Mistrunner 4 - Chapter 44 - The Dawn of a New Age (Patreon)

The quarantine system was supposed to be foolproof. Or that was what history tells us. When it was implemented, it was intended to give frontier planets a chance to adjust to the Mist without undue interference. However, where there are rules and regulations, there are always those who will endeavor to bypass them. So, it was always inevitable that people would find a way around it. As a result, the fall of the quarantine rarely affects the fate of a world. Earth will almost assuredly be different.

Alistaris Kargat

When the last day of quarantine dawned, I found myself lying abed and wishing for all the world that I didn’t have to confront what was coming. I knew it was a silly thought that more befitted a child than a grown woman, but it was still a persistent one. So, I lay in bed, staring at the plastisteel ceiling as I pondered the changes on the horizon.

I knew the cessation of the quarantine was a big deal, but for the most part, Earth had been open to the aliens for quite some time. Perhaps even from the very beginning. That wasn’t how it was supposed to go, but the rules had never seemed to apply to them. The next phase was called the Integration, and it was intended to establish a planet as a part of the wider universe. Yet, I’d learned that most worlds never got past that point. Indeed, most were stripped bare of all resources or entirely destroyed.

Only a lucky few managed anything more.

But even that characterization presupposed that incorporation into the universe was a desirable thing. It wasn’t. Not from my perspective, at least. Why would anyone want to join a bunch of worlds who thought it was justifiable to harvest a planet’s resources, leaving absolutely nothing of value behind? They enslaved and oppressed, consuming everything they could see. As far as I was concerned, they could stay on their side of the universe, and Earth could occupy its tiny corner of reality.

That was not a viable option, though.

Because Earth had value. Perhaps not enough to garner the attention of the truly powerful. We were on the frontier, after all. But the level of attention we’d already received suggested that our planet would never be left alone. No – as long as we were weak, we’d be under constant assault. The only answer was to beat them back, making every step they took as costly as possible. Maybe that would dissuade them.

It was all about money, after all, and the moment the situation on Earth became too costly to turn a profit, it would be abandoned. And only then would humanity be free to make its own way.

That felt like a pipe dream to me, though. The Gamoris had already proven their commitment to taking the planet, and I suspected it would take more than a few minor setbacks to force them to rethink their position.

As I lay there, my mind spiraling into increasingly pessimistic scenarios, I kept coming back to the last ability I had unlocked. Planetary Defense sounded like it was precisely what we needed, though I’d never had the opportunity to truly explore its capabilities.

Now, with my Nexus Implant – and all my skills – having been absorbed, things were a little different. In some ways, I had more access than ever before. However, it felt like, in order to see the shape of my skills and abilities, I had to squint and cross my metaphorical eyes. Still, with my training, especially with my old {Mistrunner} skills, I was well-versed in mental exercises.

So, with a flex of my mind, I managed to see the shape of my core. It was more diffuse than my Nexus Implant had been, and in fact, it reminded me of some of the more complex systems I’d bypassed during my adventures. Yet, it was different enough that it only took a single glance to recognize that it was a wholly unique thing.

To a degree, it resembled the cores I’d encountered in the mystics I’d defeated, though a little more structured – like someone had built a model meant to represent the cores I’d seen in the mystics.

Regardless, I pushed my awareness among the cloud of nanites, and after only a few minutes, I started to recognize the structures of my skills. The first I noticed was, predictably [Mist-Infused Body], which was characterized by tendrils that extended past my pseudo-core and into the rest of my body. I even found the cluster of nanites that governed the rapid healing ability that had come with it.

Then, I saw [Warfare], which was easily the largest structure apparent. It was also tightly wound and extraordinarily dense, likely due to the fact that so much had been packed into it. The same could be said for [Espionage] and [Combat Maneuvers], thought they both had a different feel to them. By comparison, the structures for [Navigation], [Shielding], and [Multi-Mind] were anemic and tiny. Yet, I could feel the potential power in all three.

It took a little while – I barely paid attention to the passing time – but eventually, I started to identify the individual abilities. Some, like Planetary Defense, were obvious. Others were intertwined with different abilities, probably because they were related to one another, but eventually, I found them all.

And then there were the inert nanites that, for a little while, confused me until, at last, I realized that they were abilities I’d yet to unlock. For a while, I poked and prodded them, but to no effect until, at last, I just shoved my awareness into the cloud of inactive nanites. They lit up, weakly at first but growing stronger with every passing second. I leveraged my mind toward the task, and loose nanites swooped in, attaching to the inert ones. They fed off of one another until, at last, one of the abilities lit up with the same energy as all the rest.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding as a wave of exhaustion washed over me.

“Did I just unlock an ability?” I muttered to myself

“What?” asked Patrick, sticking his head through the door.

“Were you just waiting out there?”

