CH4: Up The Ladder (Patreon)

Going from a drive to a dead-end job to a vast, open future with infinite possibilities was strange. Oh, there was a price that was, without a doubt. He would have to kill a child who would one day become a hero who invaded their world for revenge. This most likely wouldn’t be the first assassination attempt.

How would they succeed?

Athena stared them down, daring anyone to ask the obvious questions.

“Why us.” Zack heard Jon ask beside him.

The goddess of wisdom smiled. “What do you know of the dimensional membrane and the dimension of chaos?”

Athena pointed to a man with a hawkish nose and silver eyes, oddly like Athena’s own. “Chaos is what we move through to get to the other world. It's like an Isekai, but we don’t have to die right.”

Athena smiled and stared up at the crowd. “An Isekai that’s like a portal cartoon. Sometimes, gods like us interfere; sometimes, it’s a sadistic witch. Well, let me inform you that this is not like those cartoons. We have given you a definite goal and plan to extract you when your job is done.” Her smile faltered. “Chaos or the primordial dimension is the outermost layer that protects a world from invasion. Think of it like your skin. Some worlds have powerful beings living in this dimension, protecting them from threats. Threats are the keyword. None of you are in any way powerful or special. With your lack of power, you will easily slip through to the next world. Returning won’t be a problem if you have a skill from our world. You are native to our world, and our chaos dimension will recognize you.”

They were chosen because they would have died anyway. So, the scraps were used while the main force planned for the inevitable invasion. All of this was throwing everything but the kitchen sink at a problem.

Well, it was better than being dead. The gods were also having fun with it, going by Apollo’s attempt to bribe him, or it was a filter. Would they have killed him if he had agreed? That did sound like the Greek gods in myth.

Zack didn’t think he was smart enough to figure out all the motives of immortals in multiversal politics. He would rather keep things simple and plan one step at a time. He had two years to prepare for the inevitable invasion.

He stared at the skill sitting on his list.

Demeter’s Blessing

Rank: E

Skills could rank up through blood, sweat, and tears. Demeter’s blessing allowed him to control and manipulate an entire biological kingdom. It was a stupidly powerful skill, and Apollo thought he wanted his blessing. Demeter’s blessing was a skill with nearly endless use. He could use it to exchange traits with plants, give plants the traits of monsters, and control them. It did something that he wanted most of all.

Zack would be good at farming enough to make the hardest back-breaking bullshit job imaginable a trivial affair. If he could get good enough with the blessing, he could gain influence and possibly get the target to come to him.

Then Zack didn’t know what he would do. He couldn’t kill a child no matter what they would grow up to be. 

He decided to fall back on his number one short-term goal: to be a successful farmer. That sounded stupidly obvious, but it was the best way to hide himself and rank up. If he did manage to nab a good skill in the chaos dimension, then that would be awesome. If not, he would still need to get well acquainted with ranking-up skills.

From what he learned, skills were power multipliers, but going up in rank required three attributes to be at the max of their rank and all skills to be of the next rank. So, more skills would only take longer to raise his rank. Few skills would leave him weak with nothing to use his power through. He would have to find a good balance that he was comfortable with.

Athena waved her hand, and silver light flashed. “Prepare yourselves, mortals. Soon, you will travel through the chaos realm and beyond.”

An arch appeared at the top of the stairs, and a red and black ladder led up.

“Why does it look like that?” Zack asked.

He didn’t expect the goddess to respond. “In the higher realms, all things shift and change based on the viewer’s perspective. The system adds stability, allowing easier interaction between your mortal mind and the space around you. I assure you we see vastly different realms of chaos.” Athena said. 

So, the best way he could perceive and interact with the chaos realm was if it was a ladder. Or was that the limit placed upon it by the system? They were in the godly realm, so maybe the chaos realm was more of an abstract place.

It was all so complicated. He barely knew anything about the dream realm and had to go through the chaos realm. But that would somehow place them into the material realm in the other world. Zack accepted that the gods did something, or maybe there were other factors he didn’t yet understand.

“Who wants to be the first to cross over?” Athena asked.

Someone raised their hand. “We were promised a salary of 150,000$ a year. How does that work?” Someone asked.

“You have a shop tab in your system display connected to your inventory. Think of it as your one-stop shop for anything you may need. You will receive your monthly salary, and through your system, anything purchased will appear in your inventory. We suggest you always have enough slots, or an object may appear inside of you.” That was good to know. Thank you, Mortises. Am I not benevolent for answering even the most inane questions?” Athena said.

She glanced around and blushed golden. She coughed. “My apologies. I don’t know what came over me. It has been a long day of recruiting.”

“Thank you, lady Athena,” Zack said when he got ahold of himself.

A chorus of gratitude slowly filtered through the group as the goddess tried to keep ahold of herself. “Be cunning, brave, and most importantly, be ruthless.” Zack sighed and walked up the stairs toward the hole in the dimension. It was much better than working a line.

He crossed over, and a black sky filled with countless stars appeared overhead. None were recognizable. There was a big one at the end of the ladder. He couldn’t help himself. He gathered all the snot he could and spat into the nothingness.

Maybe some super entity would run into his spittle while flying through chaos one day.

Zack climbed and focused on what he needed from a skill from chaos. With Demeter’s blessing, he felt like he had it all tied in a neat bow. Something to help synergize with that would be best.

He figured what he wanted most was his demi-plane. He wanted a growing space where he could add all sorts of plants and animals and adjust their growth, and he wanted fully customizable terrain. Something like that would be the best. Then, he could put all his plants and monsters there to breed and propagate. It wasn’t quite a world itself but something world adjacent, something that would grow with him. Maybe it could start as a single square of land with all sorts of potential. Then, he could feed it and grow it slowly like a sprouting seed.

