Despite their plans to return to Level 6 rifts so Keynes could continue mastering his attributes, he eventually fell victim to curiosity. He wished to know what positive mods existed and if there was a way to use the skill deterministically.

  Then he made a mistake of contacting Natalia, Willow and Rell. Just a request for a brief advice turned into heavily derailed plans for all parties involved. Willow had to return to the cleared Level 6 rift to calm down. The revelation of [Touch of Elu’var] also found an ear of Persephone, most likely, thanks to her Talent, she found herself at the right time and place.

  “You never cease to amaze me, Keynes Kid,” Persephone said when their group met in the semi soul-space. “If you receive this at Level 5, I’m beginning to worry about what to expect at Level 10.”

  “You’re saying like this is a bad thing,” Natalia countered. “The semi-soul space is the single most useful thing I can think of, apart from the ability to unseal rifts, of course.”

  “And aren’t you worried, even a bit, that all those unique abilities belong to a single person?”Persepone asked, her tone serious.

  Natalia leaned over the round table, which they’d brought into the semi-soul space to have a proper place to meet and debate. Standing around felt awkward, especially when paperwork was involved.

  “You have a fair share of bullshit skills yourself, Persephone,” Natalia said. “This is simply how things are. Wealth and power accumulate at the top.”

  Keynes and Kora shared a glance. While Keynes agreed with Natalia’s assessment, he also understood where Persephone was coming from. However, except for Kora, no one else knew the truth about him.

  And that truth was ugly. Someone had given him the ability to open the sealed rifts in the universe where not a single rift was open. It also ‘happened’ to come with the affinity that could bypass the System’s security measures, the affinity so valuable that he was offered a broken Level 5 upgrade in exchange for removing it.

  It didn’t end there of course. But the point was, Keynes was being used. He didn’t know to what end and by who. At first, he thought that Shaper stood behind it all, and even though Shaper claimed his manipulations had led to Keynes acquiring Lockpicking Talent, Keynes now knew that Shaper was as much a pawn as he was. Then he thought, maybe it was the Chaos as it even called him a Child of Chaos but Keynes was able to defy the Chaos becoming a Defied of Chaos and yet, he was given seemingly the most coveted spell in existence.

  These abilities and happenings had nothing to do with him being on the top. In fact, when Keynes received his Talent he was nothing but a normal teenager.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Not so normal, Alice chimed in. Perfect recall is an incredibly rare condition. But I agree. Something more powerful than the Greater System is using you. But…

  But there was nothing that Keynes could do about it. Even becoming Level 50 in this universe would mean little. Lem Solaris had told him that there are beings to which Level 50s from this universe were as insignificant as Level 1 to Level 50. The sheer scale of power, which existed was dangerously demoralising. As if most people were destined to lose from the start.

  The game’s rigged.

  Their lives weren’t their own, they were simply pawns in someone else’s game. And sometimes, some pawns got a little more power because they had a more important task to fulfil.

  And they won’t let me die until then. This is why Lem Solaris saved my life and gave me this spaceship with AI acting as her avatar.

  But the puppet master couldn’t act directly so they needed pawns to do their work for them. A fact Keynes was going to exploit, and outsmart whoever had put him in this position. It wouldn’t be the first time a creator was outgrown by its creation.

  Keynes’s attention returned to the group and while explaining the truth to them would clear, at least, some confusion he not only did not trust others with this knowledge, it would also put them in jeopardy. So no, no one else besides Kora was going to learn it.

  Meanwhile, Natalia and Persephone were having a staring contest. Keynes was going to break it up when Rell spoke up.

  “I haven’t come here to waste time,” Rell grumbled. “For all we know, there might be millions like Keynes Kid out there. The universe is enormous and you’re behaving like we’re its centerpiece.”

  Keynes knew Rell wasn’t accurate but made no move to correct him.

  “You’re right,” Natalia said, then turned to Keynes. “Sorry for wasting your time. Let’s talk about this skill of yours.”

  Persephone said nothing so they moved on.

  Keynes explained the basis of the skill. Upon opening a fresh instance of a sealed or unsealed rift, he was able to apply [Touch of Elu’var] on that instance of the rift. If the instance wasn’t fresh, meaning someone had entered it before applying the skill, then the rift would reject the mods.

  The mods would only last a single instance and the instance could be preserved by anchoring it to the semi-soul space. That, to Natalia’s displeasure, only added urgency to Daego’s and Persephona’s research into the spatial anchors. Even if the spatial anchors wouldn’t let other than the three owners enter and exit the semi-soul space, having preserved waypoints to important perishable locations was becoming far more significant in Keynes’s mind.

  Upon handing them the list of positive and negative mods Keynes and Kora had encountered so far, Willow raised an interesting observation.

  “You should test it on rifts enhanced by rift orbs. Especially those with 5 rift orbs applied to them. There may be a unique interaction.”

  So it looked like more testing ahead was in order. Honestly, Keynes began regretting telling them about this skill. Everyone had tons of things on their plates and adding more wasn’t helping anyone.

  Kora sensed his mood and put a hand on his shoulder. A simple gesture but it quieted down his internal turmoil.