Finally opening my Rewards for my completed Quests, I got my well overdue goodies that I sorta didn’t want.

  In total I got 13 Skill Points, 12,300 XP, and 1,210 Stat Points.

  “Well that got me quite the-”

  I cut myself off as I got a unexpected system screen.

  And just like that, I had no more Skill Points.

  “...Damn.” I just rubbed the back of my head, not too bothered by the loss but slightly confused as to why it would do that.

  “Well at least I still have-” I was cut off again as another message appeared.

  I just stared in disbelief as my XP gain went from 12.3k to, you guessed it, one.

  “...Are you done?” I asked after a moment of silence, my sister just raising an eyebrow at me as I talk to myself.

  “What?” Layla asked in confusion, so I turned to start explaining.

  “Just getting my Quest Rewards and- Oh come on!” I turned and glared at the new window.

  There goes my Stat Points for some reason.

  Why? What could my Skill possibly want or need my Rewards for to take them from me without even asking?

  And why not all at once instead of one at a time besides to just fuck with me?

  I sighed and turned back to my even more confused sister.

  “My Skill just absorbed all of my Rewards. Besides a singular piece of XP.” I explained and she just frowned.

  “Well how much did you lose out on?”

  “Oh just 13 Skill Points, over 12,000 XP and over 1,000 Stat Points. Little numbers.” I shrugged sarcastically at my sister's shocked face.

  “Dude… That sucks.” Layla playfully pat my arm in consolation.

  “Yeah, but it did remind me that I have a Skill that absorbs all XP now. For some reason. I have no idea what it does.” I tapped my chin in thought, trying to come up with some way to earn XP.

  “What’s it called? That should give us a hint.” Layla smartly provided and I gave her a small teasing smile.

  “Well tell me what Soul Cultivation could possibly mean smarty pants.” I patted her head and she swung a fist at my stomach.

  “Point taken, dick. Maybe it means it literally and you’ll become a spiritual plot of land. You’re certainly made out of manure.” She joked and I laughed.

  “I hope not. Any other ideas?”

  “Nope. It sounds like some wuxia bullshit though.” Layla stroked an imaginary beard like an ancient master, and I copied her as we thought.

  “Agreed, Elder Layla. It does indeed.” I replied, doing my best to sound like an old man.

  “Well how do you plan on cultivating now Sect Leader? Monster hunting?” She jokingly asked and I considered it.

  “Monster hunting wouldn’t be worth it. I killed around 8 billion monsters soon after getting this silly little Skill and it siphoned all the XP away and gave me just one point. With my current level up requirement of 102 thousand, I’d need to wipe out several solar systems. Which is doable I guess? Just extremely tedious.” I dropped the accent and tried to think about it more seriously.

  “I don’t know how to feel about the fact you can wipe out solar systems like its a chore.” Layla surprised me with a normal reaction for the first time.

  “Besides the fact that it’s cool as hell.” That she immediately ruined right after.

  “Yeah I guess it would look pretty cool.” I agreed with her of course.

  “So what will you do then?” Barney asked, pulling himself out of his depressive episode and joining the conversation finally.

  “If we’re going off of pure XP efficiency, Quests would be the way to go. Maybe. Not sure how this siphoning business works completely yet.” I answered.

  “Wait, if your XP gets siphoned away then why didn’t you just kill the monsters in the Dungeon we explored if you wouldn’t get anything?” Layla asked and I shrugged.

  “Habit, mostly.” I responded and she gave me a knowing look of slight disappointment.

  “You forgot.” She stated simply.

  “Yeah, I did.” I nodded and she sighed.

  “Well whatever. You get anything at all from it absorbing those things?” Layla asked and I tilted my head.

  I wasn’t sure.

  “I don’t know. Let me check real quick.” I said then opened my status again.

  “Well that’s… odd.” I muttered, since that definitely seems more like a ‘you beat the game! Cheat mode unlocked!’ or something.

  “What is it?” Barney asked, his big sad eyes almost lightless.

  “I have an infinity symbol next to my Energy reserves. Not even a regeneration number either.” I crossed my arms and furrowed my brow as I stared at the Status.

  “So you’re even more broken than before?” Layla gave me a teasing grin, which told me that she was cooking up something in her mind to mess with me.

  “Sort of? The number was already super broken before, so I’m not really sure if this changes anything.” I tried to think about anything that this might affect, and only one thing came to mind.

  Matter creation.

