“You sure about this?” Kora asked through the comms.

  I am very sure, Alice said to Keynes before he managed to answer.

  “I’m sure,” he confirmed. “So far she has been on point with rifts.”

  “I’m not talking about that,” Kora clarified, then added conspiratory, even though this was their private comms to which no one else had access. “With consecutive attribute mastery you’re pushing yourself harder than before. We should ask for Natalia to come here. Her Talent can save your life if you make a stupid mistake.”

  “No need. It’s only the Mind attribute left to finish off. Hardly a reason for a healer to be there.”A borderline lie. He made it sound like no big deal and yet the truth was that a healer wasn’t going to help him there.

  The three of them landed at a barren outcropping. Hundreds kilometres from their base and so far the landscape looked exactly the same. It wasn’t like Earth with its vastly different sceneries.

  “Here.” Persephone pointed at a recess that could shelter a car.

  Keynes pulled out a rift from his spatial pouch and deployed it inside the recess. The rift had clean, breathable air, drinkable water and wild forest fruits. The Level 1 monsters in that rift were an afterthought as they posed no risk to any of them. Kora had recently ascended to Level 6 and Persephone was pushing toward Level 8.

  They cleared the rift in less than five minutes and set up a camp near the rift’s exit. Using a rift as camp wasn’t a new concept but there had been technical issues that prevented them from employing it earlier. First, their spacesuits had required the shuttlecraft to recharge, which they addressed once they created the first, rudimentary, essence container and started a trickling set of improvements in the spaceship. Which in turn, allowed them to improve the spacesuits with a portable mana charging capability. This was a game changer as it opened up many possibilities, like long distance expeditions.

  Like their current one.

  Once they figured out the process the whole thing became a breeze. They had used Lem AI—as Keynes had named the spaceship’s AI—to detect the nearest Level 5 rifts. There were 20 in the 300 kilometre radius. They hoped for more but Level 5 rifts weren’t as common as Level 1. Another possibility was that they were unlucky as rifts had a tendency to appear in clusters. Why that was they didn’t know but speculated, together with Alice, that the spiritual realm had an impact here. Alice had only learned that the higher the rift's Level was, the deeper the layer of the spiritual realm it reached. The second issue was mobility as they couldn’t use the shuttlecraft, which was required to move people between the spaceship and the base. They waited until they found Level 2 rift and used it to force [Flight] to appear in the hidden room. It took weeks to happen but once that was done, they could begin their expedition. Keynes’s quest to Level 5 had started.

  “How do you know that the Level 5 rift is the right one?” Persephone asked as she settled down on the opposite side.

  “I told you already, my spiritual companion figured out how to decipher a theme of sealed rifts,” Keynes replied, closing his eyes. His attention immediately drifted away, so he didn’t hear Persephone’s follow up question. His focus remained on the accumulated Level 5 essence. The penalty made essence gain miniscule. The System made sure that progress was never easy. Keynes didn’t use the available essence to progress toward Level 5 though. It would be wasteful as he was going to lose 20% of his current progression when he mastered the last attribute. Instead he started rebuilding his spiritual core. The lesser orb of insight they had used almost a year ago revealed some defects in Keynes’s spiritual core, although he wouldn’t have noticed them without the trait of shamanism that made him acutely perceptive to spiritual energy.

  His spiritual core was inefficient and misaligned with the rest of his cores. Even today he remembered the moment he’d seen the ugly construct which was his spiritual core. His attribute cores were even worse but many times more complex and he didn’t want to risk messing with them before Level 5 as Alice had assured him that a major spiritual understanding would be awarded to him.

  ***

  “Great,” Persephone said. “He ignored me again.”

  Kora who stood nearby while her [Conjured Weapon] constructs circled around shook her head.

  “He doesn’t ignore you. Use [Essence Sight].”

  Persephone nearly froze, hearing that Kora knew about her spell. She hadn’t told either of them about it and somehow she knew. How?

  Spiritual companions? Unlikely. She had once used a spiritual companion herself but disabled it since then as she saw no benefit of sacrificing 30% of her spiritual energy in exchange for some info tidbits. She could always use her Talent, except in this case her Talent whispered to her to stay patient. Answers would come eventually.

  After a moment of hesitation, her curiosity triumphed and she activated [Essence Sight] and found Keynes rebuilding his spiritual core. The process wasn’t alien to her as she had done it herself but so far was stuck at the superior stage. To progress further she would need at least Level 5 essence which on Earth had been impossible due to severe shortage of Level 5 rifts.

  She was planning to begin essence cultivation again once Keynes finished with the attribute mastery. Some part of her was jealous that she had never had a chance to become a Perfect State ascender, but with her Talent nothing could stop her from becoming the strongest ascender among humans without a Perfect State.

  “I am going for a walk,” she said, then stood up and left their camp. She had a lot of thinking ahead. Sometimes using her Talent was hellishly convoluted, requiring many workarounds.

  ***

  The trio didn’t leave their camp rift until their spacesuits were fully charged and their mana was at 100%. Also, neither of them would be able to return to their instance as 24 hours had already passed.

  “Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  “Ready.”

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  They broke the camp, put on the spacesuits and left the rift. Outside, Keynes didn’t put the Level 1 rift back into his spatial pouch as it was unlikely he would manage to master the Mind attribute in one go. His heart was picking up speed in his chest regardless. He was so close to Level 5 he could feel it.

