Infinite Realm: Monsters & Legends

Offers

Ryun laid in bed, Erdania on one side and Selia on the other. They didn’t do anything, they only slept, or at least they did. Ryun wasn’t yet at the point where he needed the sleep so he just stayed awake. It was awkward at first, but now though, it was surprisingly… nice. By now both of them were in a deep sleep, Selia had her back turned toward him while Erdania was sprawled over him and Selia on the other side.

Slowly he got out of bed, untangling himself from Erdania. He walked out of the room and then out of the small apartment-like area they had been given. He stepped out on a wide and long balcony and looked around. Guards patrolled the compound, but other than that everyone else was asleep. The gathering party had ended a while ago, and by the intensity of the Light Essence in the air and its type, Ryun knew that it was the middle of the night.

For a moment he wondered if he was allowed to walk freely, but no one had told him that he wasn’t. He started walking down the balcony stairs, heading down into a large maze. With his sense he knew where everyone and everything was, so he navigated his way through easily enough.

A part of his reason for coming here had been resolved; Nayra was free to do as she wished—and she wanted to stay and fight, for now at least, which he understood. And Daria was back in his service, to fulfill the rest of her contract. The rest… Ryun didn’t know what they would offer him. There was little that they could offer him that he truly needed. Still, he would give them the opportunity to make things right before he acted.

He made his way through the twisting corridors of the hedge maze and finally entered the center. He didn’t quite know why he came here, though of course, he knew who he would find. The man was on his knees, his pants marred with dirt, and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, working. He dug up a small hole, then placed a plant in the center and closed up the soil around it.

Ryun stood behind him in silence, he was certain that the man knew that he was there. Ender Ornn, something about him made Ryun… uncomfortable. And he found that he didn’t like that at all. And that brought him to the man.

After a while, he stood up, wiped his hands on a rag stuffed in his belt and spoke.

“Couldn’t sleep?” He asked.

“Sometimes, it does good a mind to sleep even when it feels like you don’t need to. We might no longer be as we once were, but the soul still tires.”

Ryun wondered if that was why he had seen some of the others like Erdania and Selia sleep even when they didn’t need to. Though, he hadn’t really felt what the man spoke about.

When Ryun didn’t answer, the man turned and looked at him.

“You know, my daughter speaks highly of you,” Ender said. “I don’t think that there is anyone in her life that she respects more. As her father that… it does hurt, a little bit, though I know that it is so because of my actions.”

Ryun tilted his head. “Nayra is… driven. And she has earned my trust and respect. I am honored to have her in my sect.”

“You coming here has demonstrated that, to me at least,” he told him.

“Others don’t think the same?” Ryun asked.

The man smiled and shrugged. “Some of my children think that you are simply using her for gain, to try and extort something from the family.”

“And you don’t believe that?”

“Not everyone thinks in such complicated terms. I understand more than they do. You are not a complicated man, you are simple, you are here for the reasons you have said you are.”

Ryun wondered if he was just that easily read, or if the man was just that insightful. Ryun looked around the garden, more for show than anything else. There was too much Essence mixed in everything for his eyes to be able to tell what was what, but through his sense he had gotten the sense that the garden was meticulously arranged.

After a few seconds of silence, Ender spoke again. “My daughter says that you are a man who needs very little, that there are few things that you would consider equal to the blood that was spilled.”

Ryun shrugged. “As I said, it is on you to make an offer.”

“You are invested in all three focuses, what would you say if we offered you a way to remove one?”

Ryun blinked. There were times when he had thought about something like that, but not often. He knew that raising all three focuses had downsides, that him having all three would limit how high he could take his secondary, that he risked madness. But in the end… he didn’t mind his Class, not now. It had its place in his path. It gathered him Essence, and the Class perks were valuable to his build. Still, being able to just remove your focus? It sounded almost too good to be true.

“Really?” Ender said before Ryun could form an answer. “Many would consider that a treasure beyond anything else, and you wouldn’t jump on the opportunity?”

“Once, perhaps. Now? It doesn’t really impact me that much.”

Ryun’s main focus was Cultivation, everything else was there just to help him improve it.

Ender nodded his head. “Well, might be for the best, the only thing you could remove without consequences is your Class, and the benefit would be… negligible for you.”

Ryun’s eyes narrowed. “Why is that?” It seemed like the man had somehow at least glimpsed Ryun’s screens. He hadn’t sensed anything, so it had to be something incredibly powerful to get past his defenses.

