On the edge of the Blind Spot

A creature meditating on an empty server, hiding in its deepest depths, sensed a faint echo of the strange energy coming from the Blind Spot. Zdess’s face showed astonishment.

Considering the size of the desynchronized area, the strength of the creature or artifact emitting this energy had to be tremendous, much greater than even his, a Devourer with the Master rank. Although the echo lingered for a moment, he could sense that something unusual was going on.

Could it be the Warden?

In the Royal System Class III, only one creature with a level that high had ever been heard of... and only heard of. No one had ever met it, but for everyone settling in and doing business in Litrah, the Warden’s supposed presence meant that they had to sleep with both of their eyes open.

The Warden was the first explanation that came to his mind.

First the Sphere. Now the Warden, he thought, recalling with a sinking heart the blunder he had made that resulted in losing one of the Admins’ powerful artifacts in the Blind Spot. Since then, he had been living on the edge of this system, looking for a way to return The Emperor.

Remembering his journey to the strange server inhabited by an underdeveloped race, he struggled to fathom the reason why The Emperor would choose a place that run down. But he struggled even more to come to terms with the fact that he had managed to be responsible for two stupid blunders.

The first was agreeing with the Black Lodge’s [7] decision. The server’s location in the Blind Spot was suspicious enough for the council to give it more consideration before sending anyone there. But, since the ancient artifact had never failed them before, pointing toward high-energy servers, they were positive that Zdess would be able to use it to navigate his way through the Blind Spot.

Gorging brain-eaters [8], he cursed as he remembered the greed written all over their faces.

Arriving at his destination back then, Zdess had discovered no usable energy — neither on the server nor in the brains of its inhabitants, which made him extremely uncomfortable.

He had even come to believe that this server was but a work of art, a hologram, how degraded its ecosystem and inhabitants were. The puny creatures had no idea about what their Vessels of Truth were capable of.

But this theory was just as absurd. Who could create magic strong enough to deceive him, a Master? Even a Champion was hardly capable of that.

It took him several minutes to realize why he was feeling uneasy. His own energy, filling his body since birth, had begun to deplete as though some hostile force was sucking it out. This discovery scared him, urging him to complete his mission as soon as possible.

Since this wasn’t the first time he had acted as an envoy, he quickly scanned the server for individuals who could become executors. Following the rules, he contacted them, telling them about a great mission, and the messengers of the Universe.

None of his words were true.

The prohibition to spread information about The Emperor, and the ten-year period, had a different reason for its existence. Or rather, several important reasons.

Having experimented with the Sphere for a long while, the Black Lodge formulated several rules for selecting players on the degrading servers.

The first was to tell them as little as possible about The Emperor. Several civilizations that had been told the truth had rebelled after achieving a higher level of development, which resulted in a massive loss of time and food. Another sad case was an attempt to dissect The Emperor to try to reproduce it. When the Black Lodge learned about it, they wiped the heretics off the face of the Universe.

The second was balance. To prevent anything like that from happening again, the server representatives had to be both interested and frightened at the same time, which could be achieved by showing them strength and presenting them with a tiny bit of truth to serve as bait that’d lure them into sending their people to the slaughterhouse without even realizing it.

The third was impartiality. The Emperor would always choose the initiation and evolution methods on its own, connecting them to the System. Even in those servers that were already connected, it created the conditions necessary for players to become stronger, developing their minds. As the Devourers couldn’t influence this process, there was no point in keeping an eye on it. The earlier experiments had marked the time boundaries within which the necessary Mind Level would almost certainly be achieved. Stopping their livestock’s development at exactly that point, they could greatly assist their own evolution.

Zdess had followed these rules to the letter. Having done what he had come to do, he left immediately afterward... and cursed himself for this decision a short time later. It was his second — and worst — blunder.

Craving to leave this energy-sucking planet as soon as possible, he forgot that he was in the Blind Spot, a desynchronized area where magic worked in weird ways. His teleportation spell failed him, dropping him somewhere far away. This was better than spending any more time in the desynchronized area but it was still something he would’ve rather avoided.

As he relived these sad memories, the Nero family’s scouts sensed the flash of tremendous power as well despite being at a safe distance from its source. Exchanging glances, the three of them focused on their task and waited for the reinforcements to arrive.

***

Having collected all the loot they could, most of Rollin’ Dice, Fortuna, and their ally clan members moved on to try to get as many Influence Spheres as possible. Despite the disaster, the event continued. However, everyone knew that after the loot distribution, each player would have fewer Spheres than they had hoped for.

But Kingmaker didn’t seem to care about that. Delegating this task to her treasurers, she called Raven and went to meet up with him. It was time for the rogue to complete his part of the bargain by sharing the information she needed.

Coming up to the edge of the flying island, she saw Raven sitting there, dangling his feet over the void.

“I’m listening,” she said, glancing down.

He was silent for a while, staring into the distance.

“Have you ever thought about how our minds are capable of much, much more?”

She listened to his long, and sometimes emotional, story without interrupting. With each new twist, she’d feel a shiver run down her spine and her eyes opening just a tad more.

It all sounded like a story made up in the mind of a child with a very active imagination. The challenges. The servers. The Admins. The aliens and their planets.

She expected many things, but nothing like this.

Raven continued, omitting no details. Not only because he had promised so but because once he started talking about it, he realized just how much he missed having someone to share this burden of knowledge with.

After he was done talking and presenting his conclusions, he felt relieved. Like he had been climbing up a steep slope for hours and finally found a flat piece of land to rest on.

Some of his descriptions were so vivid that Kingmaker struggled to believe how he could even remember such small details. Then Raven told her about the new abilities he had gained through mind development challenges in his inner temple.

Her heart raced, then slowed down again. She was so engrossed in the story that her face remained withdrawn five minutes after he had finished talking.

Raven smiled faintly at seeing her expression, realizing that no sane person would probably believe a story like this one. But she surprised him.

“So the Columbus Club was right? Ascension isn’t a game but a practice ground?” She sounded confused. “And we... We’re not alone in the universe?”

Raven raised a brow, looking at her.

“I didn’t expect you to believe it that quickly.”

She looked back at him and slowly said:

“Many things about it are unknown. So who’s to claim that such things can’t exist? I’m talking about the mental development part, not the aliens.”

“You’re right.” Raven looked away. “But, if it were that simple, we wouldn’t be having this talk, would we now?”

“Are you telling me...?” She bit her lip and frowned, looking at the back of his head. “Are you telling me there are some special conditions that need to be met?”

“Yeah. And I have no idea what they are.”

“I see.”

She stared into the distance, considering what she had just learned. Raven’s story sounded like the plot of some sci-fi movie, but she trusted him. And if what he was saying was true, it meant that her life would become much more exciting very soon.