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  Project Chrysalis

  #4

  Limitless

  By John Gold

  Translated by Jared Firth

  Copyright © 2018 LitHunters Ltd. (http://lithunters.com)

  All rights reserved.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase another copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Contents:

  Part One

  There and Back

  Part Two

  The Keeper’s Game

  Part Three

  Golden Age

  Epilogue

  Book Recommendations:

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Part One

  There and Back

  Sagie, remember, no matter what happens, you will always remain human. What you do, what you think, and the decisions you make are built on the experience you have and the situation you’re in. Don’t fault yourself for your mistakes or let bitterness creep into your view of what you’ve done. Don’t think yourself perfect either. Seeing and understanding more than other people doesn’t mean you’re smarter or better than them. It’s going to be scary for you to look out over a world you understand better and better—villainy, flattery, lust, greed, stupidity, and an inability to understand one’s own actions are just a fraction of what you will see in everybody around you. I’m closer to understanding truth, absolute truth, and the order of the world. My mind recognizes what Femida, Leon, and Bernard can’t. I understand more than the clans and the shadowy alliance leaders. You and I have walked a path that makes us something more than a normal person. Sure, I’m not perfect. My motives, the reasons I react the way I do, my dreams, my desires, my goals…there’s room for criticism in all of it. And I get what’s behind everything. You aren’t ready to hear that though, and that’s okay. The rest of the world is right there with you.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  There’s nothing but gray fields of lifeless ash around me. A whitish fog hangs over it all, also slowly infected by the gray, though with no wind to drive it away. Take a single step, and it’s right there to greet you. Even with my advanced perception, I can’t see what’s on the other side. I activate synesthesia, my senses all jumble together, and it starts to feel like the world is spinning. Earth and sky trade places. The fog takes on form. Everywhere, there are little ghosts of unknown creatures, my enemies, my only friends, my family, the old gods, and the new gods. It takes me five minutes to get my bearings, fear and rage mixing inside my soul. The rage comes from within me, from the darkest corners of my consciousness; I don’t know where the fear is coming from. My first encounter with Hell taught me to hide, but I’m lying here out in the open like an idiot, knowing that there’s an assailant somewhere out there.

  The effect of the synesthesia wears off. Thirty seconds later, I’ve used a telekinetic shovel to dig myself in so that only my eyes are visible. A few Air Magic spells brush my tracks out of the ash. A minute goes by, two minutes, three minutes… Nobody shows up to check out the newcomer to the Gray Lands. My perception strains to the limit, and I sense every little tremor in the air and glimmer in the gray fog. For ten long minutes, I wait, listen, smell, and sense. But nobody is out there besides the lifeless ash spreading in all directions. My body smells of nothing, though my pounding heart thunders in my sensitive ears. Of course, my imp eye catches movement but it’s my own. I can feel the grains of sand around me quiver with my pulse. There aren’t any enemies, however. There isn’t anyone.

  No! Deeper! I need to study everything better and make doubly sure before I move out and take my first steps. A deep breath calms my whole body. Relax even more! I need to get so close to being dead that my heart almost stops beating.

  My perception heightens, my heart beats once every six seconds, and my thoughts flow more slowly. I see, hear, feel, and smell better. Still, I don’t sense anyone. It’s like I’m in a sensory deprivation capsule, with even the temperature of the air and the general atmosphere remaining the same. My eyes strain, and I send a meteor crashing down right at the limit of my perception.

  I feel the distant strike with my whole body, after which a wave of ash and the sound of the explosion both reach me. Again, silence… Five… Ten minutes, and still no change. My magic vision shows me the same gray tones without a hint of magic.

  Regardless of the fact that I appear to be safe, I continue lying there thinking. Why aren’t my map and minimap working? At least, they’re showing that I’m staying in one spot, with none of the area around me explored—it’s all a gray fog. Why aren’t there any direction indicators? Which way is north? The minimap is telling me I’m in the House of Rage, but there aren’t any buildings nearby.

  My streams of consciousness merge, but I still can’t understand what’s going on. With no clear navigation, I should be using some kind of clue to tell me where to go. But there’s nothing like that.

  I lie there for a long six hours waiting for something to happen, but nothing does.

  Thinking back to Femida, I remember the show we put on and the scheme we hatched. I knew from the very beginning that she wasn’t going to come with me to the Gray Lands, so I asked Ekron to take care of her while I was gone. Our meeting in Katain felt more like a betrothal ceremony. How Femida blushed when Ekron said, “Get over here, my precious!” Both girls were happy to be together, and I am sure Femida is in good hands. Right then, we came up with a plan to squeeze as much money as we could out of all our enemies. The key was that Femida was prepared to “betray” me and send me off to a closed location in a different dimension from which I wouldn’t be able to return. For a week, she squeezed Leon, the small pantheon, and a bunch of other “philanthropists” who were prepared to donate money if I disappeared. She ended up signing a contract with Leon who would pay her 288 million credits if I was gone from the world for a week. I had to sacrifice my new name from the clinic, and Femida had to make her real name known to the world. During the last week before my trip here, I had at least thirty seeker spirits around me at any one time that I had to completely ignore.

