Universe's End

Rory lay on the ground for ten minutes, unable to feel his hands. Shaking from the adrenaline slowly fading, he stared up at the sky far above. Wave ten had been unlike anything he could have anticipated. Had it not been for the proactive measures of building Big Momma with weeks of ammo creation, the monster would have torn him apart, his camp apart, like a child kicking over a sandcastle.

Too damn difficult.

His hands were right screwed; raising them, they looked closer to melted candle wax than hands or fingers.

Well, it's a good thing I’m not looking to start the next wave.

Pulling up his interface, Rory ignored everything other than his Ascension progress, taking a deep breath as he saw it.

I maxed out, finally.

The bar was filled, meaning he could finally push his Ascension to another tier, finally breaking the A4 wall.

“Well, no point dawdling.”

Not even bothering to close his eyes, Rory pinched the mental boundary line. Instantly, it was as if he had been transported elsewhere. Adjusting to the sudden change, Rory found himself somewhere rather familiar.

“Again?” Rory questioned as he found himself staring at the galaxy being, once more, seated at a table. “I thought seeing you wasn’t supposed to be a common occurrence.”

“Correction: The Avatar you see before you-”

“Isn’t a ‘you’ per se. Yes, I understand.” Rory sighed, seating himself across the small metal table as if he were being interrogated. “So why exactly am I seeing you so soon.”

In response, the Avatar-

Since it’s no longer called the System, is it now ‘Eon-Avatar’ or something else?

-flicked over what looked like a screen capture, a video of all things replaying. It was a bird’s eye capture of his battle against the snake-triceratops thing. It was a short video; in its supercharged state, Big Momma blasted through over two hundred rounds in under thirty seconds. After that, it played out exactly as he remembered, the badly wounded monster smashing through his walls before finally being put down for good with a few well-placed shots into its now more vulnerable head.

“Is there a reason you’re showing me this, or are you here just to congratulate me?” Rory questioned.

“There is a reason.” Eon’s Avatar confirmed. “And it has to do with that.” Instantly, the video zoomed in, focusing on the magically crafted railgun.

“Uh, what about it?” Rory asked.

“E.O.N. has been generating potential answers for your weapon, but more practical data was required. As a result, an experiment was run to conclusively gather information regarding how potent such an arsenal is. Working in cooperation with the World Spirit Aelia, your tenth wave was modified.”

“Modified?” Rory asked.

“Yes.” The video unfocused momentarily before zooming in on the snake-triceratops. “The monster you battled was, based on its energy density, ranked akin to a monster comparable to a tier eight existence.”

Rory’s eyes bugged out for a moment at the revelation.

Actually, in hindsight, that makes sense.

While Rory couldn’t say for sure just how powerful his railgun was compared to weapons on Earth -he didn’t precisely have TNT yields to compare against- a single shot from the railgun was closer in strength to a tank shell than an ordinary firearm, even an armor-piercing gun. He’d seen enough combat footage on the news to know that.

And Rory had unloaded over two hundred rounds on the wave ten boss.

“Right, I can buy that.” Rory nodded. “Why, though?”

Eon’s Avatar nodded as if waiting for Rory to piece it together. “A reclassification has been required. Your ‘railgun’ allows for damage potential akin to an eighth-tier ascension while being usable within the third tier of ascension yourself. It upsets the balance required of a low-tier planet such as Aelia.”

Rory felt that if Aelia had heard herself referred to as ‘low tier,’ she would have been rather annoyed. Still, as the conversation was happening in some strange, disjointed mental connection to Eon, he wasn’t too afraid of her overhearing.

“Utilizing principles of physical nature, in tandem with magical principles, allowed for the creation of your weapon, and thus it is not simply something that can be ‘turned off.’ A new category of weaponry, now known as ‘Artillery’ arsenals, has been established in response. While not forbidden, Usage of Artillery Arsenals shall allot zero energy for any monster slain; all energy released will instead be contributed entirely to whatever planetary body you find yourself on. If you are the creator of an Artillery Arsenal weapon, you shall see a one percent return rather than zero energy returns.”

“Damn,” Rory swore. “Is that why I felt like I was gaining less and less energy over the last ten weeks?”

