R-a - Volume 4 - Chapter 51

R-a - Volume 4 - Chapter 51

(I'm considering going back and expanding on Shin/Micheal/Sophia's reunion, editing their discussion to be more than just a summary of what they said to each other about their journeys)

(I'll let you all know if I end up doing that!)

-

One blinding flash of light later and Sophia found herself in the middle of a rather strange room.

It was a large room, with 4 long, wide walls painted gray. The room’s ceiling was blue, set at least a dozen meters above her head. If she only focused on these things, it wasn’t that odd of a room...

At least, until she looked at the ground, where a large, grassy meadow spread out, complete with a small stream running through its middle, ending as it connected with the empty gray wall. There was no apparent light source in the room, yet it was lit, nevertheless, giving her perfect visibility.

“So this is what the Third Gate leads to, huh?” She murmured, bending down and running her fingers through the grass.

She wasn’t outside, obviously, nor was the ground beneath her truly dirt. Instead, it seemed to be some type of magical creation that she couldn’t explain. The ground was similar to the ground in the First Gate, where the terrain would randomly shift, but without distinct walls to enclose it.

As she looked around, she spotted a small, wooden table, set at the direct center of the room, just a few feet away from the rushing stream.

Instead of walking over to that table, however, Sophia sat down on the ground.

As she sat, she carefully crossed her legs and took a deep breath.

She held that breath for a couple of seconds and then exhaled.

“This is nice.”

Sophia smiled quietly to herself.

It was a nice change of scenery.

The time she spent in the First Gate training had begun to blur together in her memory. Countless days had gone by as she practiced, and practiced, and practiced more, the endless months of isolation gnawing away at her willpower.

The only companion she had was the magical clone that copied her, growing alongside her as she grew more and more skilled.

It was hard. Extremely hard.

It was the hardest thing she had ever done in her life.

Harder than fighting her first Morenkai, harder than enduring the excruciating pain that came with using Dragon Building Liquid, even harder than dealing with the horror of losing Anna.

The urge to give up, to just take a step back and leave the First Gate, to call it a day and leave early, had been overwhelming. No one would know if she left just a little sooner than she should.

Everytime she thought about giving up, though, she thought of Shin’s goofy smile… of Micheal’s encouraging words…

And of her little sister who had vanished 8 months ago.

Those thoughts made it a little more bearable as the days inside turned to weeks...

As those weeks turned to months…

And as those months turned to years.

3 years, 4 months, and 21 days, to be exact.

That was how long she trained by herself, alone in the First Gate.

“I got to see Micheal and Shin again, and made a new friend.” Sophia smiled, giggling to herself, giddy with happiness. As she laughed, she rolled onto her back, stretching out and up with her hands.

The shock of transitioning from years of solitude to meeting Serena, Shin, and Micheal still hadn’t quite gone away.

Shin seemed to have taken it in stride, somehow, but for Sophia, it was an emotional moment. If it wasn’t for her own personal pride, she probably would’ve cried after she hugged Micheal. Seeing him again had lifted a weight off her shoulders, the stress and tension of traversing the 7 Layers seeming to wilt away.

“And now… I’m here.” Sophia tilted her head to the side, looking up at the tall ceiling above her.

“An Inheriten…ception.” Her lips twitched as she failed to keep a smile off her face.

“Stupid Shin… well, anyway.” She shook her head as she got back to her feet, bouncing off the grass in one smooth, graceful movement.

“I guess I should go look at what's on the table.”

‘Why is there a table over here, anyway? Also, why is the floor grass?‘ She shrugged, tossing the questions to the side. Few things made sense recently, it seemed.

As she walked up to the table, she found several small, gray crystals. Each crystal glowed, sparkling with faint white light. They were beautiful, each about the size of her thumb.

“Aww… they’re pretty.” Sophia observed, her eyes focused as she studied the stones.

‘But why is the table so small…?’ She had to kneel down next to the table, its legs rising only a few inches above the earth.

As soon as she looked at crystals on the table, instinctively, Sophia knew that if she wanted to access the Inheritance in front of her, she would need to grab ahold of these crystals, and imbue them with energy.

“Well. Micheal did say we were in a hurry.” She muttered as she reached forward and picked up one of the gray crystals.

When Sophia touched the stone, immediately, a cool breeze appeared in the midst of the large room.

“What would Shin say if he was here with me?” Sophia paused, unaware of the small lines of lightning that had begun to fluctuate off of her.

“What is this, a-

.. .. .. .. .. ..

“-table for ants?” Shin muttered as he looked at the tiny table standing at the center of the grassy room, his eyes scrunched up.

“Seriously… am I supposed to sit on the floor?” He promptly sat down next to the table.

“Ohh this makes sense. This is kind of nice, actually.” Shin muttered as he crossed his legs, assuming a comfortable sitting position.

“Now that I think of it, aren’t tables like this popular in Asia, back on Earth?” The architecture of the Ancient World shared many similarities with ancient Asian architecture.