  They didn’t speak as they had done it many times so they understood their roles. Keynes approached the sealed Level 5 rift.

  Alice was right.

  Of course I am right, she mumbled.

  Do you wish to unseal the rift?

  Yes/No

  Keynes had opened so many rifts that he barely paid attention to it at this point. His Talent swiftly unsealed the rift and he prepared for the monsters to pour out.

  Except none did.

  “I’m going with you,” Kora said.

  “I’m going alone,” Keynes replied.

  “No, you don’t,” Kora said, her voice adamant. He knew he would not be able to change her mind. “You can try stopping me though.”

  Keynes sighed, recognising when a battle was lost.

  “I’m going as well,” Persephone added.

  It was dangerous; he wanted to remind them but both of them were Higher Levels than him. In fact, he didn’t think anything inside that rift could harm Persephone and Kora had [Mind Fortress] to keep her safe.

  After waiting for a minute without an outbreak, they decided to enter the rift, keeping their spacesuits on.

  The landscape of the rift was barren with breathable air but their spacesuits detected exotic particles, which at Level 5 could be harmful.

  The Pure Body buff partially blocked [Delirium]

  The spacesuit partially blocked [Delirium], the spacesuit’s AI informed him.

  Only between the spacesuit’s protection and Keynes’s buff the combination of two were they able to stop the mental attack from affecting him, which defeated the purpose of him being here.

  “Cease the mental protection,” he commanded the AI, which promptly complied with the request.

  The Pure Body buff partially blocked [Delirium] x3

  Keynes felt the world around him shift, just a little bit. The harsh landscape started to change, inch by inch, becoming a tropical forest. The air became heavy and hot despite the spacesuit staying on.

  Nothing has changed, he told himself. It’s that [Delirium] spell’s doing.

  No matter how rational his words sounded in his head, he now stood in the middle of a tropical forest, feeling like he was about to drown with each breath. It looked too real even for his perception. It found no failings in the world around.

  He touched the verdant leaf hanging from a tall tree. Its texture was rich and thick. There was no way this could be conjured by a mind…

  He spun.

  “Kora? Persephone?” he called out. He just remembered they should have been with him. Should they, right? He asked himself, a little doubtful. The memory of the three of them entering…—the forest?—was fading away.

  “What am I doing here?”

  He took a step and froze, sensing a strong spiritual presence.

  A monster?

  “KEYNES!” a too familiar voice shouted from above. A silhouette hung high in the sky. A woman with long blond hair, verdant coat and white sword, she casually held in her right hand.

  He knew her.

  “Vivena? What are you doing here?”She was too far away to hear his words. Nonetheless, she slowly drifted to the ground, landing across the clearing a fifty metres away.

  Wait. This clearing wasn’t here, right? Keynes slapped himself. His memory seemed to malfunction. Something wasn’t right.

  “I’m going to kill you,” Vivena said, her voice drenched in venom.

  Keynes frowned, not understanding what was going on.

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Do I need a reason?” she asked and the air surrounding her rippled, turning a shade greener.

  [Poison Aura], Keynes realised. A very strong one.

  “Of course you need a reason,” he said defensively. It sounded strangely out of character…

  “DIE!” Vivena shot forward faster than he anticipated.

  [Poison Aura] surrounded him and he activated [Chaos Aura] to counter it.

  Except [Chaos Aura] didn’t appear.

  What…

  His body convulsed as poisons spread throughout his body. A kick found his stomach, then his head was pressed against the ground. Keynes grabbed Vivena’s forearm but that felt like touching hot iron. Keynes’s hand recoiled, which made Vivena laugh derisively.

  “I always hated you,” she hissed into his ear. “You were always so weak, so fragile. A prey in the world of hunters.”

  “No…” Keynes tried to resist but his body refused to heed his command. He could feel poisons accumulating inside his body, paralysing him with each passing second.

  “Pain will come later,” Vivena said with an evil grin. “Pain that is eternal.”

  I need to…

  A deafening crackling sound boomed in the distance. A chasm appeared in the sky. At first, Vivena didn’t pay it any mind but when Keynes felt a connection with his [Chaos Aura], she snarled, lifting her white sword high above his head.

  “Die!”

  “You already said it.” [Chaos Aura] combined with a spiritual aura like a spear slammed into Vivena’s face, melting it. The blonde woman jumped back, screaming in agony.

  The world around them trembled. Keynes’s memories started to trickle back. He was in the rift with mind affinity. Nothing here was real.

  “This is a monster-induced nightmare.”

  Vivena’s face finished healing. Her face was serious.

  “This is low, using her of all people to fight me.”

  Vivena let out a guttural growl, her facial features lost some of its authenticity and her hands started to turn into claws. The sword vanished in a puff of smoke. With it disappeared all traces of [Poison Aura].

  Looks like the monsters’ mental attacks lost its bite…

  The half-monster half-Vivena rushed at Keynes.

  Too slow, he sighed, whipping [Chaos Aura] against the nightmare. He melted a second later.

  ***

  “I got all of them but this one,”Kora said, as she dismissed [Conjure Weapon] which decimated the monsters inside the rift. Once they revealed themselves, it became obvious why no monster had appeared upon unsealing.

  The monsters in this rift were giant, glittering mushrooms.