Connor


    Planet Vesper, Day 2 (Late Midday)


    Connor’s mind settled after absorbing the last information crystal. Transferring the memories into the Memory Crystals took less than an hour. The information crystals, however, took a bit longer because there were more than he’d expected. The box Anya had sent them was a dimensional storage device. She’d made sure to fill it with as many crystals as she could for the two million credits he set aside.


    One thing he noticed while he reviewed the memories from the Soul Prisons was his ability to understand languages. Before he continued with the memory review, he opened the box of information crystals, which also included some language crystals. A lot of language crystals, which included multiple dialects of Common, English, Elvish, Dwarvish, and a lot of other languages he’d never heard of.


    Using the language and knowledge crystals was as easy as touching the crystal and willing it to activate. Once activated, the crystal disintegrated after it downloaded the information into his mind. As he used each crystal, a slight feeling of vertigo would arise as his mind absorbed the new information, and then the knowledge became a part of him. As he absorbed more knowledge, the vertigo seemed to last just a bit longer, but even after he’d absorbed the last crystal’s knowledge, he still recovered within a few seconds. Once he stopped, though, his brain sorted and compared all the information he’d downloaded into his mind, and when he came back to himself, a full 10 minutes had passed.


    One problem with absorbing so much information was that it was a bit overwhelming to focus on any specific subject. Another problem was that he didn’t know what information he was still lacking, and he wouldn’t until he became aware of it and realized that he didn’t know what he was learning. He had learned a bunch of information, though, and he should be able to pass for a citizen of Vesper and the small community of realms that were interlinked in this section of the Multiverse. One truly interesting fact that he learned was that Malicore was just one of many such organizations, whether they were governments, sects, guilds, or variations of these.


    The planet Vesper did not have rulers. The closest thing to an actual ruling body was the Banking Guild. While it was linked to other cities on the planet, it also had connections to other cities in different planes and realms. One handy bit of information he’d received was a map of the town. Now that he had a basic understanding of this new Multiverse and his place in it, he began pulling out memory crystals he’d created from the Soul Prison.


    Unlike the information crystals. The memory crystals he’d created would not disintegrate when used. Instead, they acted as a storage device that he could review and then put away, returning to it later as needed. Connor wasn’t going to go through all the memories right now. If he tried to do that, it would probably take him at least 93 days, assuming every crystal had 100 years of memories or less. Instead, he was going to review the individual''s last year of life, which should only take about 18 seconds. If he reviewed the individual for a year, he should get a good sense of who they were. It was amazing how similar reviewing the memories was to watching a video. He could fast-forward, pause, and skip sections. That last function was very useful every time he came across intimate memories. He really didn’t want to see what these people had been doing.


    One interesting fact: not every target was innocent. Twenty-one memory crystals were, for lack of a better term, repugnant. After reviewing the memories from those crystals, he placed them in the box that the information crystals had arrived in and stored it in the room within the Astral Pocket. The others he put in his Inventory. He was not going to carry that repugnant crap around. Almost every one of those individuals had been an assassin who had been targeted because of someone they’d offended by the very Guild they worked for, which was ironic because now that he had the information that he did, he was going to use the Assassin’s Guild to target a sect that had offended him.


    Connor made sure everything was ready for him to head out. His resource pools were full, and all of Trevor, the assassin’s, equipment was equipped. He put on the clothes Trevor had worn to blend in with the crowd, which he had pulled from his inventory. Next, he activated Stealth and Flight and then brought up Trevor’s memories of the room he had in a nondescript inn on the shady side of town. Connor focused on the room until he could visualize everything in it, chose his target location as next to the bed in the room, and activated his Master Ranked Teleport spell.


    Since he was in his Astral Pocket, he needed to utilize the teleportation ability that would allow him to cross dimensions. He thought that the transition would be rough or that he’d have to put some serious effort into it. He need not have worried. The teleportation, while costing 100,000 mana, felt no different than if he’d used Shadow Step.


    Connor appeared next to the bed in Trevor’s room, looked around, and stepped to the door. Before he stepped out, he deactivated Stealth and Flight. He wouldn’t need either skill at the moment. If he walked at a normal rate, it was going to take almost half an hour to get to the Guild Hall. He brought Trevor’s memories to the forefront of his mind and allowed the mannerisms and demeanor of Trevor to wash over him as he unlocked the door with the key he’d procured from Trevor and stepped out into the hall.