“Nifty.”

Shin vanished, his body transforming into a blur as he teleported away.

“Oho?” Shin muttered as he looked at the world around him, seeing the countless thousands of strands of space, something only someone with the Warping Phaser type could see, all abruptly come to an end as they met the four walls that enclosed this room.

“So it’s impossible to teleport out of here.”

It was a bit different compared to the First Gate he had spent so much time in.

In the endless days Shin had practiced inside the First Gate, he had been able to teleport freely. There were no ‘walls’ inside the First Gate to prevent him from moving to one place or another. The terrain, and the world itself, seemed almost infinitely vast, at least to the point that Shin never reached an end.

“Now… this is more my style… a room with actual corners.”

Shin’s body blurred and vanished as he teleported, warping from corner to corner in a fraction of a second.

“Cozy.” Shin grinned as he wedged himself into a corner, his arms bulging as he used the friction of his hands and legs on the walls to hold himself up.

Compared to when he was on the First Layer, Shin’s ability to teleport had improved tremendously. Not only could he move farther, the amount of time he took between warps had shortened to less than a fifth of a second.

“In the First Gate, a place like this would’ve cost me an arm and a leg.” Shin said to himself as he teleported out of the corner and back to the ground.

“I guess I got this half-off, it only cost me an arm to get here.” He grinned, staring at the Melding Plate Arm that had replaced his left arm after he lost it on the First Layer.

“Ooh, that’s another good one.” Shin tapped on his Spatial Ring and brought out a notebook and pen, writing what he had just said down.

Shin smiled happily to himself as he stored the notebook.

“This ain’t so bad. I’ve got another pun to share with Micheal and Sofa.”

Meeting back up with Micheal and Sophia, outside of the First Gate, had been an almost surreal experience for Shin. It was something he had been looking forward to for what felt like an eternity, but at the same time, as soon as he was with them again, he felt like his world had gone back to normal.

He wasn’t sure why, perhaps it was an odd quirk of his personality, but once he was out of the First Gate, he felt like he had bounced right back into the groove of things.

Inside the First Gate, however… Shin had lost track of the number of months he had spent alone by himself. Much of that time, he had used to train himself, fighting the NPC-like clone that would respawn, and practicing his ability to teleport.

After his first two weeks in the First Gate, however, Shin had come to terms with himself.

‘I’m not a superhero.’

He had no idea how Micheal and Sophia did it, but he wasn’t able to blindly focus on training endlessly hour after hour, day after day, week after week.

Thus, he made a commitment to himself.

‘For every 4 hours I practice, I’ll take half an hour to relax.’

And that was exactly what he did.

It might not sound that hard, but staying in the First Gate for any extended period of time was a tremendously difficult thing to do. Fighting against a Shadow Seeker clone several times a day was great for training, but being forced to do that endlessly, while isolated in solitude, with no one to speak to or interact with, was horrifying.

A regular person wouldn’t last in the First Gate for more than an hour. Even skilled warriors in the first timeline usually lasted only a few weeks to a month at best.

Shin knew he had no chance of lasting longer than Sophia…

But he was nothing if not stubborn.

‘Think of all the jokes I can make about lasting longer if she leaves first…’

Silly jokes like that became his bread and butter as he kept a journal, giving himself the motivation he needed to keep at it.

Every day he stayed was another small bit of progress he made, another victory to his record.

‘If I can’t even do this, how will I keep up with Micheal and Sophia?’

He could accept that he might die somewhere in these hellish Layers, but the thought that he might drag down either of his friends was something he absolutely could not accept.

Thus… through sheer stubbornness alone…

Shin lasted 3 years, 2 months, and 3 days inside the First Gate, just a couple months shy of Sophia’s record.

“Now…” Shin muttered as he teleported back to the small table, choosing to teleport himself into a sitting position in lieu of sitting down like a normal person.

Shin poked one of the gray crystals resting on the table tentatively with his left pointer finger.

“These look expensive… I wonder what they’re called?”

.. .. .. .. .. ..

“Memory Crystals.” Micheal examined the gray crystals, holding one of them up.

They were a type of rare Magic Gem that could be used, as their name implied, to store memories.

Micheal hadn’t expected to see Memory Crystals used so early, here on the Second Layer. In the first timeline, he only ever recalled seeing Memory Crystals put to use on the Third Layer and beyond, by both the Void Nobles and the Nirvana Church, and later, Dark Void.

“This is a surprise. Is there no remnant soul for- ah. Right.” Micheal cut himself off, his mouth twisting into a sardonic smile.

“I forgot. Tallanoran said his companions were killed by Sion Swordsoul.” Micheal mumbled, recalling the records about Sion.

“Of course they couldn’t have left a remnant soul like Tallanoran did.”

Micheal knew all too well why.

Sion Swordsoul was a Titled Deity.

Title: The Infinite Edge.

‘Every time Sion killed someone, he didn’t just end their life...’

‘He also killed their Soul.’

.