“Your Class is low level, removing it wouldn’t hit you with any real side effects. Removing your Skills would mean ripping the anchors you have made from your soul, and that would… change you. Cultivation? Well, you would lose your body, have it revert to what it was before. And that… it is painful, the higher tiered you are, the more difficult and agonizing it is, not everyone survives. Still, it could give you a way to take another Class, maybe something more suitable for your path.”

That did sound more like what Ryun expected from the Framework, consequences and suffering.

“Hm…” Ender mused, then gestured with his hand. “Come with me.”

Ryun hesitated for just a moment, and then followed as the man led him to a small gazebo and motioned for him to take a seat. Ryun lowered himself in a small chair across from a small table from Ender and waited.

“My wife intends to offer you a way to remove one focus as payment,” Ender said. “But I see that you wouldn’t think that is enough.”

“I do not need it, not now,” Ryun said.

“It is a treasure that many would kill for, it is a reward that the Empire gives to its most loyal servants. It is a way to start again. You could grant it to someone else. A gift for someone who was loyal and true?”

Ryun thought about it for a while, true, he could give it to Anrosh or even Nayra. It would help them, if they wanted it to. But in the end…

“Perfect path, perfect planning, I… I don’t think that power comes from that. Certainly it gives people builds with more quality. But true power comes from living and developing the flaws on the way. It comes through struggle to survive and make things fit, make them work. So, no. I wouldn’t grant it to anyone of mine.”

“Ah,” Ender just said. “Well, if that will not satisfy you, we will need to think of something else. Is there nothing really that you need?”

Ryun waved his hand. “I don’t think that you have anything that could help me. Your Empire has little ways of helping Cultivators, they had made that clear. I was promised a Skill Tome, which is one of the only things that I need. The truth is that I don’t know you, and I don’t know if there is anything that you could offer me.”

Ender tilted his head. “You are a Ranker, yes?”

Ryun frowned, not quite sure where he was going with that, and he was pretty sure that he already knew that information. Finally, he replied simply, “I am.”

“It was so long ago, the time when I was back on Earth,” Ender said, looking to the side.

Somehow, Ryun had forgotten, or he hadn’t really thought about it, but others had come from Earth too. Rankers from other Iterations.

“I can’t even remember much of the life before Framework, it was… barely a fraction of my life, twenty years, out of a life that is now over a thousand. Yet… even though the man that had lived in that world died so long ago that I can’t even remember him, his mark is still one me. That man used to be a landscaper,” Ender smiled. “I remember him trying to work against the idiotic demands of his clients, trying to make art out of life, and often failing. But it is foggy in my mind, that time.”

He sighed. “The Framework though, that is clearer to me,” Ender remarked.

Ryun tried to remember his life from before. It was… hazy to him too, though probably for different reasons. His recollection was a result of time, Ryun’s of other factors and choices.

“I barely got into the Infinite Realm,” Ender met Ryun’s eyes. “In fact, my name was last on the list. I only pushed out the name before me in the last hour of the countdown. It was so long ago, I wonder, what did the person that I pushed out think? Did they struggle to overcome me again and fail? I’ll never know.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head. “The rest of it… The Infinite Realm, the early years were… chaotic, filled with struggle. I was… I was not one of the leaders, I stuck to the outskirts, looking and trying to survive. The politics between the Iterations… I never wanted to be part of that. I wasn’t strong, my passion wasn’t useful and so I was overlooked. In the end, I decided to leave the comfort and protection of the core. I don’t even know why I did that, I was probably mad, even back then, but it got worse after. We didn’t know about focus madness then, everyone was rushing to get more powerful, to reach and get the best titles they could,” Ender opened his eyes and met Ryun’s. “And I pushed everything that I could in order to survive, all alone in the wilderness of the Infinite Realm. Cultivation, Class, and Skill.”

Ryun remained silent, listening to the man’s story, feeling enraptured by it.

“I practiced my art, I grew strong and mad,” Ender said. “Karya saved me, she helped me, and in time she helped me remove the madness, most of it anyway. That is mostly who I am. Since then I’ve spent my life engrossed with my work, my gardens and plants. Perhaps too much, I’ve neglected my family, but I am immortal, there is time to fix things still. In the end, what drives me the most is beauty in art. Achieving something that could captivate and impress, that could mark someone just by its presence. That is what I seek.”

Ender spread his arms and continued. “Now that you know who I am, tell me who you are? What do you seek in this life, what is your purpose? Perhaps that might help me offer you something that you will find acceptable.”

Ryun didn’t answer immediately. It was hard to put such things into words. “This is your garden?” Ryun asked, he already knew the answer, the man’s touch his… Essence, was everywhere. But he needed a bit more time.

