Technomancer: Birth of a Goddess

The eighth step of ascension takes Emily's group back to the surface of one of the dungeon's three suns, this time standing on a ball of burning golden light as opposed to orange fire. It's even harder to see than it was during the first trial on the suns, but it ends faster, with Emily leaving behind her family to defend themselves from the glowing fireflies swarming them while she charges herself with lightning and chases down eight massive, fourth circle bugs spewing out smaller, weaker copies of themselves. The moment the last one falls, she moves her family away from where the surface of the sun begins folding in on itself to spawn a fifth circle monstrosity and drops two nukes on it, eliminating the problem the moment it forms and saving herself the trouble of fighting an enemy stronger and faster than herself.

This time, as they step into the rest room, there's only a single sun high above, and the message on the wall is noticeably different.

Rest and consolidate your gains, for the final step on the path will open in half the sun's cycle.

Emily takes in the message before starting the challenging process of turning pure light into a consumable elixir, rewinding twice to save wasted resources before she succeeds.

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Intelligence: 455 > 461 (561)

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Stepping into the ninth and final step of the dungeon plunges Emily's party into total darkness. She casts an orb of light immediately, but it only allows her to see her nearby allies, with the ground beneath their feet and the air around them still being dominated by an inky blackness that plays tricks on their eyes, making it hard to take even a single step forward.

They still react quickly when the surrounding shadows take form and leap out to attack them, but, even for Mensacus, it's an unpleasant experience walking aimlessly in search of their targets. They run into and kill several constantly-shifting fourth circle creatures, shredding their bodies to pieces with an indiscriminate wave of bullets and magic and collecting the dark, mana-filled sludge that remains afterwards.

After weeks of walking, resting occasionally and briefly for Silica and Ivor, they fell their sixth formless beast, and the ever-present shadows thin just enough in the formation of a fifth circle threat for them to spot another group fumbling around in the dark. Emily fires off two more nuclear missiles towards the dense mass of mana gathering darkness behind them, reducing her stock to a mere three remaining, and leads her family towards the other mages present.

It takes a few minutes for her smothered light to reach them, illuminating Beryl Manda, Snake Nest's leader, surrounded by several soldiers and mercenaries and mid-fight with a fourth circle beast. He's bleeding from several deep gashes as he throws himself at the enemy, ripping off chunks of its flesh with the gnarled black claws sprouting from his fingers and devouring them with the magical jaw constructed over his own.

Emily lets him finish his fight, only helping to clear away some of the smaller beasts ripping at his wounded allies. When he finally finishes, swallowing the last scrap of his fallen enemy, the mage turns to face her with his wounds healing at a visible rate, small black tendrils sprouting from his skin and knitting his flesh back together.

"Emily." He nods respectfully before casting a cautious glance towards her son. "I never thought I'd be saying this, but I'm glad to see you two. This place is a nightmare. Can you help them?"

He gestures towards his bleeding allies, several of them sporting torn uniforms with more scabbed-over wounds than fresh ones.

"I can heal myself, but not really others. We've used most of our healing potions already."

"Sure." Emily nods, casting Bandage several times and wrapping their wounds. "How long have you been here for?"

"Close to two months now. This is the fifth fourth circle enemy we've faced, and while I was happy about that at the start, I'm starting to get sick of them. They've attacked us while we're resting more times than I can count, and if I don't consume them fully, it's too easy to let them slip away and recover."

"Well," Emily starts, giving Mensacus a subtle nod and sending him off to recover the darkness essence she can sense forming where her bombs went off. "If you're willing to give up the possible rewards from the rest of the beasts in here, I'll guarantee your safety until the end of this trial."

"Deal," the man responds without hesitation, holding out a hand for her to shake. "I wouldn't even have risked coming in here with so little information if Maximilien hadn't sent a panicked message telling us the dungeon was sealing itself."

"It sealed itself?"

"Yeah, about a week after you entered."

"Interesting…"

After Mensacus returns, holding a dark orb dripping with mana, they give the New Denntimo mages some time to rest before continuing out into the darkness, searching out the rest of their targets. It takes a few more weeks to force another fifth circle beast to spawn and for them to drop two nukes on it, at which point the remaining fourth circle monsters swarm them, but there aren't any complications or new deaths among their group, and they make it to the second darkness essence and a doorway out without any issues.

Emily's group separates and enters the doorway first, finding themselves in another dark rest space with a new message carved on the wall behind them.

