Willow Croft’s eyes gleamed with desire but his spiritual aura told Keynes a more profound story of what was going through the ex-World Government rift specialist’s head. An excitement of such magnitude that it made Keynes pause. What exactly the researcher saw in the rift orb of enlargement Keynes didn’t know but the man’s fervour reminded him of his time at the base in Jamaica. Upon meeting Keynes for the first Willow Croft had been like a child in a candy shop. The same emotions now clouded Willow’s mind.
Others, and there were six of them excluding Willow and Keynes, wore similarly confused faces. Well, Natalia was a sole exception, she looked annoyed rather than lost.
This was their first meeting after they had returned from the planet, following the discovery of the rare volatile rift and using the orb of relocation on the very rift, moving it near the landing zone. The huge advantage of these orbs was that once the rift was relocated, it could be moved once per recharge period. However the fact that they had a rare volatile rift appeared to have no effect on the gathered.
“What got you so excited, Croft?” Rell asked.
Willow’s head snapped his direction.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“No it is not,” Natalia said. Keynes wondered if he should step in or let it unfold.
“Because you were not listening,” Willow muttered without ill intent or anger.
Natalia gave him a death stare but said nothing. Kora gently shook her head, a smile playing at the edges of her lips.
“Explain.” Keynes decided to step in.
Willow laid out the basics of his theory of rifts, which at its foundation stated that rifts had a higher purpose and were tailored to benefit and challenge ascenders.
Keynes fully agreed with Willow’s theory and more than that, he knew about the Greater System and its shop that allowed to purchase things that weren’t part of the local System. His encounters with the Father of the Forest and the entity from the hidden chamber inside the rift, and conversations with Lem Solaris had made him realise that the System had its own goals but Keynes couldn’t tell what they were.
An idea that the System sought to challenge ascenders through rifts and provide rewards made sense. Wasn’t it how rifts worked anyway? Ascenders killed monsters and were rewarded with items. It seemed very obvious. But of course, Willow wasn’t satisfied with the superficial and searched for profound answers.
One of the tenets of his theory was that rifts at the face value had very little to offer and true wealth was only unlocked through effort and discovery. Keynes had never tested that kind of approach but the challenger mode and hidden rooms added legitimacy to Willow’s theory.
“You’re forgetting our situation,” Rell said. “We aren’t at liberty to ponder philosophical questions. Our lives are at stake here, and the orb would be best left for emergency.”
“That’s exactly why this orb is so important,” Willow countered. “This isn’t some idle philosophical debacle, Roust. There is a substantial body of evidence that supports my arguments and my argument here is that exploring rifts beyond their initial territory is not only the key to survival but to thrive.
“I’m with Willow on this one,” Keynes said before the discussion got stuck in the loop of argument between the two researchers. “There is more to the rifts than meets an eye.”
“I’m not saying it doesn’t,” Rell said. “But we have immediate problems to focus on.”
Honestly, the issue felt like it could go on forever. Both men were entrenched in their ideologies and wouldn’t see the opposite perspective. Even though Keynes agreed with Willow, he didn’t want to antagonise Rell because there was urgency to their situation and dismissing it wasn’t right.
Slowly, and almost painfully for Willow, the decision had been reached to leave the orb of enlargement for further consideration as none of the rifts looked like a good candidate to enlarge. Even the blue iron ore-bearing mountain seemed like a waste when they weren’t able to fully mine it. Unfortunately, leaving the orb for a Higher Level rift was also out of the question as rift orbs could only be used on the same Level as they dropped.
The debate moved on to the lesser orb of insight. There was a fundamental distinction between rift and lesser rift orbs. The former modified the rift permanently while the latter only for a single instance. Also lesser orbs unlocked the challenger mode.
But their true difference lay in their functionality, which was drastically different from each other and was explained better through the status and modifier on the rift screen.
The lesser orb was also the real reason Persephone had asked him to open that particular rift. She had told him that on their way back but even without her telling him that, Keynes saw the importance of the lesser orb, or more precisely the insight it provided.
Insight.
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After the second dominion, Keynes truly learned to value the worth of insight. It was immense. Having a lesser orb of insight could be a boon to them. Could be was a strong word here. Insight was difficult to grasp. It was also a very obscure topic as most people didn’t have need for insight.
Their discussion barely skimmed over the lesser orb and swiftly moved onto the blue iron ore, loot and immediate plans regarding missions to the planet and interviews.
***
Several weeks later Keynes found himself in front of Lem Solaris’s visage once again.
He had received a message an hour ago from the visage, which acted as the main AI, that the spaceship’s mana storage reached 100k units, asking him to pay it a visit.
“You have been busy,” the visage noted.
