[MA] 251. Halved (Patreon)

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[Chapters this week: 2/3

Next release: Saturday]

Shen materialized in a desert beside another white teleportation light. Whoever had been in that rift had also chosen to leave.

| Your points have been halved

| Previous points: 0

| Current points: 0

That was weird. He had expected to also lose half the points he could win from surviving. The system hadn't lied, but it had used wordplay to make teleporting look worse than it actually was.

It felt counterintuitive at first, but he understood Liya's meaning after giving it a thought. She seemed to want talents to help each other, but that didn't mean ignoring the Alliance. And in the Alliance, the letter of the law mattered, not its intent.

It might change, as Propriety had said, but how fast would that be? Until then, the talents should learn to expect catches.

In fact, for the first time, he felt his training with her had been lacking. She should've taught him how to think like a lawyer to detect and abuse loopholes, too. Then again, they hadn't had enough time for that.

Shen checked his surroundings, but nothing caught his eye in the desert.

| The talent in this rift has left

| You'll be automatically teleported to another rift

He had expected to be extra unspoken rules on top of the ones he had read because they were too simple, and the notifications he received confirmed that.

An instant later, he was taken into another rift.

He reappeared in a vast flower field next. Thick red and pink rose-like flowers half his height bloomed as far as the eye could see. The sky above was a deep blue, and a red sun bathed the world in an angry light. Beauty and oppressiveness shared the same space in that place.

The omnispider stood beside him. It was wide and about half again his height. It stuck like a sore thumb in that field. Strangely, it was showing only one form without any strange superposition.

"This place offends me," it said with a raspy female voice instead of thousands of choruses. "No trees, no phase space. I shall destroy it personally. I need no help. Leave."

Shen considered everything he could say, but ended up with, "Teleport."

No rule stated he could teleport again, but he could try. AP was good, but he had no reason to create enmity to gain some. There were plenty of other rifts out there that he could use—probably.

| You cannot use the keywords "teleport" or "help" while this rift's talent is still alive and in this rift

| You can still use the keyword "forfeit"

"I can't leave while you're here unless I'm willing to give up on all my points," he said. "I'm not."

"Your presence here offends me," the spider replied. "Leave."

Shen had been willing to help her, but it didn't change the simple fact that this was a competition. He found an ungrateful bastard and still tried to respect her. But that was his limit. He wouldn't let himself lose the points he might still win for surviving just because she wanted him to.

"No," he said. "But I can compromise. I'll go kill the D-rank now. Once I'm done, I'll stay in place until I have 20 Standard minutes remaining. Then I'll hunt precisely one dweller and stay in place until 20 minutes remain again. Other than that, I'll only kill dwellers that attack me or if you ask me for help."

He had concluded the omnispider was an idiot who had no idea how strong a D-rank would be. Either that, or she had an ace he didn't expect, but he would rather not risk it.

Well, not "would rather;" he couldn't risk it.

This E-rank spider had an A-rank guardian, and he doubted the latter would like it if he let the little one die, no matter if by her own choice. Liya had been very clear in her powerlessness to protect him from A-ranks, and even if the drow might find a way, he wasn't willing to put his people at risk for a minor offense.

Yes, his people.

Shen had concluded once and for all to accept his drow identity to a considerable degree. Liya might've known the deathwalker would die after her words, but she had still declared war on the A-rank before Propriety acted. That had sent a message to everyone present. The drow considered him one of theirs and would go to war against an A-rank race for him. There could be no grander gesture in the Alliance.

Then again, the A-rank omnispider might consider his assistance to the little spider an offense instead. He had no way of knowing, so he could only do his best, and maybe, just maybe, he might satisfactorily explain himself later.

Of course, the E-rank might die fighting E-rank dwellers. But Shen had already said he would protect the talent if she asked. If the A-rank still blamed him for the E-rank's bad decisions, he could only prepare himself for the retaliations.

To be honest, he wouldn't be fully without blame if that happened. His decision wasn't fully to the little E-rank's benefit. He wanted to cultivate more than he wanted AP. Depending on how many dwellers were in the rift and how fast the spider could kill them, he could progress his cultivation by days or even weeks.

That's probably not what Liya had had in mind when she created a demonstration named "Priorities and Choices," but he felt his decision fit everything the windows had said.

"Acceptable," the omnispider replied after a moment. "Kill the D-rank, then come to me. You'll sit on top of me to wait for your timer. You'll save me if I need and bring me food if I'm getting out of time."

Shen stopped himself from raising an eyebrow at that; she was treating him like a servant.

While he had no issue with serving others if previously agreed upon, the assumption that he was hierarchically beneath someone irked him. It dishonored him.

Yet, he wondered if he should feel dishonored. Should other people's beliefs matter to him if they worked to his advantage, like now? By staying on top of the E-rank, he could ensure her safety. What did he lose with that?

Well, Influence. In any organization, how you were perceived affected your ability to exert influence. Using raw power could compensate for that, but many would resent him. And sometimes, not having to use raw power would benefit him much more.

For instance, someone with powerful backing might assume he was a pushover and demand something of his despite not being powerful enough to suppress him personally. He might be forced to fight or even kill the idiot. Then, things would snowball out of proportion. It was much more convenient not to let others perceive him as weak-willed, thus preventing many such instances.

And personal clashes were the least of the issues. Instead, someone might do something to someone he cared about but was too far from him. Alicia, for one, was on Earth. Someone might know his power, which might be greater than theirs, but they wouldn't care because they believed him to be a coward. By the time he learned of it, it might be too late.

Absolute power was the best weapon at close range, but one's reputation was much more effective at long range.