  Before, it was possible but super slow and inefficient for just a couple atoms worth. The bottleneck for that was surprisingly my Energy though, which is no longer a problem.

  But why?

  Why give me a literal infinite amount?

  “Ah… I think I get it.” It hit me and I raised my eyebrows in understanding.

  “What’s up?” Layla inquired and so I would enlighten her.

  “There’s nothing left for me to put Skill Points into, since my current Skill is just the epitome of lazy writing levels of broken, so it uses all Skill Points I earn into strengthening itself. Where it can anyway. On the outside, it hasn’t changed, but internally it has.” I began and my sister recognized my words as the beginning of a long technical tangent, looking both bored and intrigued at the same time.

  “My Energy is just one of the two visible outputs from the Skill. Left over from one it absorbed a while ago. That Skill let me double my Energy limit with every Skill Point I put into it. With the truly absurd number it was then being doubled 13 consecutive times, it must have reached some sort of threshold and just became infinite. The strange part is that I should feel something when that number increases…” I trailed off in a mutter, stroking my chin.

  “...Huh.” Layla grunted in understanding, sufficiently enlightened.

  We stood there, both thinking about geeky nerdy technical bullshit when Barney cleared his nonexistent throat.

  “So! Quests?” Barney asked, clearly wanting to get a move on with this half baked plan of mine.

  “Right, yes, Quests.” I clapped my hands once and brought up the Quests menu.

  …That’s it?

  Well I guess it’s not entirely ‘it’ but there’s not really a whole lot of information. The Rewards kinda suck too.

  “Not sure how to feel about this one.” I mumbled and Layla pulled on my sleeve, trying to peek up at a window that she can’t see.

  “What’s it say? Something that we can do together? Like a badass demon lord hunt! That’d be so cool~.” She gives me a great big, downright blood thirsty smile.

  “Not this time. I don’t even think I can survive this one… Except maybe I can now?” I pondered out loud as I thought about it some more.

  My experience with the Tear is limited to just being in its presence and using it like a pocket of storage. The first time I used it I nearly died because it over charged my Energy, but that can’t happen now can it? I have an infinite capacity which should mean no upper limit.

  “Once again this damn system is preparing me for something.” I sighed dramatically, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested.

  “Well are you going to explain it or drag this on for another hour?” Barney asked a little heatedly.

  ‘Jeez, he’s so moody.’ I kept my thoughts to myself and started explaining.

  “I have to open a Tear in Reality, open a veil of sorts I guess you can call it, and enter it. I don’t know what to do there, since this is Part One of the Quest.” I gestured with my hands, acting like I was opening a curtain.

  “And that’s dangerous, even for you?” Layla asked and I nodded.

  “Probably. I’ve never been inside it, and I almost died just from being near it before. That was a long time ago though. I should be fine now I think.” I considered showing the Tear to them but remembered that the Energy that leaks out is dangerous and not natural to… anywhere, actually.

  “Ah man… What am I supposed to do then? Just sit around at home?” Layla complained and I chuckled.

  “Nope! You get to clean the mess your shitty little gremlin made out of my house.” I clapped her on the shoulder merrily, and her face scrunched up.

  “...How bad?” She asked, almost pleading.

  “Bad.” I simply nodded, because what that crack addict of a Cabold had really fucked my suite up.

  There was not a single piece of furniture in my home that was not torn to shreds and not an inch of carpet unsullied.

  “Could we talk about this-”

  “Nope.” I gave my sister a smile as I shoved her into a Gate that deposited her into my suite, where she promptly screamed in horror at the mess.

  She would be busy for a long, long while.

  “Will you be doing that Quest right away?” Barney asked and I nodded.

  “Yeah I should be able to get started. See ya later Barn.” I teased with a cheap nickname and he just glared at me, his brow twitching before he fell into a sad silence again.

  ‘Poor guy.’ I awkwardly Gated away to the middle of some random bit of space.

  With nothing around, I wouldn’t have to worry about the Tear making too big of a mess.

  I’m not sure if the Tear counts as a separate universe or not, and I really hope it doesn’t because I don’t have time to worry about a whole new problem. Locked away in some strange place.

  Again.

  “Alright, let’s do this thing Jimmy~!” I called out, posing dramatically as Jimmy morphed into my villainous style space suit.

  As my helmet closed around my head, I felt that familiar comfort of having my head protected. Which is weird because I didn’t feel uncomfortable without it like I did so long ago. Weird emotional control stuff again no doubt.

