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  He’s 500 levels higher than me, and he has invisibility, does piercing damage, knows some dangerous moves, and even offers some poison. In a word, he’s a very awkward enemy for a mage like me. I activate my shield, pouring all of my mana into it. I’ve been trying to avoid using it ever since Femida got worried that breaking it might injure me. In that way, the shield is a lot more vulnerable than I am, especially now that I don’t have access to my astral source.

  But off I go again across the gray, lifeless fields, periodically pausing to cut down chasers. What I’d really like to do is stop, tear off their heads, shatter every bone in their bodies, slowly fry them to a crisp… Rage isn’t good for your ability to think rationally, and I’m living proof of that. But oh, how I want to kill them. Just torture them to death.

  Once again, I come across an opponent I despise. It’s the hireling who held my arms on the altar in Teurus’ temple nine years ago.

  Human, Ritan, Level 3562

  Oh, the humanity! I used spells to get rid of Ownie and Grunt, but I take my time with the hireling. His limbs shatter and tear off, he’s blinded, he’s stunned, he’s burned… By the time he pops up the ninth time, I realize that it’s time for me to get going. Torturing people ruins you, destroys your values and crumbles your cultural foundations. I’ll stop seeing my victims as human beings. No, I won’t let myself become an animal.

  The rage loses some of its grip on me, and I run straight into the teeth of whatever’s giving me such a hard time thinking straight. There are now three people running after me. Happily, none of them have ranged attacks in their arsenal, though I notice somebody else up ahead ten minutes later. It’s a thirty-year-old man wearing metal chainmail. His face looks familiar somehow—ah, the second guy who held me down in the temple.

  Human, Jeb, Level 4062

  My sword’s force blade takes off two-thirds of his health but doesn’t kill him. I’ve hit my limit for the time being. I can’t just keep blindly rushing forward like I have been, and my opponents are getting stronger. Before I completely lose my mind, I turn around and dash back the way I came. I need to think all this through.

  Instead of following my tracks back, I run off in a perpendicular direction, and the mental damage hits 10 million an hour later. My pursuers died when it was at just 100000. More importantly, they didn’t come back, which means the aura inhibits their respawn mechanism.

  I think I figured out the point of the trial. Anyone who’s been to a psychologist probably remembers that the first and most important key to success is creating an environment conducive to conversation. The patient relaxes and opens up; the psychologist gets a chance to hear what’s going on. Here in the Gray Lands, it’s similar, just based on self-recognition. The environment is identical everywhere in the space, it’s quiet, there isn’t anything around to distract me, and the temperature is perfect. Everything is built to force me to turn my thoughts to myself rather than to my surroundings. Basically, the House of Rage is more like the “test of rage.”

  But about the information I’ve been collecting. When I run toward the source of the rage, every fifteen to twenty minutes, a new opponent pops up 500 levels stronger than the previous one. In that amount of time, I cover about fifty kilometers. That means that there are seven hundred and fifty kilometers from start to finish. At the end, I’ll have to deal with a Level-10000 opponent, and I definitely won’t be able to beat someone like that. There will be a crowd following me, too.

  Logout

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Yesterday, I finally got permission from the doctor to implant a neuronet. After getting dressed and having breakfast in the empty cafeteria, I head down to the clinic. The basement is quiet, with just the generator-like machine in the mysterious room buzzing away. The door is firmly shut. I have no desire to pick the lock and ruin my relationship with the people working here, but whatever’s behind the door is certainly intriguing. I just can’t get at it yet.

  The neuronet is implanted by nanobots in a capsule. Normal surgery only ever happens these days in emergencies, mostly in battle, as the resource wars never really end. I’m aware of two dozen local conflicts currently being fought over the mineral mines in asteroid fields and moons. Surgeons are always needed.

  J12P47-02 neuronets are mostly given to engineers working on production lines at defense companies. The 02 modification is for managing defense installations, as military technology was prohibited for normal civilians. A few modifications were made available to people who had been through basic training. Somehow, Femida had been able to talk with relatives and get a note added to my biopassport saying I had completed basic, so the doctor agreed to implant it without saying much.