    Connor recognized some of the people he passed from Trevor’s memories, but no one approached him as he walked downstairs and out of the hotel. After a short walk, he came to a nondescript building. As he stepped inside, one of the men he’d noticed skulking in a shadow stepped close,


    “Jacob?”


    “Yes, John.” They both used the names of their fake identities here.


    “You’re tag went dead a little bit ago?”


    “It did,” Connor said as he held up his hand with the ring which had “The Tag” on it. “As you can see, I still have it.”


    “You’ll need to have it reactivated.”


    “I know, I made the asshole pay in kind for removing it,” Connor said.


    “Good. Good. So, the contracts done?”


    “If I said yes, I’d be lying, so I’ll say I think so, or it soon will be. I hit him hard, and he didn’t get up.” Both statements were entirely true, just not about hitting Connor Nash, of course.


    “You used one of those.” Doesn’t that poison cost close to 30,000 credits a dose?”


    “It does, but you didn’t see him move. He was fast. I couldn’t take the chance, though he disappeared right after he was hit. I think he teleported.”


    “That’s a shame, if you can’t kill him and retrieve proof of your kill, that’s gonna suck. So, what are you going to do?”


    “Well, today I’m going to get the ring reactivated, and then I’ll be trying to confirm that my contract has been completed.”


    John nodded toward the backroom. “The Enchantress is back there. She’s in the back,” John said as he glanced behind him.


    “Thanks, John,” Connor said as he stepped past him and walked down a short corridor to an open room with a female Dervish in it. From his Information crystals, Connor knew that the Dervish were a goblin-like race that were just a bit taller with more elf-like features. No large nose or ears. As the enchantress looked up, her eyes locked onto the ring on Connor''s finger. “I see. That’ll be 10,000 credits or 100 gold.”


    Connor knew that the price was set, so he just nodded and pulled out the 100 gold Trevor had kept in his inventory for that purpose. Next, he placed his hand on the table in front of her and watched as she cast a spell that linked the ring to his mana signature. This next part was what he wasn’t sure about. Was the ring going to register that he wasn’t actually Trevor and fail, or would the spell work and link the ring to him?


    The spell work. He felt the ring link to him and glow faintly before the glow faded, and the Enchantress said, “There you go. While I do like to make gold, remember that if this happens again within the next month, it’ll be 1,000 gold.”


    “Understood,” Connor said as he turned and walked back to the main room where the Job Board sat. Technically, it wasn’t a Job Board. It was a location where anyone could access a SYSTEM-sanctioned job board for Assassins. From Trevor’s memories, he knew that there were actually two rooms. The room he was in was where the Assassins checked on and accepted contracts. Nearby, there was a Bar where the booths held both magical and technological devices that allowed anyone to submit a contract to the guild if they were willing to pay the price. While he slowly walked out of the assassin side of the building, he cast Control Technological Device and reached out to take control of one of the empty technological terminals.


    Since the terminal was SYSTEM-controlled, it was relatively protected, so when it asked him how he’d like to register as a Client. Doing so anonymously was an option, for a price. For one million credits, he could get this party started. Connor created a system-sanctioned contract to kill members of the Malicore Sect at the standard rate. A bonus of 10,000 credits would be paid for every Malicore Slaver team member that was killed. He deposited eight million credits to get things started. It was an open-ended quest, which meant that he would need to continue depositing more credits until he withdrew the contract.


    He hoped that the idea that the funds would run out, at least at the beginning, would create a frenzy among the Assassins as they tried to be the first to bank in on killing Sect members. Spending nine million credits would only leave him with just over one million credits, but it was definitely worth it. Malicore was targeting Earth; Now it was time for them to be targeted.


    As for the issue of getting more credits, buried in the information he’d absorbed was the location of a Tier IV Dungeon that had appeared almost a year ago. The dungeon had started overflowing a month ago, and calls for someone to clear it had been coming in almost daily. The Requests had been forwarded to other sectors and planets, but individuals of sufficient rank to survive the dungeon were few and far between. It was almost as if the SYSTEM was encouraging people to advance faster. Unfortunately, they weren’t.