“Correct. E.O.N. adjusted energy returns per the results of your victories, and with this final triumph, enough data has been gathered to determine the fate of such weaponry conclusively.”

“That sucks.” Rory sighed before glancing at the galaxy being. “So, do I at least get extra rewards for beating a tier eight as a tier three?”

“Tiers do not translate directly from monster to man.” The avatar shook its featureless head. “And as you were aided by a weapon far exceeding your current personal capabilities, no extra gains shall be received. Furthermore, as it was done as an experiment run by E.O.N itself, the Architect was never in true danger; in the worst-case scenario, the Isailisk would have stood down and retreated due to far exceeding your capabilities.”

“Is that a normal outcome?’

“No. Such safety measures were only allowed due to the nature of your encounter. In the future, should you encounter an Isailisk, the Architect would be wise to consider it the same as any other monster.”

“Right… So, are those things just wandering around on the planet?”

“Currently?” The avatar turned its head upward for a split second before shaking its head in denial. “No. As a reward for working with E.O.N. regarding its creation, the World Spirit Aelia was given the blueprint for the monster. Still, currently, such a beast would destroy the ecosystem and balance of the planet’s surface. You are unlikely to see one until further into the future on the planet’s surface.”

Something about the phrasing tickled Rory’s brain, a wording that stood out. Seconds passed before he snapped his fingers, catching it.

“Planet’s surface. Is there more beneath the crust?”

The galaxy avatar was silent.

“Right.” Rory frowned, thinking of the underground cavern from which he’d been extracting his ore. He hadn’t gone further than the first room, not since his encounter with the tentacled monster, but now Rory was beginning to question just how extensive the area might be. “Another question.”

“Proceed.”

“Well, two, actually. I used up a lot of resources killing that thing. So, will there really be no rewards?”

“You will receive your standard wave reward, accounting for the ten-streak you achieved. Furthermore, due to your usage of your single monster core… Yes, you will be reimbursed a single monster core of slightly higher grade.”

Rory grunted, mildly satisfied. All that ore had gone to waste, but at least he wasn’t returning wholly empty-handed.

“Your second question?” The avatar asked after a moment.

“My second what? Oh, wait, yeah, that’s right.” Rory had forgotten that he had another question. “You said the issue with my railgun was that it was too powerful compared to what I can personally achieve. Does that mean if one day I can output a similar amount of power, I could use a weapon like that un-penalized?”

“Correct.”

“Nice.” Rory grinned at that. The childish part of his brain couldn’t deny how satisfying blasting away with a mega-powerful railgun had felt. “Oh, actually, I have one more question, for curiosity's sake.”

“Proceed.”

“How much benefit would I have gained if I managed to kill such a monster without using my railgun?”

“Killing a monster of such energy density as a tier three yourself would have been enough to propel you instantly to tier six.”

“Damn.” Rory whistled. “So, I should try to hunt one fairly?”

The avatar was silent for several seconds before slowly shaking its head. “Such would be… unwise. Energy density gulfs widen exponentially with each tier. A tier two beast is only relatively marginally more powerful than a tier one beast, whereas even the weakest tier eight beast would overpower most tier seven beasts.”

“I was joking,” Rory muttered, shaking his head. “But noted. While you’re here, is there anything else I should know?”

“No.”

“Well, it was a pleasure seeing you again.” Rory chuckled, expecting the avatar to refute the comment, but interestingly, it simply nodded before vanishing.

Wonderful. So, to sum it all up, I’m not allowed to use my railguns anymore.

There was also a bit of an unsaid threat just beneath the surface. The avatar had repeatedly spoken of ‘disrupting the balance,’ but what would be required to righten that balance if that were the case?

Sending monsters at me that can deal with my railgun, duh.

“Railguns, bad.” Rory sighed. “Now that I’ve taken care of that, let's get on with the real purpose of being here.”

An interface appeared before his eyes, displaying the standard attribute-density slider and his current attributes.

Now, how do I want to do this?

Before, with his railgun, the only attribute he really needed was, oddly, Flexibility, which allowed him to absorb the recoil of his railgun more easily.

Now? I’m back to square one.

“Let’s talk it through,” Rory said into the infinite starry void. “I’m starting to run into quicker monsters now. While my railgun made short work of them before, if I can’t use it -assuming I want to gain any ascension energy- being able to track how fast they move is most important.”