  “So young, and already spent time in the army.”

  I have to wonder what else I could add to my biopassport. A doctorate in ship building? No, that’s a trace that could lead directly to me. Ribonz Almar is a new identity with no connection to Anji Ganet.

  The idea behind the operation is to create additional neural connections between the brain’s hemispheres and other areas. First, they build a basic network atop which the neural tissue is then grown. In the back, between the two hemispheres, you get the thin band that is the neuronet itself.

  It takes me two days to wake up. My head is a mess, my streams of consciousness are all over the place, and my motor skills are nowhere to be found. The doctor is leaning over me, looking me in the eye.

  “Well, isn’t that surprising! You’re completely awake, but your mental activity says you’re semicomatose. Is there something you want to tell me?”

  “I’m hungry.” My thoughts tumble over each other, and I’m worried that Claude will make me swim four kilometers if I don’t show up to physical therapy.

  “So, you don’t want to talk. It must have something to do with your experiment.”

  I don’t tell anyone anything about myself. Only one person, the one I trust most of all, can know the full truth. But even this step is one I took as an insurance policy in case something went wrong with my memory again.

  Last time, by my tree in Kurg, the resonance that was activated nearly killed me. And because of the brain damage I received, rebuilding my body took a month longer than it should have. The risk is always there, especially now that I’m in the Gray Lands. The neuroset will help me keep an eye on my brain’s condition in real time. It’ll also let the medbots know how to treat me if anything happens.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Login

  Once again, there’s gray ash underfoot and absolute silence all around. The damage from the aura hasn’t changed, which means the source is stable and immobile. Even though I have a physical body, I’m not hungry. And the fact that I don’t get any loot from my kills means that I’m going to have to get through the test with what I have now. As Uve Graal said, the world is ruled by new thinkers.

  When I get back to the trial zone, I’m surprised to see four opponents at the same time. Apparently, each area has its “rest area” with mental damage. The rage ticks up much stronger than it did back in the beginning, and every time I return, I’m supposed to fight everyone I’ve gotten through to that point.

  The fighting is easier even with the number of enemies I’m facing. I can kill Grunt and Ownie with a single intensified spell each, though the hirelings are much harder. If I stun one of them, he dies after three seconds and comes back after another three. I’m forced to use a telekinesis spell on one, similar to what the archmage did, while I fight the other to the death.

  An hour goes by, then a second, a third, and a fourth, and I know everything there is to know about my assailants. They’ve been learning, too, however. They calculated that the most effective attacks against me are the marauder’s piercing jabs with a poisoned blade. But my defense is flawless, and I have my incredible mana restoration speed, sword, and shield.

  The rage doesn’t go away; in fact, it pushes down on me ever harder. Luckily, humans are nothing if not adaptable. My brain gets used
to the relentless flow of unprovoked anger, looking for a way to suppress it. And that’s how it happens that I start to be conscious of a kind of meter I can use to measure my feeling of rage. With each blow, each new kill, and each respawn, I get better at finding my calm center. Five hours go by, and suddenly I start to realize that the respawn time gets longer as I control my anger better.

  “Bingo!”

  The key is to control my emotions. My mind starts to turn the anger off, though the more I suppress it as an emotion, the stronger I sense that it’s being suppressed. During my twelfth hour of fighting, I snap and tear my opponent’s head off with my bare hands, nearly earning myself a dagger in the eye for my trouble. I run off into the “rest area” after quelling the feeling of rage once again. No, I’m not going to be a monster. I’m human, and I’m going to stay human, no matter what the trial. I can’t be that brutish.