    For Connor, that wasn’t going to be an issue. He was sure that there would be good rewards and XP if he went to the Dungeon. Connor finished with the contract and walked out of the building as he deactivated Control Technological Device. Once he was sure no one was watching, he activated Stealth, Flight, and Environmental Adaptation before Teleporting 1,000 miles straight up. Then, he shot southward at his maximum speed.


    The Tier IV Dungeon had appeared on the southernmost continent at the center of an ice-locked continent, much like Antarctica on Earth. As he flew, he replaced all of Trevor’s gear with his regular clothes and switched his outer appearance to that of a nondescript human male with short brown hair and eyes. As he came upon the entrance to the Dungeon, he found a small camp outside the entrance, which had people set up in a circle around it. As he watched, a horned bunny… A horned bunny, really? It exited the dungeon, sniffed the air, and then exploded toward the defensive lines. A mage’s telekinesis spell caught it and lifted it off the ground. A moment later, it was turned into an arrow pin cushion as arrow after arrow flew into it until it was very dead.


    Bunnies, even the horned variety, didn’t look like they would take all that long to clear. Connor ignored the people guarding the entrance and flew directly into the Dungeon Portal. Once inside, he found himself mashed on all sides by hundreds of horned bunnies. Even though he was stealthed, he felt the bunnies that were touching him turn and attack him immediately. They did nothing. He quickly checked his combat log as attack after attack landed because they couldn’t miss. Each attack did between 16 and 32 points of damage, which was automatically resisted by his 2,966 points of Physical Damage Resistance.


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


    He now understood what Pandora had meant. If these bunnies were tier IV, they should have attributes in the 10,000-point range. Instead, it looked like they were somewhere under 200 points. The Bunnies couldn’t hurt him, but he could and did reach out and started breaking their necks with a squeeze. Once dead, he deposited them in his Mana Composter because he couldn’t just leave them there or he’d never be able to move.


    For the next 70 minutes, Connor let loose and put his new strength to the test. Connor made his way through the dungeon, killing Tier IV Horned Bunnies at a rate of 33 per combat turn. Unfortunately, there seemed to be an XP penalty because his attributes were so much higher than the bunnies, which he discovered when he reviewed his gains after clearing the first room. Each Horned bunny was supposed to be awarded 10,000 XP per level. Due to his physical attributes being more than 1,000 times that of the Horned bunnies, the award was reduced to 10 XP per level. His treasure award may have been affected, but 675,000 copper pieces was still quite a substantial amount. Of course, that only converted to 6,750 credits. In addition to the coin, he found core shards.


    Congratulations! You have found 1,350 Master Core Shards,


    Congratulations! You have found 725 Master Horned Bunny Evolutionary Core Shards


    Congratulations! You have found 1,710 Generic Class Shards.


    He’d also gained some levels.


    Congratulations! Master Ranked Class Unfettered has increased from level 63 to 82.


    He’d gained levels! Had he gained skill slots as well? A quick check showed that he had two more skill slots available. Yes! With a thought, he added one Skill Slot to Eyes of Eris and increased the skills range out to 100,000 feet or 18.9 miles. The rest of the dungeon was already within his range, so the increase had no effect at this point, but he was sure when he stepped outside of the dungeon he’d notice the change.


    Connor brought his attention back to the dungeon and looked at the four levels he had to travel through. The rest of the first floor was filled with more horned bunnies. The entryway had been filled with 13,500. The rest of the first level, which was huge, seemed to be filled with at least four times that amount. The level was packed, and even now, the bunnies were starting to spill into the entryway. Connor went back to work and begins killing rabbits. Utilizing hand-to-hand attacks and Force Daggers of Throwing, it took another four hours for Connor to clear the first level. It wasn’t that killing any specific horned rabbit was hard; there were just so many of them.


    Four hours later, the first floor was clear, and the head of the sizeable razor-tusked hog about the size of a rhinoceros charged up the stairs. A single force dagger killed it as three more rushed up the stairs. Connor landed and became visible for a moment, which allowed the three to zero in on him and charge. Connor braced himself and waited. The three 2,000-pound hogs broke their tusks against his arm and slammed to a stop before Connor gave the middle one a push and sent it into some more hogs that had been coming up the stars. He killed the other two beside him with the flick of his wrist, which imbedded a force dagger in their brains.


