* * *

  The road from the university to home, a short one rather than a beautifully maintained one, passed through some very ‘picturesque’ pces, one of which was a bridge opening under the motorway. From above, drivers who once again managed to get into a jam because of the repair of the road surface were honking their honks, concrete walls and pilrs were being crushed from the sides, and dirty water was dripping. The pce is not at all hospitable, especially in winter, but it has a life of its own. A whole row of small stalls selling newspapers, seeds, and lottery tickets. Igor would have walked past them. Most of them closed at this time of year. In the st couple of years, they've almost all closed down. Whether it was the opening of a rge market three hundred metres away or some other reason, he didn't know. But the young Exalted One was hungry for candy, so hungry that he couldn't stand it.

  There was one of the local stalls selling sweets by weight. And not just any sweets, but tasty ones. You know, when you take whole apricots, prunes, candied oranges, or dates without seeds, and pour a thick yer of not the worst chocote? This was the kind of candy sold here, and the seller was a taciturn and gloomy man of mountain nationality, who could express his thoughts very clearly with three and a half kinds of hums and whoops. Honestly, Igor once thought that the man was simply mute, but no, he was simply not one of those who liked to talk about high-spirited things. His stall never closed for the winter, and his incredibly tasty sweets were sold until te at night. Despite the fact that it would be smarter to save money, the guy wanted to treat himself. He deserved it, didn't he? You bet he did! Twenty-one units of understanding-cognition on the scale!

  And then, as he approached the stall, some unhealthy shit started happening. The first thing he noticed was that the two neighbouring stalls, the newspaper stall and the bread stall, were locked. They were still open the st time he'd been here, though. The candy stall was open, that was true, but something was still wrong. There was no light behind the small window, covered by a rusty grille that had been there since the nineties, and it was completely dark behind the gss. And on the advertisement glued on top of the showcase filled with goods, which reads ‘CANDYS TASTY INEXPENSIVE’, a reddish-brown stain is visible. It is as if someone had held a hand soiled in something, you can even see fingerprints.

  There were also wasps here. There were a lot of wasps, almost a whole hive of them, although it was wintertime and the insects should have fallen from the frost. They did fall in, their chitinous shells crunching under my feet, but a few of them still flew in and out of the window ajar, then flew back. The atmosphere, even without taking into account the sudden and recent changes, was perceived as very nervous and nowhere chamber-cozy, but against the background of very recent thoughts seemed tense, like a string on a guitar. And this string was in some drop of effort from bursting and knocking out the guitarist's eye. The closer Igor came to the stall, the slower his step, the more uncertainty he felt, because he couldn't stop being nervous, despite the protection that was working. This pce stank of something musty and disgusting, not physically, but on the very spiritual level, the same level on which he felt his Patches or Vessels.

  It was somewhat simir to the way he sensed the power that passed through the prism of the Tablet when he dispelled the protection and felt it dissolve into the surrounding background. Only here it felt noticeably denser and more powerful, on a permanent basis, rather than in the brief moments when the protection dissipated. He wanted to get closer less and less. Common sense told him it would be better for him, a wise system pyer, to look for a simpler location. He didn't want candy at all. Having stopped ten steps away from the stall, Igor looked around with irritation, noticing the complete absence of passers-by, even though it was still early evening, as well as the unpleasant silence. Clearing his throat with a delicate cough and trying not to break into a falsetto, he said loudly and confidently, clutching the pepper spray with one hand and reaching for the butterfly knife with the other.

  "Hey! Hey! Boss, are there any more candy bars on sale? The prune ones?" Asking, he doesn't wait for an answer, realising by some intuitive feeling or just progressive paranoia that he won't hear the usual snickering from the seller today or ever again. "I'd take three hundred grams?"

  He clutched the gift knife, a birthday present from a fellow student, whom Igor had helped a lot during the exams, but without enthusiasm. He was not a master of knife fighting or a virtuoso of stabbing, and he had only started carrying this iron with him to train the protection. The absorption and neutralisation of damage helped speed up the learning curve, as did the different types of damage and creative ways of dealing with it. For some reason, he felt like there was a good chance he'd experience exotic damage right this very second.

