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Even though he was deep within his own thoughts and focused completely on his goal, the sound of the falling liquid echoed through his soul and reached even the deepest crevices of his mind.

There was something oddly opening about meditation. He\'d never really had a chance to give it a proper try before the apocalypse, and even now he\'d only done it a few times — and yet, Alex was starting to find that he rather enjoyed the sensation.

It wasn\'t just sitting around doing nothing, nor was it suddenly some immense sense of inner peace.

Meditation was simply silent.

Another droplet hit the water gathering at the bottom of the basin. Alex idly noted that this one was more of a plip than a plink.

He wouldn\'t have minded sitting there for a few more hours, just listening to the water fall. Meditation was one of those things that didn\'t sound particularly enjoyable until he was already halfway through it.

But, no matter how enjoyable occasional meditation could be, he was pretty sure he\'d run out of patience if he did it without purpose. The silence wasn\'t quite as fun if he wasn\'t getting stronger from it.

The droplets continued to fall. Time slipped by Alex and he immersed himself in his power until the sound finally stopped and his soul fell completely quiet.

He opened his eyes.

Then he blinked.

His basin was just over three-quarters full.

Given how much energy he\'d gotten since the last time he\'d leveled up, that was far from an insignificant amount. There was an immense amount of power stored within the marble bowl and waiting for him to call upon it.

He obliged.

As always, Alex started by advancing his Mind Palace. He extended a hand down toward the crystal blue water and a tendril reached up toward him, coiling past his arm and rising up to his lips.

He drank deeply. Ice coursed through his veins and flowed through his entire body, driving into his muscles like a thousand different minuscule needles.

The surface of the lake below rippled. Pressure built around Alex with enough force to make his teeth start to chatter. That was new.

Waves rolled away from the basin, vanishing into the darkness. Each one came stronger than the last.

Far in the distance, heavy metal rattled.

Berith.

It had been a while since he\'d thought about the demon that had given him access to Riftwalk. The monster still lurked deep within his soul — and the more power Alex gathered, the closer to the surface of the lake Berith came.

White flashed beneath the dark waters, the links of a massive chain clanked as they slithered under its surface like a writhing snake. There was a deep, brassy thud. The chains abruptly jerked taut.

Power burned in Alex\'s chest and worked up his throat. Something shifted deep in the darkness, beneath even the chains, and new waves broke against the uniform ones, sending the surface of the lake into chaos.

There was something beneath even the chains, buried so far underwater that he could barely make out its marble surface. It was far too deep for him to make out details, but Alex could have sworn that it was a door.

He forced his gaze back over to the water in his basin. He\'d already consumed half of the magic he\'d gathered up and was starting to eat into the other half. If he continued drinking, he wouldn\'t have enough magic left to level up.

Alex released the magic reluctantly. Relief washed over him as the icy spikes removed themselves from within his body and the flow of magic halted. Strength still churned within him like a raging ocean, but it slowly started to settle down as his body adapted to it.

The ripples in the lake faded until its surface was still once more. No trace of Berith\'s chains or the door remained in the darkness. It was flat and black once more, an impenetrable mirror that showed nothing but the muted reflection of his Mind Palace.

That door… how much power does it need to completely emerge? I used so much magic. I can feel that my Mind Palace is stronger, but this is the first time that there wasn\'t an apparent change. Maybe I missed it?

Alex carefully made his way down the stairs and waked in a circle around the basin. He couldn\'t see anything different. Whatever that door was, it had consumed almost all of his magic — and nothing unimportant was going to be that power-hungry.

He made his way up the stairs, thoughts churning.

Could the door be related to getting my domain? But it\'s shown itself before I\'m an Adept. There\'s no way that there isn\'t going to be a single change to my Mind Palace throughout all of Initiate Stage.

Finley did say this was the time when I would imbue the pillars with aspects — but that isn\'t all there is to it. He also said I\'d be able to put my palace together. That implies I should have some actual stuff to put together, but as things look right now, the door is going to consume as much power as the entirety of the Novice stage if not more.

That doesn\'t seem to match up with what Finley said. There\'s no way everyone is spending this much power on a Stage that\'s meant to be about combining pieces…

So what\'s going on?

Is this something that Berith has caused, or another thing entirely?

The answer didn\'t come to him. Alex drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. That was fine. He\'d still gotten stronger from imbuing his Mind Palace with magic. Spending more now was tempting, but not tempting enough to pass up on a level up.

I\'ll have to store a bunch of energy up and see if I can push the rest of the way the next time I meditate.

But, for now…

He extended his hand to the tendril of water that still rose from the center of his basin. As soon as it made contact, power drove into his palm.

The rest of the basin exploded upward like a massive wave, crashing into his palm and flowing into his body. He drew in a sharp breath. By the time he let it out, the feeling had passed. Golden words bloomed through the air before him.

Your Stage has advanced to Initiate 2.

Your Stage has advanced to Initiate 3.