    Connor reactivated Stealth and began using Force Daggers to kill the hogs as he moved forward. He stepped into a rhythm. He’d cast Force Daggers of Throwing, kill a hog with a thrown dagger, step forward, and toss it into his Mana Composter. He continued doing that as he moved down onto the 2^nd level and went to work. He had only been busy for about a minute when it happened. After his 182nd hog kill, his Mana Composter was full. That meant that the 100,000 slots in his Mana Composter held 500,000 pounds. At a breakdown rate of 10 pounds per turn or 60 pounds per minute, it would take almost eight days to break down everything. Of course, it would only break down and add to the reserve mana pool if…Damn, he was going to need to find a way to increase his mana usage so that his Mana Reserve would continue to refill.


    Connor had plenty of room in his normal Inventory. He put the next 112 hogs into that inventory and realized he’d cleared the floor. Connor realized he needed to allow his Mana Composter to break down the corpses within it, and to do that, he needed to empty his Mana Reserve of 100,000 mana. He immediately stopped directing Mana Regeneration to the Reserve. At 31,590 mana regeneration per turn, he’d refill the reserve much faster than the Mana Composter. Maybe there was a way to speed it up, but right now, he needed a way to kill the beasts within this dungeon and get them out of the way…


    Maybe….


    That might work, and it was mana expensive.


    Connor moved back up to the entryway, focused on memorizing the location where he stood. He even pulled out some chalk and drew a stargate on the wall in front of him so that he could more easily focus on this location to return to. He could always return to Trevor’s room and make his way back here, but he wanted to be able to return to this dungeon to clear it out if he could.


    A minute later, he activated Teleport and appeared 100 feet above the bottom of the crater where Mount Kimball used to be near Tucson, Arizona, exactly where he’d wanted to. Before he could do anything else, he was inundated with information concerning everything within an 18.9-mile radius. Tucson looked like Lebanon. Fights and fires were going on everywhere. People were killing monsters and other people. Connor thought about helping others, but he knew he needed to get back. Before his Mana could start to regenerate, he transferred the 100,000 mana from his Mana Reserve into his Mana Pool. That done, he dropped the 112 Bladed hogs out of his inventory and into the crater below. Then, he teleported back to the Entryway of the Dungeon.


    A moment later, he reappeared in the Dungeon without issue. He’d spent 200,000 of his 631,228 mana to teleport to Earth and back to Vesper. His Reserve had returned 100,000 mana, and his mana regeneration would return the other 100,000 in the next four turns. He quickly checked his level and realized that he’d reached Level 100, which unlocked two more Skill Slots. The XP awards had capped out when he reached Level 100 at Master Rank, and the XP was being banked until he ranked up his core, evolution, and class. That’s right; he needed to upgrade his Core to Epic Rank and his Evolution if he had enough shards. One of the things he’d downloaded in the information Crystals was the fact that lower-rank cores could be combined to create higher-rank shards, and those shards could create cores at a 10:1 ratio.


    To upgrade to an Epic Core, he would need to convert 10 Advanced Cores to one Master Ranked Shard. Next, he could take ten of those shards to on Master Ranked Core and then ten of those Cores into one Epic Shard. Once he had 10 Epic Shards, he’d be able to make an Epic Core. He did not have enough Advanced Shards yet, though. He had more than half of what he needed with 6,780 Advance Core Shards. He had more Advanced Class shards, though, with 8,590 Generic Class Shards in his inventory.


    With a shard drop rate of about 10%, the 444 creatures left on the third and fourth levels probably wouldn’t supply him with enough, so he might as well get the dungeon done and then go try to either buy or find more shards and cores. He could try to purchase Common Class shards and upgrade them, but it was a bit crazy to do so. The charge he’d absorbed showed that it would take one billion common class shards to create one master ranked core. At an average cost of 100 credits each, it would cost him 100 billion credits, which was way outside of his current price range. It was going to be easier to go out and find the shards and cores.


    Connor recast Force Daggers of Throwing and made his way to the entrance to the third floor. Unlike the upper two floors, there was a door at the bottom of the stairs, and it looked like there were human-sized bipedal creatures on this floor. Connor made sure his Stealth and Flight skills were active, and then Shadow stepped to the other side of the door, where he found what he could only describe as albino dwarves with copper beards and red eyes.


    None of the creatures noticed him as he used Identify on the first one he saw.