  When I headed to the Gray Lands, my track went cold. In two weeks, Femida is supposed to receive 20% of the total amount in the contract, with the rest paid out in equal sums for every month I’m gone. If there were an achievement award in Project Chrysalis for running a racket, Femida would definitely get it. She’s using my poor reputation to squeeze money out of the gods. The gods! The same ones the whole world prays to. And the little trick we played on Bernard was flawless. He’s the only person who definitely knows how to get to the Gray Lands, and Femida buried a red stake in my back that dissolved me right in front of him. It was treachery of the highest order right in front of one of my greatest enemies. I’m going to find Talamei and Miridia, the bastards, and send them back to the Gray Lands. It’s just a shame I won’t be able to kill them.

  In a word, I have the world twisted around my little finger. The old and the new gods are sure they’ve gotten rid of me forever; Femida is in good hands; and I’m on the way to my next destination.

  I crawl out of the ashes and look myself over. Just like in Hell, my skin has taken on an ashen shade. I’m not wearing any clothes; my inventory is empty. The blood tie rings I wanted to use to find my parents in the Gray Lands are with Femida. It’s just a good thing I still have my tattoos, otherwise things would be really bad.

  Here in the Gray Lands, I find that I no longer have access to my source in the astral. The spell that’s supposed to take me there doesn’t wo
rk, and neither do my other teleportation spells. Even my leap spell does nothing. All the different chats, news feeds, and other sources of information from the outside world are closed off. Even my inventory sack has reverted to the basic type with twenty slots.

  “Attribute window.”

  Name: Sagie (Almark)

  Level: 2561

  Experience: 121560/28313620 (28192060 left until the next level)

  Race: Human (demigod [unavailable])

  Class: Mage

  Basic attributes

  Strength: 1467

  Agility: 1467

  Stamina: 2130

  Intellect: 18184

  Available attribute points: 0

  Additional attributes

  Speed: 500

  Survivability: 1095

  Derivative attributes

  Physical damage: 733.5 (strength/2, but no less than 1)

  Carrying capacity: 3667 kg (strength*10/4)

  Overall strength: 36550 (stamina*10+15250 from tattoos)

  Mana: 27413 (overall strength*0.75)

  Health: 9138 (overall strength*0.25)

  Health and mana restoration: 10950/minute (mana*2)

  Running speed: 184 km/h (1+speed/10)

  Defense: –5

  Resistance

  Physical damage: 100% (damage ignored: up to 25 million/second)

  Poison: 12.60% (damage ignored: up to 47368/second)

  Fire: 100% (damage ignored: up to 25 million/second)

  Electricity: 100% (damage ignored: up to 25 million/second)

  Mental damage: 100% (damage ignored: up to 25 million/second)

  Cold: 100% (damage ignored: up to 25 million/second)

  Skills

  Cooking: 284

  Trap setting and disarming: 19

  Archery: 252

  Swimming: 377

  Breath-holding: 701

  Stealth: 253

  Life Magic: 1000

  Mind Magic: 288

  Space Magic: 660

  Land Magic: 401

  Water Magic: 303

  Fire Magic: 699

  Air Magic: 701

  Light Magic: 458

  Dark Magic: 633

  Meditation: 682

  Hand-to-hand combat: 122

  Perception: 1000

  Necromancy: 251

  Blood magic: 277

  Chimerology: 250

  Ritual magic: 288

  Artifact creation: 254

  Poison-making: 25

  Ointment-making: 25

  Metal reinforcing: 25

  Wood reinforcing: 25

  Body enhancement: 612

  Swords and daggers: 211

  Astral: 42

  Magic vision: 48

  Item identification: 3

  Spell scaling: 711

  Magic energy manipulation: 802

  Professions

  …

  Abilities

  Imp eye

  Undecuple consciousness

  One of our own

  Shroud of darkness

  Friend of the forest

  Gifts

  Meeting deferred

  I have to wonder whether I would be taken to the palace of death if I were to die right now. Just like any living person, I have no desire to meet that bony character. No, I’m not here in the soul world because of his scythe and justice—I’m here to make Hell tremble!

  While we were diving to the bottom of the Sea of Madness, I was able to pick up the fourth rank of the herald of the creator achievement, so I got +40 to all my attributes. The mushrooms I was growing were self-contained ecosystems with their own internal microclimate. On the way down, I grew nine of them that apparently became small places of strength. Along with the eight trees in the heart of the Hashan Desert, in the volcano, and on the North Pole, I also picked up the third rank of the life of the saints achievement: +150 to all my attributes. They joined forces with the aegis and otherworldly diver achievements to total +380. That went a long way toward compensating for the loss of my equipment. I wonder if you can make battle underwear.