Rest and consolidate your rewards while the other entrants scramble for gains, the path will close in ninety hours now that the dark moon has fallen.

"That's a long time," Ivor signs as Emily lights the space and gives Mensacus back the essence he collected to consume.

"Yes, and with how strangely time has been moving between steps, who knows how long that will be for everyone else in here," she replies, starting her work on her final elixir before ascension.

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Intelligence: 461 > 466 (566)

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***

A doorway out of the enclosed space finally forms against the message-marked wall, and Emily steps through with her family fully rested. After the familiar sensation of spatial travel passes, they find themselves in the centre of the raging whirlpool near the observation platform Emily left behind. Tens of New Denntimo mages are quickly moving away from the dungeon, being assisted by their higher circle comrades.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

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[Progression]

[Circle/Stage:] Fourth

Requirements:

-Intelligence 466/450 (Complete)

-Create and integrate an innate defensive technique (Complete)

-Clear a fifth circle dungeon (Complete)

-Receive a natural blessing (Complete)

-Decide upon and realise your development pathway (Complete)

>Replace twenty per cent of your mass with metal (Complete) {Optional}

>Restore your body to exclusively flesh (Not Complete) {Optional}

>Consume the essence of your chosen element(s) (Complete) {Optional}

>Attribute your mana circles (Not Complete) {Optional}

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Progression requirements met.

Would you like to begin stage ascension? [Yes]/[No]

(Warning, it is recommended that User finds a safe area with a high mana density to ensure the best results of ascension)

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Emily dismisses the system prompt immediately, already familiar with the ascension process and prepared to heed the warning and return to one of her bases' mana gathering arrays before starting it. She glances back at the dungeon's exit, expecting to watch it dissolve now that it's been cleared, but instead sees cracks spreading across the translucent blue doorway.

She immediately crackles with electrified mana, expanding her innate barrier and wrapping her family in a protective shell before pulling them away from the doorway. But, before she makes it even a few metres, the magical construct shatters, erupting with raw mana that floods out to fill the whirlpool's depression. The mana is so dense it forms a dew that sizzles against her barrier, and Emily can immediately tell there's more energy gathered around her than in any of the fifth circle foes they fought within the dungeon.

"So, this is the final reward…" she mutters in realisation, halting her retreat and lowering her defences, letting the mana wash over her as she turns to face Mensacus. "Take them to the edge of this mana bubble and stand guard."

Her son nods without question, wrapping his tentacles around the others in their group and carrying them away towards the gathering New Denntimo forces.

Emily moves back to the centre of the whirlpool, taking up the position of the now-missing dungeon exit, and crosses her legs beneath her, sitting on thin air and shutting her eyes. She takes a deep breath, despite not needing it, and relaxes, emptying her mind. She goes to remove The Clock from its place in her arm, but a small, nagging sensation in the back of her mind tells her the precaution is unnecessary, so she follows her instinct and leaves it, instead willing her mana and machina to press against the faint, immaterial barrier she can feel constraining her to four circles.

The pressure inside her erupts in an all-too-familiar process, and her circles and cortex swell with power as storm clouds rapidly gather in the sky above. She feels every fibre of her being vibrate with energy, and Harriet sings a resonant note, joining the excited energy as they feel their own rise coming with it. Lightning and metal dominate the mix while space and the six common elements take a back seat. Waves of pressure ripple out through the dense cloud of mana surrounding her, reaching the watching mages nearby and stealing their breath away as they all instinctively understand that they're seeing a once-in-a-lifetime event. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

The clouds above rumble with lightning, shifting towards a hue too dark to be natural, seemingly blacker than the night sky yet illuminated by streaks of cold, unfeeling light that slowly circle, mirroring the whirlpool below and centring around Emily.

Mana rushes in through her skin, smoothly joining her magic network and flowing through the pathways towards her energy organs, stabilising her fourth circle while forming the nascent fifth. She feels the metal of her left arm writhe and spread, growing out into her chest like the roots of a tree, twining themselves with her magic network and bones and filling some of the empty space left by her missing organs. The subdermal armour beneath her skin does the same, reaching further into her flesh and forming thousands of tiny, capillary-like tendrils that join her energy pathways to help supply the armour and its linked defensive barrier. Emily's Dimensional Factory, anchored to the centre of her being, greedily sucks in mana as well, rapidly ballooning in size as the bubble of mana surrounding her starts to shrink.