“No. I was walking by. Are you feeling better? I didn’t want to push you…”

“I’m fine,” I said, struggling to sit up. “But I think I just unlocked an ability. And not by training, either. It’s…Mist Cloak, I think. It lets me surround myself with a dense layer of Mist that acts as a shield. Huh. So, it’s kind of like [Shielding] but available in the other tree. Neat.”

“I really don’t know what you’re saying,” Patrick stated, stepping into the room and sitting on the edge of the bed. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine. Tired, but fine.”

Then, I went on to tell him exactly what I’d just discovered, which elicited the shock I would have expected. After all, in the space of a few hours, I’d just accomplished what would have otherwise taken months of training. Maybe more, considering that it had been the last ability available in that branch of the [Espionage] tree.

“What does this mean?” asked Patrick.

“I have no clue,” I admitted. “But it feels like I just learned how to cheat or something. But it’s so weird. I don’t know how people dealt with training and growth before the Mist, because not having a status to look at is extremely disconcerting, you know?”

“You can feel the difference though, can’t you?”

“Mostly. I think I picked up the modifiers in that branch, too.”

“So, is that how you’re supposed to advance, now? You just think about it really hard?”

I fixed him with a level stare.

“What?” he asked innocently.

“It is way more than just thinking about it really hard.”

“Oh, is it? That’s what it sounded like when you described it…”

“It’s like solving a puzzle while meditating on something entirely different,” I said. “Without [Multi-Mind], there’s zero chance I could have done it. It would have taken years.”

“You think that’s what the mystics do, then?”

I shrugged. “No idea. Probably something similar. Freddy did talk about meditating a lot,” I said. “Plus, you saw those Templar acolytes, right?”

“I think they were apprentices.”

“Whatever. They were just meditating,” I said. “That’s probably what they were doing – trying to unlock abilities. Or something. I do know they can’t absorb skill shards, though. So, I don’t know how they do abilities.”

“Maybe they have to build them,” he suggested.

“Maybe.”

The idea of building any of my skills myself seemed incredibly difficult, and the abilities wouldn’t work without that framework. However, on second thought, I was dealing with extremely advanced skills. [Warfare] alone had incorporated five other skills during its two evolutions. Of course it would look like a complicated and beautiful mess of Mist structures. The same could be said for most of my other skills, and even the ones that were, for lack of a better term, first generation skills, they were high-grade. So, it stood to reason that they would be complex. If someone were to start small, then, with enough time and effort, they could build their own abilities.

After all, that’s what Ana did.

A pang of regret wafted through mind. The {Skillsmith} had fled the Bazaar well before Alistaris had been taken, so I knew she was still alive. However, I expected that I’d never see her again. After all, there was little reason for her to come to Earth when, by all accounts, the Gamoris planned to completely destroy it.

Whatever the case, I couldn’t help but wonder if my suppositions concerning mystic skill construction were accurate. Fortunately, I didn’t have to worry about that kind of thing, because I already had the maximum…

“Wait…”

“What?” asked Patrick.

“A person’s Nexus Implant is the limiting factor to how many skills they can have, right?” I asked.

“Yeah. Obviously. Why?”

“I don’t have a Nexus Implant anymore, Pick.”

“I know,” he said, furrowing his brows. “We talked about this before. Are you having memory issues? Gala said you might –”

I threw a pillow at him. “Idiot. I don’t have an implant anymore. That means that, theoretically, there’s no limit to the number of skills I can have,” I explained. “I mean, I’d have to build them myself, but…I mean, I think I can…whoa.”

“Whoa?”

“The possibilities are endless,” I stated.

“They are,” came Gala’s familiar voice as she stepped into the doorway. “But they’re also not.”

“Were you eavesdropping?” I asked.

“I was.”

“What? I mean…thanks for being honest?”

“Don’t turn statements into questions. It makes you seem ditzy,” she said.

“Ouch?”

“Mira, stop,” Patrick said. “She’s trying to help.” Then, he turned to Gala and asked, “You are, right?”

“I am,” the minotaur woman stated. “What I was trying to say is that, yes, the possibilities are endless. Yet, there are limitations. Chiefly, time is a consideration. To build a proper skill without the benefit of the appropriate class will take years. And that’s looking at it optimistically. Realistically, you’re looking at decades. And that’s just the first one. Now, you can get around that with the right guidance. Perhaps your Templar friend can help you with that once he arrives, but you still don’t have time to build something from scratch.

“The second issue is that your core can only hold so much. I’m sure you’ve seen that,” she explained, stepping into the room.

“It does look a bit crowded in there.”

“Most mystics will spend their time trying to expand their core,” she said. “They start with only a few nanites, but the oldest and most powerful will have a core whose size exceeds even your own, and by no small margin. Those lofty existences are not your concern.”