  “Tear in Reality, heed my call and OPEN~!” I was going full out with my acting, getting all that pent up cringe out of my system now that I was alone.

  It was completely unnecessary, but it felt right as space began to warp and twist in that telltale way as the veil is forcefully opened.

  Shards of glass like fragments that once formed the veil floating past me as the Tear grows to a size large enough to fit me.

  I placed my hands on my hips as I stared into the absolute mess of colors and random shit I put in there, but there was a lot less than I thought there would be. Like a lot less.

  I only saw a few swords and other gear floating around, when there should be hundreds.

  Jimmy should be fine. I hadn’t thought about it much but I got a feeling he’d be alright.

  So I floated inside and let the strange Energy surrounding me flow into me, a strange sort of fullness filling me.

  Being surrounded by the constantly moving colors, it was very hard to use my eyes for anything. Leaving me to rely on my busted senses more.

  But as soon as the Tear snapped shut behind me, I felt the rules of Reality sever completely.

  My senses immediately began to overlap, twisting into themselves somehow and warp in impossible ways.

  “Oooh wow, what the fuck is this.” I mumbled as I felt my body begin to just… fold inwards?

  I felt fine, but I also felt my spine piercing through my brain while my legs seemed to be an infinite distance apart.

  That was with my normal human senses, my stupid busted senses worked slightly better and told me that my body was fine. Even if it felt like I had 16 fingers on one hand and 2 on the other.

  Thankfully, my oath recognized that this place was not a separate universe that needed to be helped in some way and I could leave whenever I wanted.

  Not like that told me exactly where or what kind of place this was though.

  Bringing up my Quests menu, I accepted the Rewards to get the Quest out of the way for Part Two.

  “Alright, that’s Part One completed. Now what?” I asked myself like usual.

  “Survive.” A horrible, terrible, and familiar voice responded.

  “That fucking watch that I hate?!” I clutched my head as the sound reverberated in my skull.

  I hadn’t heard that voice in a long time, but I knew it was the green system.

  ‘For something so important, I should really give it a more impressive name.’ I pondered, but decided to leave it as is. Or call it Greeny or something equally stupid.

  “Wait, what do you mean survive? What is this place?” I asked, flicking a floating gauntlet away as it got close.

  “Home.” Greeny Weeny responded and I tilted my head.

  “That totally doesn’t sound ominous- oh my god what is that.” I whispered as I saw and felt something big move in my periphery.

  The colors parted like water as it revealed… something.

  To be honest, I had no fucking clue what I was looking at.

  All I knew is that it was big, and it was getting closer.

  Fuck me man.

  …

  —------ Jerald —------

  Life is good.

  Or as good as it can be being trapped inside an insane person's mind, stuck in a paradise of your own creation.

  Which is surprisingly good, but a bit bland.

  I laid slumped back in a pool chair floatie, beer in one hand and the other digging through a bag of chips on my perfect abs.

  “Not sure if I get the appeal of this form. It’s strong, sure, but I keep slipping through the floatie…” I sighed, my body shifting back to something more comfortable.

  Being a System, then a regular system, means I have no true form besides maybe a blue text box, but this current form was the best for just hanging out.

  If Greg could see me, he’d have called me a fat old man. Which is true, but just thinking about it irks me.

  So I take great pleasure in watching him suffer through his eyes.

  Like now.

  When he’s being pursued by something I don’t even know the name of or how it works. Which is saying something when I used to be the manager of a universe for 2 million years.

  “Fuck him up thing! Get him in the ribs!” I cheered as the creature attacked Greg, actually landing a hit on his ribs.

  That might sound all sorts of mean, but Greg is strong. So much so it pisses me off just thinking about it.

  “How does it feel to meet another freak of nature~?” I laugh to myself, talking to myself as if Greg could hear me.

  Do I miss talking to Greg? The Dark Lord of Azurath and all his stupid nonsense?

  Of course not!

  Why would I?

  No, I don’t miss him at all.

  …Definitely not.

  “Fuckin’, green thing…” I grumble into my beer, taking a swig.

  It was that weird, strange thing pretending to be a system that made this mess. Or was it pretending?

  I’ve had nothing but time to observe the green thing, but it has revealed no cards in its hand.

  Though the mess has been comfortable, leaving me in this prison of paradise.

  …With nothing to do but entertain myself.

  …

  “Emotions are bullshit.”

  -- Latest Status --