Before the dungeon's final boon can fade, though, the clouds above thunder with rage, and Emily's eyes snap open, glowing with the light of the raw, unrestrained mana flooding her body. She looks up and, instead of staring into the sky, she gazes into the cosmic flow of energy manifesting in its place, feeling infinitely small and equally powerful at the same time. A raging bolt of energy gathers before her curious gaze, and she raises a hand to block as it strikes down, deploying a blade from her palm at the last moment.

The bolt tears past the blade without slowing, worming its way through Emily's barrier and igniting her body with splitting pain far worse than even losing her arm. Yet, despite the agony as she feels herself start to dissolve, Emily doesn't feel any distress or panic in herself or her familiar, and the guiding feeling in the back of her mind remains quiet. She lowers her hand as a second bolt builds above, letting it strike down on her head and welcoming it like an old friend, trusting in her innate affinity with mana to keep her safe.

The violent energy rips through her again, but she feels it knitting back together the damage done by the first bolt, tempering her body like a piece of fine steel. A third bolt falls, and Emily silently accepts it, her vision going dark as her eyes fail. A fourth bolt, and colour returns sharper than ever before. A fifth bolt, and everyone but the fourth circle observers falls to their knees, clasping their hands over bleeding ears as Emily lets out an animalistic scream, charged with an undertone of manic excitement that eventually morphs into a drained laugh that keeps her children from trying to interfere.

A sixth bolt, and she goes silent once again, falling into a well-practised breathing pattern to try to hold her fraying thoughts together. A seventh bolt, and Emily feels her mind explode, her cores falling out of sync and the fading chorus of counting vanishing, leaving behind only quiet dread. Eight, and the chorus returns stronger, along with ordered thought and a touch of regret, several years of healing undone in an instant as her sealed emotional vault is strengthened along with the rest of her cortex.

The ninth bolt strikes as Emily's legs unfurl, and she stands to meet it with a small, confident smile, pushing away her fleeting doubts and catching the assault with her right hand, guiding the energy through her body herself and finalising the formation of her fifth circle. The last of the energy from the dungeon disappears into her, and silence reigns for a fraction of a second before a pulse of power washes out of her and over the entire planet and beyond, bringing with it the crash of thunder and the sound of shattering glass.

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Congratulations! Ascension successful.

You have broken The Mortal Barrier of Ulea. Rejoice!

[Status]

[Name:] Emily Coldstone

[Race:] Human > Humanoid Cyborg

[Age:] 24 > 25

[Magic Circle:] Fourth Circle > Fifth Circle

[Machine Cortex:] Fourth Stage > Fifth Stage

[Attributes:] Strength 28 > 60 (79), Dexterity 181 > 325 (337), Agility 154 > 286 (299), Vitality 26 > 57 (95), Intelligence 466 > 720 (970)

[Health:] 2175/2175

[Stamina:] 5750/5750

[Mana:] 270000/270000

[Machina:] 249750/270000

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Sub-system updated: Progression

[Progression]

[Circle/Stage:] Fifth

Requirements:

-Intelligence 720/925 (Not Complete)

-Cleanse your mental demons (Not Complete)

-Upgrade 0/10 knowledges to intermediate grade (Not Complete)

-Upgrade 1/3 skills to advanced grade (Not Complete)

-Slay 0/5 sixth circle beasts alone (Not Complete)

-Raise 0/2 linked child beings to fifth circle (Not Complete) {Optional}

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Skills upgraded:

Magic Network (Increased resource generation and mental resistance)

Spellweave (Intermediate > Advanced)

Machine Construction (Basic > Intermediate)

Gesture Casting (Basic > Intermediate)

Metalworking (Basic > Intermediate)

Runesmithing (Basic > Intermediate)

Condensed Casting (Basic > Intermediate)

Programming (Basic > Intermediate)

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Hidden-Quest completed: The One Who Breaks Bounds

[The One Who Breaks Bounds]

[Rank:] A

[Description:] Shatter The Mortal Barrier blocking progression on your planet at a young age

Requirements:

-Break the barrier between fourth and fifth circle below fifty (Complete)

Rewards:

-Talent awakening: [Intrinsic] Instincts Touched by Time

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[Instincts Touched by Time]

User {Emily Coldstone} has experienced time looping enough to hone her naturally heightened instincts into a unique ability resembling precognition.

-Grants the ability to sense impending danger and the outcome of actions to an unnatural degree

-Further insulates the User against foreign time tampering and alerts them to any attempts made nearby

-Has a small chance of initiating precognitive dreams upon entering a full sleep-state in times of high stress and strife

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