“It is part of my great work, yes,” Ender said slowly. “Perhaps the most important one, the jewel surrounded by mediocrity that came from necessity. I have duties, much is required of me, and so it has been a long time since I have been able to focus on my craft. Instead, I brute force crops and feed billions because without me they couldn’t survive.”

“Are there not any others who can do what you do?” Ryun asked.

“There are, of course,” he replied. “But none with as much power and reach as I.”

Ryun looked away, thinking. He knew what he wanted in life. His purpose, at its core was a simple one.

“Survival,” Ryun said slowly.

“Pardon?” Ender tilted his head.

“That is my purpose, to survive,” Ryun turned to meet his gaze again.

Ender smiled. “Everyone seeks to survive.”

Ryun shook his head immediately. “No,” he said firmly. “They use that word often, but they do not understand its true weight. When I say survival I do not think the same as they. For them survival is… small. When I say that my goal is survival, I mean to survive until the end of everything. To be the last, to witness the end of all stories.”

Ender blinked, obviously surprised. “Well, that is quite some purpose.”

Ryun grimaced, he wasn’t good with words, he didn’t know how to explain it in the way that he felt. So he pulled at his titles and showed him just the name. He was pretty sure by now that the man might’ve been able to see his focuses, but hadn’t seen his titles. If he had, he would’ve understood.

Ender tilted his head. “Ah, the Witness of Journey’s End. I think that I understand now. If that is your ideal, then… that is something far different. I don’t know if you will be able to achieve it, but it is a grand goal. Hm… perhaps there is something that you would value enough to put this matter to rest.”

Ryun sat and waited for him to speak.

Finally, Ender pulled out a small chest from his storage and placed it on the table. Ryun could already sense what was inside, but he waited for Ender to open it.

It was filled with potions and small glass containers that held fruits inside of them.

Ryun tilted his head. “I’ve already said that things like this aren’t really what I need,” he said. He had gained enough of such things from the Empire itself.

“Of course, these are not for you,” Ender said. “These are for your sect, the friends and families of those who died in the core. I know that it isn’t impressive for you, but I am certain that they will accept this as payment.”

Ryun narrowed his eyes, but he knew that the man told the truth. People were so willing to accept scraps on their paths to gaining more power.

“And what do you have for me?” Ryun asked.

Ender smiled, then pulled out another small glass container, with a fruit inside. Ryun immediately noticed that something about it was different. The Essence inside of it was familiar, though it was so interconnected with other types that he couldn’t quite identify it.

“You know, many Classers in the Core and the Empire have achieved tier nine in their focus, as have many Skill users, Cultivators, they hide their advancements, but I don’t doubt that there are a few of those running around too. But, few of them had achieved the first titles, those come to the people, the Rankers that came into this world and immediately abandoned safety. Those who walked into an Infinite world and explored, fought, struggled, like once had. Many of them died, but those that hadn’t were rewarded with power—and with madness. There are still such people scattered across this world, and I wonder sometimes just how far some of them had gone, what they have seen beyond the domes, farther than anyone else ever had gone,” Ender shook his head. “Still, there are those who gained power at the cost of their sanity, not knowing or not caring for focus balance and madness that it brings. Perhaps they did it knowing that would happen, perhaps they just didn’t care.”

He placed the glass container on the table and slid it to the center of the table, his hand still on the container. Then raised his head to look at Ryun again. “Two hundred years ago, the Empire encountered someone like that. She was… powerful, and a monster. My House was tasked with dealing with her, killing her, as there was nothing else to be done. It wasn’t easy, but we managed it.”

He tapped the container lightly. “In the Empire, we don’t generally have a need for bodies of high tiered individuals, the few necromancers that we have focus more in reanimation of monster corpses. Not that there was much to be reanimated when we were done, the battle was… harsh on the body. But, it wasn’t just the body that we took, of course, the soul had to be taken as well. The woman was obviously an immortal and we couldn’t let her return to life. We bound the soul to the dead body, my wife wanted to destroy it completely, but I had been tinkering with a new plant, and I asked her to grant me the body.”

He smiled at Ryun. “Did you know that both the soul and the body hold memories? A brain is an imprint, a snapshot of the memories that the soul holds. A body can forget, but the soul never will. When people lose memories, it is usually the fault of the body, something that prevents the full imprint of the soul’s memories. You are an amalgamation, you will probably never have any real issues. The woman was like you too, she was a Cultivator. I managed to decompose her body, to feed it and use it as fertilizer for a grand work. A process that distilled what the body and the soul knew into this,” he glanced down at the container.

Ryun was starting to get the idea about what the man was suggesting.

Ender’s expression sobered, when he spoke again, his words were barely a whisper. “How would you like a taste of memory from an insane Eternal Realm Cultivator?”