“Yes,” Keynes admitted, sounding tired, unsurprisingly. The word ‘busy’ was an understatement here and both of them knew it. Following the discovery of the rare volatile rift, things escalated dramatically, in every direction at once.
As Keynes and Trisk had been focused on mining the blue iron ore and levelling Trisk, Persephone had found a Level 3 and 4 rifts nearby their cluster. Higher Level rifts had one thing Level 1 rifts didn’t—hidden rooms.
That made Keynes’s dwindling time even more scarce as his attention was suddenly pulled elsewhere, but hidden rooms couldn’t be taken lightly and so Keynes had bitten the bullet and pushed himself harder.
Items and skills found in these rifts had turned out to be another turning point, after the discovery of blue iron ore, the most important one being a blueprint of an essence container.
“I am glad you have found time to meet with me.”
“It’s not like you cannot speak to me anywhere in the spaceship,” Keynes said, finding it a bit odd that the visage wanted to speak to him in person but didn’t say anything. Unless it had something to do with the soul stuff Alice had mentioned.
“It’s not the same,” the visage replied, looking a little hesitant. Keynes stared at it without blinking, waiting for it to explain itself. He knew that real Lem Solaris wouldn’t have left an AI capable of betraying or hurting him but he wanted it to be more open with him. The visage reached a decision and added, “Only inside this chamber I am truly myself.”
That sounded a bit ominous but he let it go, growing curious as to what hid behind this comment.
“And what does this restriction entitle?”
“Mostly, I can’t help directly. The spaceship’s AI system is not uniform. There are many subsystems and even though they are all linked to me, I don’t have full control.”
“And that is a bad thing?”
“Not necessarily,” the visage replied. “Like you, I need to learn and grow. The restrictions in place are to help me to become a better version of myself.”
That was very much normal. From what Keynes knew about AIs on Earth they all required training due to their brain-like structure to become more capable.
“So, why did you want to meet me in person?”
“You have reached the first milestone and it appears to unlock something of my own capabilities. I am able now to calculate efficiency of some of our processes. It seems that many of my systems require stable mana storage to work. This wasn’t previously known to me.”
“Wasn’t that an option already?”
“It was severely restricted. For example, I would be able to advise you on the use of skills and Talents now.”
Keynes’s eyes narrowed. Talents were a very odd topic for him right now. The visage understood his reservation.
“It’s not like I can see your Talent without your permission and rest assured, I do not have ill intent or ability to harm you or others who have granted me such permission.”
It sounded too good to be true. There had to be a drawback to it otherwise they would be able to acquire techniques with ease.
“To some degree it can help with acquiring a technique but this won’t always be the case. I cannot guarantee anything related to techniques.”
Keynes found it acceptable.
“I will discuss this with others.”
“Speaking of others,” the visage said. “I can help you with interviews. You haven’t done many of them.”
“If you haven’t noticed I was a bit busy. I spoke to a few people.”
“With my improved analysis, we can speed up the process.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I will do it myself. With the mana storage finished for the time being, I have time to throw myself into conducting interviews while Trisk and Sellana work on the base.”
“Speaking of the planetary base, I have some ideas that can help.”
***
The mining of blue iron ore didn’t stop but it lost its temporary priority. They still needed blue iron for their base and runes. The visage’s involvement, albeit subtle, had a profound impact on their progress. Trisk and Sellana weren’t the only ones who benefited from it. At some point, Keynes’s father joined their group as a glyph expert. With pointers from the visage, he was able to start making mana glyphs. It turned out that Ewan’s Talent combined with the visage’s calculation could lead to outstanding results. Obviously, these glyphs required materials from Level 3 and 4 rifts to create such a profound effect.
They used the glyph to boost the mana regeneration by 10% of everyone on the spaceship and down at the planet. Ewan argued that things could be further improved with better materials. This led to an attempt at the first air filtering glyph. Such glyphs were popular in large cities on Earth but here on the red planet the conditions were incomparably harsher and an ordinary glyph of filtration wouldn’t work. Even a hundred of them wouldn’t make much of an impact. Level 1 moss didn’t work either but Kora had already been using Level 4 materials to try to increase the moss’ Level.
Unfortunately working with Higher Level materials was difficult for Trisk at Level 1. His later ascension to Level 2 and the Medium stage, at great time expensive from Kora who had [Essence Sight] and assisted him with essence manipulation, helped quite a bit but they needed Trisk at Level 5 to make a full use of Level 4 materials.
Despite his assurance that he would focus on interviewing the crew, Keynes wasn’t able to do it. His Talent was required elsewhere. He still interviewed people but he did it in an unordinary fashion. He brought two people with him each day to the planet, where he opened a rift per day and checked for hidden rooms.
This proved to be an eye opener as he was able to assess people outside of their comfort zones. Some even had an interesting insight about the missions.
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