  My magic manipulation skill has progressed faster than my skill for magic scaling, and it could be my ace in the hole when the time comes to fight a stronger opponent. Everything else has just progressed as part of my quest for full resistance to all kinds of damage. I did forget about poison, but that’s not a problem for now.

  It’s time to see what’s going on with the local population.

  I run straight ahead for about ten minutes. The complete absence of life is driving me crazy, and I start to wonder whether I got myself thrown into an unfinished location. Maybe, it’s a bug. But how do you get out of somewhere that doesn’t exist?

  My annoyance grows; the silence gets on my nerves. The cloud of ash raised by my feet falls silently back to earth, almost as if I’m running through a spherical vacuum.

  The anger bubbling up inside me gets so bad I don’t even notice it when I crash into Grunt, who’s crouching on the ground. It’s my old friend from Orany. Wait, is Rachel here, too? He’s grown over the past nine years, ending up right around my age.

  Human, Grunt, Level 2561

  As I’m pulling myself up off the ground, he throws himself at me and starts beating me with his bare hands.

  Damage received: 51220 (ignored: 25000000)

  9138/9138

  I’m not cocksure enough to skip throwing up a shield. Strength like that could just spit on me, and that would do me in. Happily, he just does physical damage, already using six different attack methods on me. Why didn’t I sense him? Why didn’t I see him? Why is his level on par with mine? Why is he here? He’s even wearing the same clothes he wore back in the village nine years ago. I think back to the time that I broke his nose at the fair.

  Killing him is a pleasure, and I finish him off with an amplified blow to the crown of his head with my elbow. My hand-to-hand fighting has nothing to do with combat techniques; it’s the art of killing, plain and simple. Rage! So many years have gone by, yet I still remember how those two followed Rachel around. I finally have my chance to get some revenge.

  Three seconds later, I get kicked in the back of the head. The kick is so strong that I’m thrown through the air before tumbling a few meters across the ground. I land awkwardly, face down, and my assailant exploits the fall. It’s Grunt yet again, even as his lifeless body is lying next to me. It’s almost as though I didn’t kill him.

  The first, the second, the tenth, the hundredth… They come at me one after another without ever disappearing, three seconds after I killed the last. He never tries to say anything, and he dies within ten seconds if I paralyze him.

  Grunt isn’t local, so he must be part of a test. But what test? And why do I despise him so thoroughly? Sure, he looks like a little bandit kid, but he never evoked in me this feeling of all-consuming rage.

  Listening in on my own emotions, I realize that the rage isn’t receding. It should have left me after the first dozen, but it’s only growing stronger, and there are a couple hundred bodies all around me.

  Using trial and error, I’m able to figure out which direction I have to go in order for the rage to intensify. If I run in the opposite direction, it softens slightly.

  Okay, so that’s navigation. In the Gray Lands, apparently, there’s only one direction, and it’s based on emotions. The fact that it’s the House of Rage implies that I need to go in the direction the emotion is coming from. I wish I had a scale to see how far I am from the center. It reminds me most of mental auras and the way they act on emotions, something that makes perfect sense—I’m in the afterlife.

  Just to see what happens, I run perpendicular to my vector, just turning left.

  Damage received: 500 (ignored: 25000000)

  9138/9138

  I start taking damage from a new aura. This time, the rage is joined by pain that doubles after a minute’s run. Two minutes later, it’s up to ten thousand. It’s a million and grows quickly after an hour. There’s no gua
rantee that the source of the aura isn’t moving, though it’s also protecting me from most of my potential opponents.

  Really, I need to relax and think for a bit. The rage is eating away at my strength, I’m sagging, and I feel my body starting to go limp. I can feel my body struggling with the emotional overdose. The med capsule released a sedative into my blood, and I’m feeling sleepy.

  I could use some battle intelligence and an understanding of the logic behind the test. If I need to kill each opponent a thousand times, I can do that without much problem, but that can’t be it. The solution must be more complicated—just to get here, you have to make your way somewhere with 50 million damage. I needed the sefirot seal, too, and I haven’t seen that anywhere else. The test has to be something more in-depth.

  To get the information I need, I take off running in the direction the rage is coming from. Two hours later after dashing along lifeless plains in complete silence and oppressive anger, I come across Grunt yet again, though definitely not where he was the first time. He and I have both jumped a level, meaning that our levels are linked. Even though I killed him two hundred and ten times, only the first ten counted. The rest of the kills got me less and less experience. This time, I just slice his head off on the run and keep going. I need to know what’s closer to the source of the rage.

  A little while later, I kill Grunt again, because he’s been chasing me. He neither gives me experience nor backs off. The respawn interval is still three seconds.

  Suddenly, I sense somebody nearby and stop sharply. Someone is hiding in stealth mode close by, which means they must have the marauder or assassin class.

  I send dragon breath scorching around me, and Ownie comes running at me out of the flames. That little moron always did hang around Grunt. It comes as little surprise that he’s my next opponent.

  Human, Ownie, Level 3062