Rory nodded to himself as he touched the Cognition slider, dragging it forward a small amount.

That should be enough.

“Next up: Pneuma. I’ve been using Pneuma often, but I’ve also used my runes to shortcut it. I’m not personally flinging around fireballs or conjuring down lightning. Still, it's probably not a bad idea.”

Whereas cognition gained twenty percent of his attribute density, pneuma received a relatively minor ten percent.

Seventy percent left to work with.

“If I actually have to put myself at more direct risk now, durability.”

Instantly, twenty percent went toward the attribute.

Fifty percent.

He still had to decide between strength, flexibility, durability, and growth, and he had only fifty percent of his attribute density to work with.

Remember, you’ve got more energy than regular on this ascension, as I’ll finally be getting those growth returns from the last ascension.

Rory had taken a rather considerable progress hit compared to the others with how long it had taken him to go from A3 to A4, so he was reluctant to put many points toward Growth. Still, there was merit in not abandoning it entirely, so Rory allocated ten percent.

Forty percent.

Strength, Flexibility, and Durability. Rory glanced between the three, for a moment preparing to throw the remaining points between Durability and Strength, when with a sudden thought, Rory paused. Pulling up another screen, Rory glanced toward his race.

Proto-Human, D1.

He hadn’t actively thought about it, but his ‘race’ slowly increased with each ascension. Now, crossing into his fourth ascension meant he had crossed his first full ‘threshold,’ now a D ranked ‘Proto human’ instead of an E ranked. He wasn’t sure what that meant precisely, but Rory suspected that as his race grade increased, so would his baseline physical stats.

If that’s the case.

With his finger no longer hovering above Strength, Rory split his remaining forty percent of attribute density between Flexibility and Durability.

“Done,” Rory muttered, and the moment he did, he found himself back in everyday reality.

Curious, Rory examined his attribute ranking. He’d caught back up, at least temporarily. His Strength stat was still lagging behind quite a bit compared to the others, whereas his Durability was almost dead average now. Growth had fallen behind the average for the first time, likely given his relatively low growth allocation for his tier-four ascension. Flexibility was surprising, his eyebrows raising as he examined it. Aside from Growth in prior tiers, he was far ahead of the average for the first time. If Rory had to guess, he was probably #2 as far as Flexibility was ranked. Cognition was also somewhat above the curve- though not as much as Flexibility- as was Pneuma.

“Overall, regarding tier four attribute density, it looks like I’m ahead of the curve.”

Rory nodded. It made sense, as far as he was aware, given that he had extra points compared to others due to how heavily he’d invested in growth during his last ascension.

Still curious, Rory flexed his hand. Even though he hadn’t put points toward Strength, he felt unusually strong. It wasn’t by a crazy amount; if he had to quantify it, it was much like the pump you felt after a good lift. It was as if there was a subtle improvement in his foundation, a qualitative difference between the human he had been before and the human he was now.

It wasn’t just his body; the air smelled crisper as if he’d had a rather stubbornly clogged nose that had finally cleared. Even the sounds of the wind rustling the leaves had a crisp quality.

Is this what an entire race grade improvement results in?

Rory didn’t have a mirror, and the murky pond made for a rather shitty reflective surface, so Rory could only guess if he looked any different. Without a mirror, Rory was left to feel his face blindly, checking for any changes. Nothing seemed all that different except that it only occurred to Rory just how long it had been since he’d shaven, with a full beard now cresting his jaw.

Shave, I’ll add that to the list.

Sighing, Rory brought up his interface. Now that he had reached his subsequent ascension, it was time to-

“Oh, right,” Rory muttered as a screen he hadn’t expected appeared.

Vocational Capabilities Expanded:

Future’s Past: Sometimes, the best guide to the future is knowledge of the past. Precursor-based technology is now more easily implemented.

“Interesting,” Rory muttered. What ‘Implemented’ meant was anyone’s question, but the first option already seemed promising.

Explorer’s Whimsy: Sometimes, the best guide is through the discovery of the unknown. Grants intuitional knowledge of potential points of interest.