    Deep Dwarf, Advanced, Level 35


    450 Hit Points


    325 Mana


    437 Stamina


    275 Psychic Energy


    Connor reviewed the information and smiled; it was no challenge at all. Since there were 443 creatures on this floor and only one on the fourth level. With Stealth and an overwhelming strength, he grabbed a three-foot dwarf and pushed him into another over and over until the floor was clear within three minutes.


    The final level of the Dungeon had a Dragon in it. As Connor made his way down to the lower level, the dragon smiled and nodded, “Come human, come to your death!”


    Connor, feeling a bit cocky, deactivated Stealth and floated down the stairway and into the giant chamber where a mirror reflected its image from directly above the entrance. He turned around and floated up until he was level with the dragon''s eyes and just outside of an easy reach for it. “What was that?”


    The dragon reacted quickly as it struck out with one of its front claws and tried to eviscerate Conner.


    CRACK!


    One of the dragon''s claws broke against Connor''s body as he remained locked in place, his Master Ranked Flight Skill more than sufficient to hold him in place from a swipe that only did 423 points of damage.


    Connor made a motion like he was brushing himself off and asked again, “What was that?”


    Instead of responding, the dragon took a breath and tried to launch acid at him. The actions made by the dragon were slow. Before the acid left its mouth, Connor had shifted his position to a point directly at the dragon''s head. As the stream of acid began, Connor grabbed the top of the dragon’s head with his left hand and punched through the back of its skull with his right hand.


    Connor released the head and watched as the dead dragon fell to the ground. He whipped the gore off of his right arm and floated down to the chest that had been seen with the Eyes of Eris. The chest turned out to be a mimic, which exploded into action when Connor landed in front of it. Tentacles lashed out and grabbed him as the mimic opened its mouth wide. It pulled itself up and over as it tried to swallow Connor head first. He was so surprised that it was a mimic that he didn’t move when it attacked him.


    The teeth in the mouth of the mimic shredded his clothing but did nothing to him. It was also making a “Nom Nom” sound as it tried to chew on him. While he found that amusing, that was enough of that. Connor Teleported to the other side of the room and threw a force dagger at it.


    The Mimic exploded as treasures fell out onto the cavern floor. The Mimic had a dimensional storage area that held its treasure until it died, and it wasn’t lost to the Astral Plan? Damn, that was cool. The sound of tinkling coins as they landed on the ground was also excellent. Connor took in the scene and noticed that all of the coins were gold.


    Connor Cast Wizard Hands and had them start touching and storing the coins in his inventory. Next, he went over to Mimic, which now looked like a deflated sack of flesh. He put that in his inventory and then went to the Dragon and put that in his Inventory as well. He’d left the Deep Dwarves on level three, but these two creatures might trade for more coins.


    That’s when he noticed that he had a Notification waiting and pulled it up.


    Congratulations! You have cleared the first Advanced Dungeon on this world. You have earned 100,000 XP.


    WORLD ANNOUNCEMENT!


    Connor Nash has cleared the First Advanced Dungeon on the World known as Vesper to its inhabitants.


    Congratulations! The World’s Upgrade Challenge has been completed.


    Advanced SYSTEM Integration will begin in one year.


    Rank based SYSTEM Integration? There was a rank-based SYSTEM Integration? What did that mean exactly? Connor searched through his memories until he found a tidbit of information that was added as a note. Worlds could increase their Rank if the power level of the inhabitants surpassed the average dungeon level by at least three levels, but if what Pandora had shared with him was true, all that meant was that this world was going to upgrade to Uncommon rank.


    Then, Connor smiled. If these underpowered worlds could upgrade, that meant that somewhere out in the broader Multiverse, there were worlds where he would find challenges that were equal to him. It also meant that some worlds and realms were greater than him, at least for now.


    Connor brought his thoughts back to the treasure he’d collected. He’d picked up 37,250 Gold. There was also a dagger made out of shiny metal that seemed to be quite durable, but that was the only other item that he’d found. He still needed a spell to analyze items. He put the dagger in his inventory. He’d have one of the merchants in Commerce appraise it for him.


    Connor activated Stealth and made his way back up to the surface. Once outside, he noticed that some people were moving toward the entrance, probably trying to see if this was the dungeon that had been cleared. Connor ignored them. As he lifted off the ground and shot north toward Commerce, he considered that he now had another 3.7 million credits for the Assassins Guild contract. Every little bit helped.