“Why not?”

“Because they would not venture out into the frontier,” Gala stated. She shook her great head, her horns sweeping from side to side. “They don’t think like us. They exist on a different level than anyone else. Even speaking to them is a chore. There is zero chance that one of them will ever visit Earth.”

“Huh. What do they do, then?”

“Whatever they want,” Gala answered. “No one can stop them. They can’t be killed. They simply exist as part of the Mist.”

“Not really what I was asking. Like, are these ultra-powerful people like us? Do they sleep? Eat? Go to the toilet?”

“No. Get your mind out of the gutter.”

“Then what do they do? And don’t say something cryptic like ‘whatever they want.’ That’s bullshit, and you know it.”

She sighed, then scratched the point where her horn met her skull and said, “That’s a hard question to answer, Mira. They are enigmatic figures who avoid public scrutiny. I know one of them protects an entire planet, carefully guiding the development of everything from the flora to the monsters to the people. Another is off exploring the galaxy and looking for the origin of the Mist. A few just wander around, experiencing everything they can. Most that reach that level just disappear, never to be heard from again.”

“What? Why?”

“You’re asking me, but who am I supposed to ask? Once, I was not an unimportant figure, at least in my sector of the universe,” Gala said. “But those people are myths. They may as well be gods. No one knows what they do, and anyone who claims otherwise is lying. The point I’m trying to make is that there are limitations to what you can do. They’re not hard and fast walls, but they’re there, all the same. It takes time to overcome those obstacles.”

“Which we don’t have.”

“Precisely,” Gala said. “It’s better to simply work with the tools you have. Right now, you’re more powerful than any mystic they’ll throw at us. You don’t need more power. We need a plan.”

“Which we don’t have,” I said again.

Gala shook her head again. “True enough, but we’re working on it,” she said. “Case in point, we’re meeting in a few hours, then we’re going to watch the quarantine fall. Just wanted to let you know in case you wanted to join.”

With that, she left the room. Patrick soon followed, saying that he had work to do. Once again, I was all alone, and in that solitude, I couldn’t quite buck the notion that Gala was wrong. The tools I had weren’t enough to solve our problem. Sure, we could probably delay the inevitable for a while, but if the Gamoris proved to be a little more stubborn than we hoped, we’d never be rid of them.

On top of that, there was the issue that if we made one little mistake, everything would come crashing down on us. I couldn’t stomach that. So, I once again turned my attention to my pseudo-core. Or maybe it was just a core, like any other. The differences between me and a mystic seemed so minute that I wasn’t sure they were even real, rather than simply a result of my skewed perception.

Either way, once I looked at that core, my attention kept going back to Planetary Defense. In the past, I’d dismissed it as unworkable due to the requirements involved. Yet, now there were other possibilities. Maybe I didn’t have time to build a new ability or skill, but who was to say I couldn’t alter an existing one?

I dove into it, familiarizing myself with its dizzyingly complex structure. However, the moment I did, I came to realize that I was in over my head. Even with all my advantages working my favor, simply understanding what I was looking at was a massive chore. I saw each piece, but putting it together into a cohesive whole was beyond my capabilities.

But that was fine. I’d never met a challenge I couldn’t overcome. So, over the next few hours, I persisted, and to my dismay, I made almost no progress. However, almost was an important distinction because I did make a minute amount of headway. It was barely noticeable, and it only represented a fraction of a percentage of the entire ability. It was enough to buoy my spirits, though.

So, it was with some degree of optimism that I finally pushed myself out of bed, got dressed, and headed over to the compound so I could participate in the meeting. As it turned out, it was not very productive. Certainly, we came to a consensus about how we would move forward, responding to any incursions as soon as we learned of them, but that was insufficient to encourage me that we could win.

It was the best we could do at the moment, though. Hopefully, that would change, but in the meantime, the end of quarantine loomed ahead of us.

When the time came, we all headed outside, where Patrick had taken the liberty of setting up a series of camp chairs. I settled into one and looked up at the night sky. On the prairie where we’d set up camp, the sky always seemed so much more expansive than anywhere else I’d been.

So it gave a great view of the quarantine falling.

I didn’t think anyone else could see the surge of energy that sped across the sky, but they did see something I didn’t.

“Did you get a notification?” asked Patrick.

I shook my head. “No. What did it say?”

“The Initialization is complete. Let the Integration begin. Quarantine is now lifted. Now, you may embark on a new life as a fully integrated citizen of the universe,” he read. “Then it said a bunch of stuff about being able to travel off-planet, now.”

As soon as he said that, another flash of Mist shot across the sky, signaling the beginning of the blockade. I watched as a blue shield formed across the entire atmosphere.

“One quarantine ends, and another beings,” I muttered to myself. “I guess it’s time to get to work.”