“Okay, a bit stranger, but not freakishly so,” Rory said. It was a strange skill to gain toward his Vocation, which seemed focused on crafting in an almost esoteric fashion, but Rory could see where it was coming from. He’d spent enough time wandering between his camp and the ore-filled cave the last few that Eon had likely presented the option.

Blood Flame Forge: A crafter whose very blood essence has guided their every work now instills the essence of blood into the very flames of creation.

“Alright, what the actual hell?” Rory snorted in disbelief. “I’m not running a damn cult here,” Rory muttered. It was a rather fiendish-sounding option, and Rory didn’t like the visual image it presented. Hell, how he had been offered it was already strange. Was it just randomly given, or-

Oh, duh. Rory thumped his forehead as it came to him—my knife.

Rory almost exclusively used his Blood Essence knife for every project he worked on. The act of only using a blood essence tool somehow caused Eon to offer the option as a tie-in.

Well, I guess it’s not that bad if that’s the reason.

Still, there were more options, so Rory continued to scan the list.

Heavenly Thunder’s Conduit: A crafter whose magic can bend even the heavenly strikes to their will. Grants an innate understanding of electrical principles.

“Is... is this just a fancy way of saying electrician?” Rory stared at the grandiose option, a chuckle turning into a full-on laugh. “Yeah, I think that’s exactly what it is. One fancy ass way of saying, ‘Learn how not to electrocute yourself’ if I’ve ever seen one.”

Still chuckling, Rory looked over the last option.

Civilization’s Cradle: A crafter not just of simple tools and weapons, the Architect crafts civilizations themselves. Grants a small degree of information regarding civilization building.

“Well, that’s an interesting one,” Rory said. “My options are Old Universe informatics, Wandering, Forging from the underworld, overly verbose electrician, and civil engineering.”

It was perhaps an oversimplification of his options, but not entirely incorrect from Rory’s reckoning. None of the options listed their skill rarity, so Rory could only guess the best choice.

Probably because that’s a superficial method of judgment, or maybe I’m overthinking it.

One option was thrown out almost instantly, and Rory dismissed the wannabe electrician. It had likely only been offered due to his work on his railgun, translating Pneuma into electricity to power electromagnetism. Still, Rory wasn’t about to start playing with electricity outside of that, especially now that he’d been explicitly informed that his railguns were de facto banned.

Explorer’s Whimsy was next to be thrown out. He could see how it might be helpful, guiding him toward potentially useful locations, but Rory already had Eye for Potential as a utility skill in the same vein.

Future’s Past, Blood Flame Forge, or Civilization’s Cradle.

With the two easy options dismissed, Rory was left stumped.

I don’t know which to pick.

Spending more time thinking it through left Rory only slightly better off, deciding to toss out Future’s Past as well. If he had to guess, based on how all his other options and skills had worked before, it would likely allow him to seamlessly delve through his memories of how things worked back in the old universe and bring them to this new existence.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t do that anyway; he just wouldn’t have something that would allow it to be seamless.

With two options left, Rory found himself stumbling.

Civilization’s Cradle is probably suitable for making this camp a little more civilized, but I’m not even sure what it will entail for my overall capabilities.

Blood Flame Forge seemed the more obviously useful choice if that were the case. It wasn’t directly a forging skill, but the implication was about as obvious as being hit by a car.

So, what’s the problem?

It was the name. It just felt too…. Icky.

Oh, get over it. It’s not like it's saying I must start sacrificing children. No children around to sacrifice anyway.

Sighing, Rory finally decided, mentally clicking the only somewhat demonic-sounding skill.

Interface switching, Rory was greeted with a new skill added to his skill list, except it wasn’t the skill he’d thought would appear.

Essence Spark?

Essence Spark

Rarity: Uncommon. Skill Level: Low.

Manipulation of essence is tantamount to directing the unseen world of the trades. Essence comes in varying forms.

Essence Affinities: Blood

“Well, that’s novel,” Rory muttered, staring at the skill. All Blood Flame Forge had done was give him access to a skill that allowed him to manipulate essence directly.

Or maybe that’s not entirely correct.

It had given him access to essence manipulation through the Essence Spark skill, but what Rory felt was the actual benefit of Blood Flame Forge wasn’t the skill but the secondary tag following the standard flavor text of the skill.

