Second Genesis

Grey sat up on the cot, his mind clearing.

The good news was that his body felt good and he had restocked on his Cyber Cores before he left the outpost, so he had more than enough to replenish it back to full.

The bad news was that he didn’t have any easy way to bridge the gap between himself and the Syrn, and he only had 30 minutes left before a decision would be forced on him.

The even worse news was that running wasn’t an option because of the closed loop. At the end of this day, no matter what happened, he would be brought back right to here until he ran out of chances.

’Fantastic.’ 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Grey exhaled a breath.

What were his options?

The first was Ability stealing. He had tried to use the Crimson Dragon Nexis Suit to steal the Syrn’s abilities already, but it hadn’t worked. Whatever that black light was, it wasn’t an Ability, it was something deeper than that.

But Grey had no idea what it could be outside of an Ability. A Skill didn’t make sense because a Skill was just an Ability that hadn’t been fully integrated yet. Logically, if the Nexis Suit worked for Abilities, Skills should be easier.

Grey didn’t know that for certain, but that was his intuition.

’The Looping Necklace...’ Grey’s eyes narrowed when he had this thought. It mentioned Skills instead of Abilities as well. Was he thinking too simply?

He shook his head. He didn’t have the time to waste on thought paths that wouldn’t lead anywhere.

The smart thing to do was to focus on viable paths he knew had a way forward. If he looked at things like that...

’There’s the Mechanical Jaw Lineage Quest, the Recursive Frame, and there’s also my Helion Frame. Aside from that, there’s only building mechs, but there aren’t any materials here. Even if I run back to the outpost, I don’t have any money left. That means if I want to build a mech, I need to use the Vanguard Class Materials I have...’

Essentially, Grey had, at most, nine more days to figure this out, and that was only if he managed to avoid the Syrn for long enough that the day ran out.

That wasn’t a guarantee either. That thing’s senses were better than his own.

Grey ignored everything around him and pulled up the maps he had.

’If I choose to go the Mechanical Jaw Lineage Spirit site it will take me...’ Grey frowned, calculating in his mind. ’... Fuck. Four hours if I don’t run into anything to slow me down, and I definitely will. But even if I get the Mechanical Jaw Lineage Spirit, I’ll still need a vessel for it, which means I’ll still need to build something.

’The Recursive Frame is even more of a wild card. Mauve still has the diary in this loop. I could just steal it from her, but it’ll just be more clues and all that might just lead to it being even further away.’

Everything seemed to be pointing toward one direction.

Grey took out a tome.

—

Name: Establishing Helion Path Tome

Rarity: Legendary

Class: Established

Accepted Type: Branching

Rejected Type: Recursive; Resonant; Linear

Description: Those who follow the path of their own Frame are few and far between. The road ahead is arduous and painstaking, but it is often one that those with multi-Frames must take to fulfill the true limits of their talent.

Abilities: Forms a compendium of every Ability potentially compatible with your Helion Frame up to the Established Class, workshopping potential clashes and unexpected pitfalls.

—

The description of the item had changed, and the flame on it seemed brighter now than before.

Re-reading the description now when he didn’t have the looming problem of the Dukedom overhead and he was forcing himself to pay more attention, Grey realized just how ridiculous this reward was.

He had bought a few Frames to fuse together to form his Helion Frame, and that had cost him millions of credits. If he tried to form the Frame from Abilities alone, he might have actually ended up spending even more because it was much more difficult to distill a Frame from an Ability.

That was to say that this tome being a compendium of literally every possible Ability that was compatible with his Frame was...

’Fucking ridiculous.’

The value of the Abilities in this tome alone were probably in the trillions of credits, and that was only because it only went up to the Established Class. If it went further, it might be an even more astronomical number.

"Grey? Is everything alright?" Mauve’s voice drifted over and Grey put a hand up to stop her from saying more.

"Don’t worry about it, I’m fine."

"But..." Mauve hesitated. "The tournament is starting soon."

"Tell them to wait for me or I’ll kill every one of them."

A frigid air came from Grey and they all stiffened.

Grey didn’t look up, he didn’t have the time to waste right now, and he certainly didn’t have the time to explain to those idiots outside that he was actually trying to save them too. If he couldn’t do this, all of them would die.

Grey flipped open the first page and instead of seeing a Cyber Warp like he expected, he saw a complicated network of swimming roots and circuits.

’No... this is a Cyber Warp, it’s just... oh...’

Grey had thought that when he opened up the tome he would find a catalogue of every Ability, but he had been thinking too simply. This tome was even better than that.

If it truly wrote down every Ability variation, it would be far too much. Just how many Abilities were just slight tweaks of one another? How many mind-fortifying Abilities did Grey already have now?

Rather than making an individual note for every Ability, the tome actually divided all of the Abilities into a few categories, each one slotted into one of either Mind or Body, and then further into Resistance, Combat, and Enhancement.

This first page was trying to distill a singular concept, a concept of a combusting, nuclear reactor body. But it seemed to follow a spectrum.

On one end, there were more heavy metals, and on the other there was a purer fire-type body, and then on another corner there was something that felt a lot more light-heavy.

It felt like the variations were endless.

’How do I pick...?’