloat about snaking the array out from under my nose?"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "I think we might have gotten off on the wrong note. I am Alyssa Endiola, of the Starfall Viper sect. I often come around these parts of the Interweb to scout for people who might make worthy allies for the sect. Or, at times, spend a bit of the money my faction gives me."

"What Rank is your faction?" Jeffrey asked.

"C," Alyssa answered. "Near the high end. The Patriarch, my great grandfather, rules over a universe near the Multiversal Core."

"What brought a bigshot like you here?" Jeffrey replied. "People like you don't usually hang around near the Rim. Even in the Interweb."

"I heard about a universe around these parts under the control of some minor celebrity of a C Ranker. He's called the Butcher, though his real name is-"

"Tantalos Veruvax," Sam said grimly. "We know all about him."

"Oh?" Alyssa said, brightening up somewhat. "Are you from that universe? I was going to say, my faction told me that there were a lot of promising recruits there. We probably wouldn't end up claiming them from Veruvax, but there was one planet in particular that was supposed to be some sort of birthing ground for powerhouses."

"Is that planet called Earth, by any chance?" Sam replied. "I can't believe someone from the inner Multiverse has heard of my planet. I thought the only people paying attention were local elites. There was this one guy named Berrigious. He was a complete asshole, but he died a bit ago." Sam frowned. "Or at least I think he died. Tantalos did something to him for interfering with my universe. He took him somewhere."

"I take it that you are the one everyone's talking about, then?" Alyssa asked. "The Adventurers Guild has been going on about some once in a generation talent that they were trying to solicit. They were pretty confident their target would accept their offer."

"Yeah, I am planning to take the offer," Sam replied. "So if you're here trying to recruit, I'm sorry."

"What was that whole thing in the auction house about?" Jeffrey asked. "That doesn't seem like the action of someone trying to recruit people."

Alyssa winced. "I'm sorry. I thought you were just some loudmouth performing a hack to tilt the auction in their favor."

"A hack?" Sam said. "What's that?"

Alyssa waved her hand dismissively. "Oh, some people find backdoors into the programming. The hacks get patched as soon as they're used, but they can still be useful."

"And what do you think I am now?"

"Sam Atlas. The current favorite to win your universal tournament. One of the strongest, if not the strongest, people in your whole universe."

"People are betting on the tournament already?" Sam asked. "It's still months out."

"You made quite the stir in the Tower. Most people who do reach E Rank don't do so until five or ten years after an initialization. Your universe already has seventeen E Rankers who have gone to the Tower. Three so far that have returned. All that within a few months."

Sam frowned. Had his father already returned, or were there two more unknown cultivators out there who had come back even more quickly than him? Of course, it was possible that they hadn't reached as high a level. Even though Sam had blazed through the Tower, he had completed the entire thing, whereas most people only made it a few dozen floors.

"You're surprised by that information?" Alyssa asked. "I can see it in your face. You thought you were head and shoulders above everyone else in your universe?"

"Didn't you just say that?" Sam retorted. "I'm the current favorite to win the tournament, or whatever?"

Alyssa grinned. "Current favorite. All that means is that right now, if a tournament was held, you'd probably win. It doesn't mean you are the most talented cultivator in your universe."

"I'm confused," Sam said. "Are you trying to ingratiate yourself with me, or not? It doesn't feel like you're doing a very good job. Most cultivators in my situation wouldn't be very happy."

"You're not most cultivators. I did my research. You weren't born into the System, so you don't see power as the determiner of one's worth. Because of this you tolerate disrespect from those weaker than yourself."

"That's quite the gamble. You must have some good sources," Sam replied.

"I watched you in the Tower. You went dark after the fiftieth floor, but your actions, in the fourth segment especially, showed what kind of man you are."

Sam nodded grimly, remembering Prax. He had achieved his goal, but had failed those he was supposed to protect. Dyvan Marn, whom Sam had initially saved from death, had ended up in the grave regardless. It had been an important lesson, along with the other lesson of that floor, taught to him by Granthar. He wasn't the strongest, far from it. Why should he look down on those beneath him if he disdained those above him for looking down in turn?

"I'm going to head out," Jeffrey declared. "I'll leave you two to whatever this is."

Alyssa sighed. "Fine. I'll get to the point. If you won't join my faction, I'd like to establish an alliance. Trading rights, mutual defense, all the trappings of a proper friendship between factions. I'll also give you that communications array you wanted."

"How do you know I'll still be around to make it worth your while? My faction is still only E Rank," Sam cautioned.

"Someone like you will be D Rank within the next decade. Maybe C within a millennia. Your universe may be doomed, but you are not. The Adventurer's Guild already saw to that."

"I can agree with that," Sam said cautiously. "Is there anything I should know? Does your faction keep slaves? Does it oppress its lower Rank vassals?"

Alyssa shook her head. "Do you think I'd have come to you if that was the case? Half the major factions in this Multiverse are keeping tabs on you, Sam. You made a great showing in the Tower. I believe you made it to the fiftieth floor in record time. The Creator Kings don't share much about their past, but most of them were slower than you."

"I see your point. Alright. I'll agree, as long as I can see your terms first. You sold this to me as an equal partnership, and it better be one."

"Don't worry about that," Alyssa confirmed. "I'll share it with you right now."

A System message popped up. It was dozens of pages long, but Sam was able to read it in a few seconds. His highly advanced mind sorted the clauses and legalese out into something easier to parse. In the end, he couldn't find anything suspicious. All Alyssa's faction wanted was what she had already said. The rest of the document had been failsafes and addendums that didn't change the contents.

Jeffrey left before Sam signed off on the contract, taking the Communications Array from Alyssa to set up before Sam returned.

"Now that that's signed," Alyssa said, "I have a little gift for you. A token of appreciation from my faction, and myself. It just so happens that my faction is close to the Androvi sect. The one, unless I am mistaken, that your paramour is part of."

"Glakassa?" Sam asked. "You know her?"

"Better than that," Alyssa said with a toothy grin. "I can bring her here."

Hope blossomed in Sam's chest. He had resolved to go without seeing Glakassa for at least a year, when he escaped Tantalos' clutches. That time was nothing to a cultivator, and probably nothing to Glakassa, but it was significant to Sam. It was more time than he had even been a part of the greater Multiverse.

"Well? How long will it take?" Sam asked.

"A few minutes. It depends on how soon you want to see her."