Blood affinity.

It seemed to make sense based on everything Rory knew, which was somewhat limited, admittedly. His knife had been created through a nearly ritualistic sort of self-bleeding, days spent draining himself of enough blood to form the foundation of his binding agent.

Rory dismissed the Skill screen, telling himself he would experiment with it later. There was something more important he wanted to check, the entire point of why he’d gone through everything. A screen he wasn’t familiar with brought itself to his attention, a weak smile on Rory’s face as he read it.

Wave Rewards:

Streak modifier: 10x.

Group size modifier: Solo

Planet modifier: Low

Rewards: Ascension Energy (Modular), Beast Core, Direct Title, Settlement Category Rank-Up

“A little different than I remember it,” Rory muttered as he took in the screen. He wasn’t surprised; Eon was constantly fiddling with certain screens and displays, like an interior decorator trying to get the look of a room just right. Aside from the reward for the wave looking different, two things of note caught his attention. First was the ‘Direct Title’. Curious Rory clicked on it, and a helpful explanation popped up.

Direct Titles: Titles generated directly from the E.O.N system. A title may be swapped to another title, incurring a month-long cooldown.

“Oh, well, that didn’t explain much.” Rory frowned. “What exactly is a title.”

A small spinning circle appeared on his interface before being replaced with a new pop-up.

Titles: Titles, either Direct or Given, are sub-modifiers that can grant boons or burdens. What a title may modify varies based on the Title itself.

“I guess that’s a bit more helpful,” Rory muttered. “So, this title is… Huh?”

Looking at his interface, a new piece of text had appeared.

Title: Genie’s Apprentice.

“Genie’s Apprentice?” Rory felt his frown deepen. “I’m assuming that’s nothing more than flavor text because lord knows I haven’t seen any Genies.”

Clicking directly on the title, Rory was presented with more information regarding the specific Title.

Title: Genie’s Apprentice

Through repeated bending of systems to fit the titleholder's needs, the Titleholder has been recognized as a potential source of uncertainty. Grants one Reinterpretation before incurring a one-year cooldown.

“Reinterpretation?” Rory scratched his chin, confused. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

At the very least, it didn’t seem to do anything negative, so Rory decided to leave it alone. Whatever it meant by ‘reinterpretation,’ the fact that it was a single use per year meant that it had to be a powerful effect Rory didn’t want to waste.

Moving on.

Rory skipped over the mention of the Ascension Energy he’d gained. If it worked as it had in the past, it would allow him to upgrade things inside his settlement or just outright funnel Ascension energy to himself. Due to his participation in its experiment, the Beast Core was exactly what Eon's avatar had agreed to reimburse him for.

Speaking of which, whatever happened to- Oh?

Glancing toward where the Iasilisk had been -a name that Rory assumed Aelia had given the overpowered monster- Rory was met with the sight of its body vanishing into twinkling energy that was then quickly reabsorbed by the earth. In its place was the Beast Core that Rory had been granted.

Nifty.

Intending to pick it up in a second, Rory instead looked toward his final reward for the wave, the Settlement Category Rank-Up.

Explanation time. Rory mentally chuckled as he clicked on the reward, thankful that most unknown terms were so easily explained.

Settlement Category:

A settlement may come in several ranks. Beginning at the base level, Encampment, Settlement category rank determines the allowed land where planet interference is minimalized.

“Nifty,” Rory repeated out loud. “For once, something easy to understand.”

It was basically a land grant. With each wave, he’d gradually ‘claimed’ more land for his camp. Of all the times he had gained more territory, this was likely his largest land grant yet.

It's nifty but not super helpful.

All you needed to do was look outside his walls to see how much land he had yet to utilize to understand why.

Deciding to tackle that conundrum later, Rory checked his personal Ascension progress. Not only had he cleared A3, now a proper Ascension tier four, but he’d also made more progress into the tier than expected; nearly forty-five percent of the bar had already filled.

So, there IS some overflow. Good to know.

Of course, had he killed the Iasilisk on his own merits and without the usage of Big Momma, he would have jumped straight to A6, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

This brought him to his final order of business: the energy gained from the wave. His interface shifted as Rory was presented with a bird's-eye view of his camp and several points of interest he could click on. Tapping on himself first, Rory looked to see what would happen if he gave all the energy directly to himself.