He paused on the ladder and felt for any sign that the realm would give him a skill. That was weird; every stray thought seemed to conjure skills from earlier realms. Maybe he needed to provide a little more form to what he wanted.

Zack fell entirely into the fantasy as he climbed the ladder that seemed to stretch toward the next world endlessly.

For something called chaos, it was incredibly linear. What happened with Apollo offering him 10 million when their starting salary was 150,000? Was there room for negotiation, and he missed it? He imagined what he could do with a seed world and 10 million.

In his mind’s eye, the fantasy played like a clip from an edgy early 2000s video game.

The land stretched across the horizon while dragons flew through the sky, each the size of a city with its ecosystem stretching across its body. Deer, the size of skyscrapers, stepped over rivers and grazed from forests while more miniature monsters fled in terror of the giant herbivores. Lions made of swirling darkness hunted them, only to have their prey stolen by icy wolves, whose every step froze the ground and spread winter itself.

Zack could feel something forming as he climbed and put his mind to the grindstone. The object of his desire was only a block of what could be. He had a lot of carving to do to bring it out entirely.

Thought had far more impact out in the chaos than in the lower realms. He was like a tiny pebble trying to cast ripples over a planet-sized ocean.

It all starts by shoveling heaps of magic dung into the world and filling it with mana. He traps monsters in his seed world and slowly increases the mana supply. Then, when it becomes self-sufficient, he breeds new, stronger monsters to further his aims. Zack snatches the farming and breeding skills to build upon the seed further. Then, he summons beasts of incredible power from his world to battle his foes.

Zack could see it as he climbed one foot on the ladder. Leviathans rise from the endless oceans of his world and peer down on a city through a portal with eyes that dwarf it.

All of it could be his with the proper foundation. That’s why he needed that foundation, something to build on to empower himself and craft a legacy for himself. He would swallow even hells into his domain, spreading his forces out and striking at enemies who would challenge his world’s right to exist.

He sent it out as a promise and a wish to the Either, or in the chaos realm, the Either responded.        

It was coming, and he only needed a little more polishing. He envisioned places of burning flames, cities of light floating in the clouds, and all beasts walking the world. In the dark, creatures fed on the unfortunates that crossed their path, but all paid homage to their ruler. The world would fuel growth as creatures competed for the most vital spot. Harpies clutched in caves while their males battled vicious beasts trying to get at their eggs.

Do you want to learn the skill Primordial World (Seed)?

Y/N

Zack slammed yes and felt something slip into his mind.

Zack Sin

Rank: G-

Attributes: 9

Life G-

Regeneration G-

Endurance G-

Body G-

Strength G-

Reflex G-

Perception G-

Mana G-

Resistance G-

 Skills: 2

Demeter’s Blessing: Grow plants faster, take traits from monsters, and breed them into plants.

Rank: E

Primordial World (Seed): An inner world with a single meter of land bursting with potential and hunger for mana. The user can open and close portals to their land out of combat. The world is an extension of the user’s soul, giving the user complete autonomy over the world beyond even the gods and their domains. The size of the portal is dependent on the user manual. G x 1 meter.  

Rank: G

Ok, he planned for this. Zack knew he would have to deal with G rank skills and the pain that comes with making them worth a damn. Everyone starts somewhere. Zack sighed. He was going to have to get a bunch of skills to make his Primordial World worth a damn, wasn’t he?

Like anything else, getting the momentum going was the hardest part. Why did it seem the bolder he was trying to roll uphill was stuck in a hole? It was too late to go back and take a thunder break. He didn’t want anything flashy, especially when he was weak. Zack wanted to get used to working hard to get stronger. What was the point of having an ultra-cool power from the beginning only to stall? He wouldn’t appreciate it unless he bled for every inch of land.

Zack knew he was coping. He didn’t care. He just climbed one rung and the next, only half contemplating jumping off the ladder.

Hours of climbing later and after his dreams of massive monsters were utterly crushed by viewing his small 1 m squared plot of land in his world, Zack saw the light in the distance grow larger.

This was it. He realized soon he would be in the other world, and then it was off to hard farm work. It was too late to go back to the factory. Maybe the job offer for Mount Olympus would have been better.

Zack rubbed his very bald head. Well, maybe the coke fiend with beautiful red hair would do the deed, and Zack could reap the rewards. He clutched his ribs and as he laughed. That was a good one. With Zack’s luck, that guy would be king and forget about the job while snorting new drugs off the asses of young maidens. He might bring the style to the new world and popularize it. Everyone liked the guys who had the best time when everyone else was also having a good time. Zack wanted to be like that. He was envious.

Light enveloped him, making him feel a little like one of the gods. After seeing Athena use her power a few times, he was getting a strange feeling from it. The light was similar to Coke and Pepsi.

“What in tarnation are you doing, Zack? If you make my rows uneven, I’ll tan your hide, and then your dad will do it again. I’m not being paid by the hour to plow a crooked field.” A voice said.

He blinked and then saw an icon above a centaur’s head.

Thistle

Rank: G

Well, that was better than his G- wasn’t it?

“Sorry, Thistle, I was distracted by your beauty.”

“Wrong answer, try again.” The girl had chestnut red hair, sweat pouring down her face, a straw hat on, and a horse lower half crossed her arms and stared back at him with large green eyes. Red-furred horse ears poked through her hat, and both faced him. She raised her front leg and slammed it on the ground.

Was it too late to let the deer kill him?