  The mental aura does 20 million damage, and I look up at the Gray Lands sky, mentally worn out. There aren’t the sixteen moons you can see in the outside world on a clear night. The canopy of bright stars is missing, as are the smell of the soil, the blanket of plants, and the air wafting in from the trees. While Fem and I traveled, we often stopped to spend the night out in the open fields. Our planet has just one natural satellite called Rainbow. Thanks to its unique atmosphere, it lives up to the name, too. When night is just starting to fall, and Rainbow is beginning to gleam, anyone who looks up can see the concentric circles of different colors. The circular rainbows only glow brightly at midnight and right before dawn. At the same time, it’s the planet’s smallest satellite, and I can’t help but dearly miss it and my nights under the stars with Femida.

  I focus, merging my streams of consciousness into one. My father’s voice rings in my ears: you always need to have an advantage when you’re fighting a stronger opponent. Always. Always control the situation. That’s going to be my ticket out of Hell as soon as I figure out what that advantage is going to be.

  Going back to where there isn’t any damage coming from the mental aura, I sit down to meditate and give my life aura full power and breadth. I have no idea how fertile the ash is going to be. But everything turns out okay: ten minutes later, hundreds of plants have grown higher than my head.

  The aura of life burns 56000 mana a minute, though I can replenish a bit more than 85000 over that same period. LJ appears at the edge of my consciousness, and I drift slowly off to sleep. Rage is exhausting.

  I’m woken up eighteen hours later by water trickling underneath my back. Water? The plants have grown so thick around me that I have to crawl under the roots of the enormous trees like some kind of snake. Mice! There are enormous field mice running around, which means there are also things that like to hunt field mice.

  Where I was sitting yesterday, there’s a seventy-meter hill made entirely of vegetation. Birds tweet, snakes slither, and insects buzz from flower to flower. Who said nothing can live in the Gray Lands?

  Just like the floating islands, the entire hill has a single root system, which means I can use it to give myself a lot more health. I’ll be able to use health instead of mana when it’s time to start hunting.

  “Panacea! Maximum!”

  I’ve never used borrowed health as a source of mana. It feels like my nerves were all ripped out at once, like strings were filtered through my body and then yanked out. It’s a method I don’t think I’m going to use unless I absolutely have to.

  My island of life has grown to a hundred and twenty meters, and there’s a small tree right in the center. LJ shows up as soon as I notice a good spot to lie down. Nope! I need to keep pushing my advantage. I need the forest to be way bigger!

  It expands over the next five days. The central island grows much slower, though the amount of health in the root system keeps climbing. And as soon as it gets to be a kilometer in diameter, it’s recognized as a new part of the location.

  Current location: House of Rage. Crazyman’s Forest.

  The admins have a sense of humor. Maybe, they predicted what I was going to do.

  Not far from the central hill, I get to work on the construction of the century: it’s time to build a mine. The forest created a sustainable black earth five meters deep, and I dump the ash that comes after it into my empty bag. It all goes into a single slot—the total weight it can hold is more than three tons. A large piece of bark serves as a shovel, and I scoop the ash into my materialized bag. The aura of life stimulates the tree’s root system to grow deeper into the tunnel, serving more or less as walls. I dump all the ash out on the other side of the forest. Finally, fifty meters down, and just before I’m about to give up, it ends in rock.

  Over the past two weeks, the forest has grown another thirty meters, most significantly thanks to the regular charges of panacea. They’re my expression of thanks for the service the roots are doing me in the mine.

  Why do I need stone? Well, where else am I going to brew potions? Where else am I going to get the sand for the glass to make the vials with? The forest is a wonderful area for farming—the soil is rich with minerals, the plants are full of active ingredients, and both are extraordinarily great to work with. My island is a small place of strength, and I notice lots of plants with enticing question marks in the descriptions growing around it.

  Unlike most players, I have the patience to chew through any amount of complex work. Growing the forest and digging a fifty-meter mine, all alone, isn’t a problem for me in the least. I have my end goal, I have ten intermediary tasks to complete, and two weeks of work is just the beginning. It’s the first step toward creating my advantage.

