Formless Ascension: My Affinity Is Limitless

As he drew closer, one of the men at the front — a massive, bald-headed man with dense tattoos stretching across his skull and all the way down his neck, sporting a nasty scar beside his right eye — suddenly wheeled around and barked fiercely at his colleagues:

"Calm the fuck down and shut the hell up! Don’t agitate him!" he roared, and immediately, all his colleagues went quiet.

With the way they all complied so promptly, one would think the bald man was the boss here, but he actually wasn’t. If they were talking about a true boss, that title seemed to belong to one of the other figures standing a few paces behind the line... A quiet, grizzly- faced short man who was simply watching the entire scene play out with his arms crossed over his chest.

As the bald man barked at his colleagues, Uhtred continued walking forward, a faint, amused smile playing on his lips as he closed the distance. Thanks to his new inspect skill, his altered eyes allowed him to see exactly why the line guards had listened so quickly.

In his vision, hovering clearly above each of their heads, their levels were laid bare. The vast majority of the guards standing at the border were sitting firmly at Level 1, differentiated only by their minor progression within that bracket. Some were at the peak, some in the middle, and even a few were at the low stage of Level 1.

There were only two individuals within Uhtred’s field of view who had managed to successfully break through to Level 2. The first was the tattooed bald man who had just called out to the group, currently sitting at the early stage of Level 2.

And the second was the quiet man standing further back with his arms crossed, whose hovering indicator revealed him to be at the middle stage of Level 2.

Immediately after telling his colleagues to shut up, the moment they all went silent, the bald, tattooed man strode forward to meet Uhtred with a clear trace of hesitation in his movement. He looked incredibly wary, his eyes darting toward the heavy obsidian battle-axe on Uhtred’s shoulder, acting as if he somehow knew exactly how outmatched they all were.

Uhtred noted the behavior, finding it a bit surprising. He had only just successfully mastered the method to mask his core’s passive essence draw, a trick that should have completely eliminated any localized disturbance that might trigger any sense of danger from him.

Furthermore, there was also no way these guys had gained access to the Multiversal Store yet. None of them were at Level 10, meaning none of them possessed even the most basic Inspect lens. It made little sense why they were so instantly scared of him.

Wait, Uhtred nearly face-plamed, a sudden thought striking him as he continued his steady advance. The other eight.

He remembered the eight distinct figures he had observed falling from the sky along with him right after the integration. Those individuals must have surely navigated their way out of the deeper forest and entered Zone 0 hours ahead of him.

Because Uhtred had been dropped the furthest away from the equatorial safe ring, his late-night arrival was an anomaly. The pioneers who arrived before him had likely already established a definitive precedent:

Anyone capable of walking out of the deep wilderness of Zone 1 was a monstrously powerful individual.

That fact alone was undoubtedly what made these guards so anxious and scared. It was an implicit confirmation that they viewed him as a lethal threat.

As he walked, Uhtred caught a faint movement out of the corner of his eye, a subtle shift in the shadows behind the line that the guards clearly didn’t think he would notice. He didn’t speak or comment on it, though. His expression remained completely unreadable as he closed the remaining distance to meet the bald, tattooed man.

"Pioneer," the bald man started, his voice overly friendly as a massive, strained smile broke across his face. He rubbed his tattooed scalp, explicitly using the term to show Uhtred that he knew exactly what individuals of his caliber were called.

"Listen, man, sorry about my boys and all the rash shouting." He gestured vaguely toward the quiet goons behind him. "We’ve had a few crazies wander into the forest earlier today, only for them to come rushing back out a few hours later dragging all kinds of pissed-off beasts behind them. We’re the ones who have to clean up the mess and deal with the fallout at the end of the day. We’re just trying to keep Zone 0 safe from the crazies, you know?"

"Ah!" The bald man abruptly caught himself, skipping over his words as his smile faltered. He quickly tried to take the statement back before it caused offense. "Of course, I’m not saying you’re one of the crazies or anything! I know you’re a real pioneer, it’s just—"

Before his rambling could dig a deeper hole, the short, grizzly-faced leader who had been watching with his arms crossed finally stepped forward. He placed a hand on the bald man’s shoulder, cutting him off seamlessly as he took over the conversation.

"I apologize for my colleague," the short man said, his tone remarkably calm and collected compared to the others. "Frankly, everyone is still on an edge with everything that has transpired within the past twenty-four hours. We’re all just pretending like everything is okay, but the reality is that it’s not." He let out a weary sigh. "The little we’re doing out here is just an attempt to enforce some semblance of order in what was a completely chaotic space just hours ago. I hope you can understand why we had to halt you. It’s strictly for security purposes."

The grizzly-faced man stopped right in front of Uhtred, refusing to keep a cautious distance like his bald subordinate had done. Instead, he stood within arm’s reach, confidently extending his right hand for a handshake.

"I’m Jackson. And you are?"

Uhtred came to a smooth stop, his left hand resting casually on the shaft of the massive star-metal battle-axe resting on his shoulder. He looked down at the extended hand for a brief, silent second before extending his own, gripping Jackson’s palm.

The moment their hands met, Uhtred felt a sudden, sharp contraction in Jackson’s muscles. The man was deliberately squeezing down with significant force, attempting to gauge Uhtred’s physical strength under the false pretense of a firm, professional handshake.

But Uhtred’s hand didn’t budge a single millimeter.

With a strength attribute sitting at forty-two points, his physical density was entirely inhuman. A brief flicker of pure shock flashed across Jackson’s face before he desperately tried to rein it in.