Shen guessed these considerations were intended by Liya. The demonstration's description had mentioned thinking of the future. Shen didn't care much about his image now, but it might bite him in the ass much later. The guardians would look at him and see someone easily bullied, and others might pay the price. He couldn't have that.

"No," he replied. "I'm not yours to command." Then, he rushed in a random direction before the spider could reply.

Of course, not allowing some offenses slip might also make him clash against those who tried to walk over him, like now. The A-rank guardian might take offense at this attitude. It might attack the ones he cared about in retaliation.

But if anything he did could lead to bad outcomes, he would pick the path that left him freer.

His Path was also Boundless, after all.

Shen could move fast, and he took full advantage of it. He took his drow armor and standard spear from his ring and put them on while moving.

Liya had previously promised to craft him a nice spear if he exclusively used the one she had given him for a while. Shen hadn't cared about that when he went to the pre-war because the spear provided to him then let him better display his power. Fortunately, during their date, she had also promised to craft him a nice spear every time he ranked up, regardless of which weapon he used. Maybe that wouldn't hold true anymore, but if so, he would just have to find another spearmaker and purchase a good weapon from them.

Shen moved in a spiral around the spider. He expanded his aura for better scouting but made sure it didn't touch the E-rank. He wasn't sure whether it would be considered an attack—

'Wait, didn't Propriety say we could ask it about the rules if we were unsure?' he thought.

"Will my aura be considered an attack on a fellow talent during demonstrations?" he asked.

Revealing his aura would give his opponents some intelligence on Shen, but it was a leap of faith toward Propriety's wishes. The infinity-edger wanted those involved in the Summit to grow closer, and Liya seemed to agree. Not hiding his power despite possibly needing to fight the other talents in a later demonstration was the same as saying he had nothing to hide, no hidden daggers, and wanted to cooperate.

A moment later, he got the answer to his previous question.

'Concupiscence, another A-rank infinity-edger, says just having my aura touch someone won't be considered an attack. However, using my aura on them might, even if I didn't intend it to be an attack. She suggests I don't do it."

So there were more A-ranks involved, and their names were all weird. Discontinuity, Propriety, and... Concupiscence? An A-rank ruled by lust sounded terrifying.

Anyway, he fully deployed his aura, not caring when it touched the omnispider—at first. When he felt her, he missed a step.

The spider felt like a bottomless pit. She was there, physically, like him, but every atom seemed to bleed into deeper space. He also felt a clearly artificial barrier between her physical form and whatever else she could be, like a wall that prevented anything from moving deeper.

She had mentioned "phase space" before. What that it?

That was something to think about later. For now, Shen moved in a spiral around it. He wanted to kill the D-rank before it could kill the spider. It would be pathetic if he went one direction only for the D-rank to come from another.

There seemed to be no end to the flower field. There was, however, an end to the rift. At some point, the ground, air, and skies gave way to endless darkness. Henceforth, instead of spirals, he moved in the opposite direction like wave curves coming from the spider.

It took him a few minutes to find the first enemy.

It looked like a flower to the eyes, but the way qi and mana moved around it was not what he expected from a biological G-rank flower of that mass and form. Its gravitational pull was also wrong—Shen could barely feel such a tiny fluctuation with his aura now that his mind had improved to be comparable to C-rank.

He already expected the flower to be an illusion, and when his aura enveloped it, he confirmed it. A rift dweller was floating in the fake flower's stalk. It was a worm smaller than Shen's pinky, surrounded by a light cocoon that released multiple light strings to create the flower illusion.

"Inspect," Shen said.

| Rift Dweller (E) — 50 / 50

The E-rank recoiled when it felt his aura. The illusion flickered for a few moments before returning to normal.

Shen had no idea how E-ranks could betray the Alliance and end up in a rift, and them being such pathetic worms made it even harder for him to understand. Another thing to consider at a later time.

The cultivator went right past it. Soon enough, he found countless similar beings. He avoided them all.

It took him almost ten minutes to find the rift's D-rank.

It was so skilled in hiding and illusions that Shen only found it because of his aura, and even Shen's aura felt its existence as a sort of transparent, ethereal silhouette.

The D-rank lobworm had 500 HP. It was only as thin as Shen's closed fist but hundreds of yards long. Its body formed a circle and floated, invisible, a few dozen yards above the ground.

Shen decided to start the fight with a test. His aura attacks weren't as powerful as any other. So, he willed the worm to be cut into billions of pieces—

| Rift Dweller (D) | +1,250 → 38,828,872 AP

| This rift's talent has received 50,000 points

| Demonstration timer reset

The worm died without putting any resistance at all.

Shen triple-checked if he was under an illusion but found nothing wrong. He moved away, and still nothing. Only then did he return to that place and sit down—he had said he wouldn't move after killing the D-rank.

The ease with which he killed the D-rank didn't make him doubt his decision to leave his own rift. He was just much stronger than a weak D-rank like that one, but even a weak D-rank should be able to kill any E-rank. Likewise, even a weak C-rank should be able to kill him.

More importantly, he felt confident cultivating in a place surrounded by E-ranks, but he would've had to worry about ambushes in his rift.

In other words, even if Shen could have killed the C-rank—which he still doubted—he was exchanging AP for the opportunity to improve his cultivation sooner. At this point in his journey, he felt it was worth it. He already had a lot of AP from the bounties on the ogres he had killed back on Earth, anyway.

In fact, Shen even felt that cultivation progress was more valuable than an A+ treasure at this point in his life. To him, the reward was a hidden trap in this demonstration. Maybe you could get an A+ prize, but was your race strong enough to prevent it from being stolen? If not, were you willing to trust that the other races in the Summit would respect Propriety enough not to snatch it from you as soon as they could?

Fortunately, Shen didn't have to worry about any of that.

He closed his eyes and focused on improving himself.

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