Either the energy wasn’t as much as he expected, or the transference efficiency was much lower when being used directly because it only bumped his personal ascension progress up an additional thirty percent. That wasn’t to say it was a bad thing. That was nearly doubling the entirety of the ascension energy he’d gained in the months he’d been on Aelia, but ten weeks of waves just to not even entirely skip tier four felt like a waste.

Instead, Rory began experimenting with his allocation of energy throughout his camp.

The first order of business was his walls. They were in rough shape after the boss of wave ten crashed through not one wall but two. Repairing them by hand would take days, if not more, as fixing was often more work than building them from scratch. Checking how much energy it would take to have them self-repair, Rory made sure to reserve it; there was some manual work he wanted to do on his walls before he had them repaired.

Aware of how much energy he needed to save, Rory began checking other camp areas. His initial theory that the transference rate of the energy rewarded from waves to be personally used was correct, as it was quickly evident that Rory had a lot of energy to spend on camp upgrades. Even accounting for the energy needed to repair his walls, he was still left with approximately ninety-five percent of its initial volume. His shelter, which had been his most expensive upgrade before his Spire, he could upgrade six times with all his energy. It would be a massive waste, but the fact that he could forcibly ascend his shelter so many times when each ascension took more energy than the last spoke to just how much energy he had.

Maybe it’s time I treat myself.

Sliding the bar over until the overlay showed two full ascensions, Rory shifted focus elsewhere. His campfire was next, and with just a bit of energy, he saw the ghostly overlay flicker. No longer was it a simple campfire with nothing more than a log to sit up on; it was a depression in the earth, four consecutive layers, each a foot lower than the last for seating, with a rather nice-looking firepit in the middle, constructed of obsidian colored clay and spotless obsidian stone caging.

I can only imagine how much money a fireplace like this would cost on earth.

Moving from his firepit, Rory focused on the miniature forge he’d constructed. Metalworking in his former firepit had been cumbersome at the best of times. Allocating it enough energy for three upgrades worth, the forge overlay rippled, no longer a small kiln barely large enough for melting a few chunks of metal in a small ceramic container. Now, it was nearly four feet long by four feet wide; the interior had a two-foot clearance, so he could shovel in a rather astonishing amount of wood for burning. Six holes had appeared in the forge as well, three on each side, vents that could be used to pump in extra air once he had the equipment for it.

Dang.

Accounting for the energy reserves he was holding onto for his walls, Rory was left with approximately sixty percent of the overall energy. Had he wanted to, he could probably get a few more upgrades out of it, but there was a single thing he wanted to see more than anything else in his camp.

The Essence Spire.

The name connection didn’t avoid his notice now that he had Essence Spark. Essence, Pneuma, Ascension Energy, there was a connection he hadn’t yet deciphered, but it was there. Examining the Spire, Rory took the time to consider his plan.

Embryonic Crystalized Essence Spire

Rarity: Mythic

A natural treasure, this Essence Spire had been changed. It no longer generates simple Pneuma; it now tears into reality itself, passively pulling essence into existence.

His spire was extraordinary, based on the fact that initially, it was already capable of generating excess Pneuma. So, given he had as much energy left over as he did, what would happen if he threw it all toward the spire?

Curious, Rory did precisely that. It was a testament to how advanced the spire was compared to everything else nearby. When he gave it all the remaining energy—not counting what he was saving for wall repairs and touch-ups—it was barely enough for it to cause a change on the overlay. It wasn’t even anything significant. The entire spire went from being about knee height to reaching his chest.

Well, I may as well.

With only a few quick taps, Rory confirmed his energy allocation. This would have been the part where a cutscene would play in a video game, showing his entire camp wrapped up in magical energy and changing before his eyes.

Instead, nothing happened other than a leaf blowing past his face.

“Yeah, that’s what I expected.” Rory sighed. In the past, they had never ‘leveled up’ right before his eyes; they had been gradual or otherwise occurring as he slept.

While Rory expected it to happen, that didn’t change Rory's sigh of defeat as he took in the state of his camp instead.

He had a lot of cleaning to do, and with no more distractions, he had nothing to procrastinate about.

Time to get busy.