You have amassed 5 units of soul energy.

Please select an Auxiliary Skill to upgrade.

The three smaller blue gems on the on the mantle of his basin glistened as they lit with bright energy from within, and black letters appeared on the marble once more while the three blue gemstones upon its surface glistened with energy.

[Requiem to the King] (Novice 2)

[Monster Medley] (Novice 4)

[Riftwalk] (Novice 8)

Wow. Leveling really does get a lot harder the stronger you become. Still, getting 2 levels after all the energy I just dumped into my Mind Palace is pretty nice. I\'ve got a total of 5 Units to work with.

That\'s 3 levels away from upgrading Riftwalk — but I wasn\'t planning on advancing that one next anyway. Right now, the choice is between Monster Medley and Requiem to the King.

About time I got an easy decision. Medley is a good skill, but my summons have gotten a bunch of advancements recently. Requiem to the King is my trump card. I can\'t leave it lagging behind.

Alex grinned and made his selection without a moment of hesitation, selecting Requiem to the King.

Black lines flowed down the mantle from Requiem to the King\'s gem. They formed into boxes and words etched themselves into the marble within them.

(2 Units) Exhume: Rip the energy from recently slain foes to bring a summoned monster back to life. The amount of energy required for this ability to activate scales with the target monster\'s strength.

(2 Units) Lasting Notes: Your monsters are reinforced by Rift energy upon their summoning, making them resistant to most afflictions.

(2 Units) Dissonant Departure: When a summoned monster dies, they destabilize the area around them with Rift energy and cause an explosion that scales with their remaining magical power.

"Goddamn," Alex muttered under his breath. The silence of his Mind Place was such that he could hear his heart beating in his ears. He wanted to hit himself over the head for not upgrading Requiem to the King earlier.

Logically, the ability was only useful once his monsters were actually strong enough to capitalize on — but that time had more than come, and these abilities were incredible. He could see each of them being a really solid choice.

Fuck, these are awesome.

He couldn\'t have all of them, though. A choice had to be made.

Lasting Notes was the least flashy of the three, but he didn\'t know exactly what \'afflictions\' were. Something told him that the System wasn\'t going to see getting cut as an affliction. It was probably quite a useful ability in the right situation, but it wasn\'t exactly groundbreaking. There was also the slight but important drawback that was the nature of the ability. It revealed his monsters had Rift energy immediately, which was less than ideal when dealing with Outworlders.

That left Dissonant Departure and Exhume. The former of the two was basically a kamikaze button.

It was a great way to make sure that his summons did as much damage as possible to whatever they were fighting. His combat style often ended with at least one of his monsters dying, so it would get a lot of use.

Alex\'s attention caught on the last part of the skill. The damage scaled with their remaining magical energy. The stronger they were when they died, the more damage it would do. That was great in a situation where he was intentionally killing a monster, but that meant the ability would be less effective in the majority of normal scenarios.

There was also a chance it would interfere with the amount of power he\'d get to use himself when his monsters died.

I don\'t want to build a skill that doesn\'t synergize well with the rest of my kit. Having a \'you\'re coming with me\' ability is always great, but I think scaling with remaining energy knocks this down a peg. I also don\'t want to risk making Requiem to the King worse.

And that left Exhume. An ability that let him straight up bring one of his dead monsters back. It was easily the one he was most excited about, and a second read-over only served to increase his delight.

Unlike Encore, which brought all his monsters back for a very short period of time, Exhume let him keep the monster that came back. That meant, theoretically, he\'d be able to continuously bring his monsters back from the dead so long as he had magical energy and a steady stream of enemies to kill.

It would give him a way to fight in sustained battles for much longer. If he continued focused on making each of his monsters as powerful as possible, he could already see how immensely useful this skill would be now, not to mention the future.

This is so unbalanced. I could fight an entire army on my own so long as my monsters can keep killing enemies. Sure, the monsters have to be strong enough to fight the enemies in the first place, but this is just too great to pass by.

Alex dug through his thoughts to see if he could find any obvious issues with the skill that would make it worse than it seemed, but he found none.

Exhume was perfect.

Alex made his choice on the spot. The skill carved itself into his status. His heart beat with excitement as he turned back to look over his Mindspace.

His energy had been used. His Mind Palace was stronger, and he had another skill that was just begging for him to try it out and he had a mind to oblige it.

On top of that… If I can get my hands on this Town Token, I should get access to portals. That would mean I\'d be able to utilize the new Title I just got and teleport around to the Region Bosses that it reveals to me.

A laugh bubbled up in Alex\'s chest.

He was starting to understand just what Zeal had meant when they\'d spoken about the risks Outworlders took when too many of them showed up on the same planet. The System was pouring opportunity into the world to give everyone a chance to fight back. Alex planned to take every single scrap of that strength he could get.

The gap between him and the Outworlders was burning away.

I can\'t wait to see how much stronger I\'ve gotten.