  The pace of the work slows a little when I hit rock, as I’m forced to smash it into little pieces and load them into my inventory. The system automatically separates the nuggets of useful material away from the waste.

  One week later, I have enough metal to make a bronze cauldron, and I also strike black sand.

  Black sand

  Type: Ingredient

  Class: Legendary

  Requirement: ???

  Durability: 1/1

  Weight: 433 kg

  Who would have thought to mine for ore in their own grave? Oh, pick me! I’m not sure how to use the black sand or what it’s good for, but it certainly makes for high-quality glass.

  It’s time to farm all the culinary ingredients I can find in the area. I grab everything: mushrooms, herbs, barks, roots, shoots, buds, leaves, fruit, and everything I can get from the little animals. It’s a shame a pond didn’t show up.

  I’m able to build a new knowledge base for my cooking skill using trial and elimination. In a departure from my last time in Hell, I’m able to pull on the information I already have from Project Chrysalis. There are ways of figuring out which ingredients go together, as well as how to mitigate negative effects. For each hundred points of cooking, I can use one more ingredient and one catalyst or inhibitor. The latter impact how long the potion will last.

  Over the next month spent just brewing potions, I’m able to get my skill up to 600. One discovery I make is that the black sand produces black glass with a special effect: it can hold a small charge that gives the potion inside it a 10% boost. On the other hand, my potions start to have an expiration date, and it’s sooner for shorter-lasting potions.

  Most of the sand goes towards making vials as well as an enormous cauldron. When you add silicon and a couple of minerals to the glass, it becomes much stronger, to the point where you can use it to make alchemical glassware. I don’t have enough strength or mastery to make retorts or alembics, though the big cauldron turns out fine.

  I build a new laboratory under the roots of the enormous tree. Every day, I gift it a panacea in appreciation for the wonderful crown it spreads over my head, and potions by the ton are poured onto its root system. Due to the fact that I base them on my own blood, very unusual plants start to grow. They’re all predatory! A red fern ensnares insects and birds that fly too close; vines paralyze their victims before pulling
them somewhere up higher; and the normal grass turns into sharp needles that do their best to pierce the feet of unwary travelers. None of them come after me, apparently in recognition of whose blood was used to feed them. They’re all around Level 500 with rare ingredients to offer.

  Could it be that they’re appearing because I’m making ritual seals to intensify my magic rather than because I’m using blood magic to brew the potions?

  The biggest problem with the Gray Lands is the complete lack of loot you get from normal opponents. On the other hand, there is an unlimited quantity of them. After taking out a couple dozen victims, I drag them down into my lab, less two tons of useful meat, and more a pile of free necrotic energy. Ritual magic and blood magic both help me boost the effect I get from the potions. The tens of tons of blood are poured over the roots of the tree in an offering of free energy. By the time my second month of brewing potions rolls around, it’s already a middle place of strength.

  It’s been three months here in the Gray Lands, and today I finally reached my goal.

  Cooking +1

  Your cooking skill has reached the maximum value

  New ability: Gourmet

  Once a day, you can make a maximum-difficulty meal that permanently boosts one attribute by 50 points. Gourmets pour all their emotions into their dishes, which results in delectable delights at the cost of 20 levels.

  Limit: The same attribute cannot be boosted twice by the same person.

  Give me two! I get half what I’m given, but levels are easier to pick up than attribute boosts. I think I understand why there aren’t many high-level cooks in the world.

  The rest of the day is spent collecting my most valuable ingredients and cooking some special dishes. Right at the end, I pick up a plate and activate my new gourmet ability. The menu that pops up lets me choose the attribute I want to improve. The unique evening is just for me and my food—torches burn forlornly at the edges of my table. There are four place settings, but I’m the only one there eating the goulash soup with hints of cumin. The thick meat sauce features slices of a root I don’t know. Instead of tea, I enjoy a nonalcoholic liqueur made of forest berries—everything is beautiful and elegant. If only I weren’t so completely alone for the fourth month in a row. It hurts…my heart hurts…