  "There are, of course, the best candies and sweets in this shop." From the darkness came a calm and friendly voice, almost rumbling like a big cat's, a voice that any voice actor would sell his ex-girlfriend's left kidney for. "The sweetest chocote, the most delicious fruit, tender and melting in your mouth, spreading a cloud of chocote bliss. The best fruits and berries for stuffing are as if just off the bed, only already candied and begging on the tongue. I will sell with a big discount as the first customer, come and go."

  Despite the clearly inviting words, they were spoken in an even and calm tone, as if they were read from a page. The voice was distantly simir to the one and a half words he'd heard from the salesman, but very distantly, and also the salesman would never have spoken so... so wordy. And there was a non-zero chance that it was the brother or other sibling of the ailing salesman speaking, that the lights were out because of a wiring problem, and the wasps were just from a nest that had been stirred up. But the feeling of sinister abomination, as well as the unnatural desire to come over and buy candy, which shut off even the instinct of self-preservation, spoke to the contrary. Igor involuntarily took a step forward, clutching the can and the knife tightly, realising that now there was something definitely wrong. He stepped closer and then shook his head, stepping back.

  "Wait, wait, don't go away, sweetie, I'll give you some for free, I'll give them to try, just come here, just come here, just come here, look how beautiful they are, eh?" The protection shook a little, as if vibrating, and in the depth of the window, the light fshed, illuminating a dozen different sweets in bright wrappers, literally dancing in the air, levitating hypnotic spiral. "At least take one of them, tasty and sweet, try it, tell everyone, try it, show everyone, try it, try it, try it, TASTE it!!!!"

  The boy did not understand how and why he took three steps forward, but he managed to come to his senses in time enough to dodge or turn on his toes and run away. As, the talkative something sitting outside the window seemed to be a competent hunter. He had calcuted his effort correctly, for he had no time to dodge. A long and sturdy hand, seemingly human, appeared out of the window, but it had at least ten joints, and its length was enough to grab Igor's hand and pull him to the window from a distance of six paces, no less. But further, everything did not go according to the creature's pn. It pulled with such force that it could tear his arm from the shoulder joint, but it only managed to pull up the boy, who had no time to start struggling. The attempt to pull harder ended with the palm with a dozen or even more fingers slipping along the protection, letting Igor slip away as if he were covered in oil.

  He slipped out and fired the pepper spray right through the window of the stall, managing to open the knife and stick it somewhere in the joint. The scream was inaudible, but deafening, as if it was screaming inside his head, under his skull, not outside. Igor staggered, but a moment ter he flew aside, for the filing arm had managed to fling him away as if he were nothing. His protection was still enough to absorb the attack's momentum, but the nding finally destroyed his defence, allowing him to feel at least part of the blow. The air was knocked out of his chest, and the whip-like arm, which had been whipped through a multitude of joints, shed out and snakily rushed after him, opening its fingers wide, each thirty centimetres long. The thing managed to grab and squeeze the victim's leg tightly, but before the firm grip turned into a bone-breaking one, Igor managed to complete a new cast of the protection. Once again, he was pulled almost to the stall, only to slip and fall to the ground in an attempt to keep his bance.

  Again, the limb swings, and a new protection bursts, repced by a third, leaving three full Vessels and two emptied. The spray can flew somewhere in the snow, but the knife, a knife covered in muddy brown slime, is still clutched in Igor's palm, and he strikes from bottom to top, cutting, stabbing, stabbing again, and whatever the hell it is, just to hurt the creature and prevent it from striking again. He doesn't yell. He's saving his breath. He's afraid of what that thing will do to his mouth. There's no panic either, just complete focus and the realisation that he can squeal bitch ter, but now he needs to get his balls in a fist and survive, either by surviving the abomination or getting away from it. He would think about what the fuck it was and how it got here ter, under different circumstances.

  The third burst of protection was marked by a new silent shriek. Igor only now realised, with a detached ‘I'm a moron!’ that all this time he had heard the voice of the ‘salesman’ only in his head, not with his ears. The creature shrieked because the knife had opened some rge vessels, for the brown slurry came out in a thick stream, as if from a cut hose. By the time the knife broke, leaving the bde in the flesh of the long-armed creature, and the creature stopped twitching, the fourth protection had come off, forcing him to apply a fifth, leaving only one spare Vessel. For a few seconds, Igor stares at the sluggishly twitching arm, which grew directly from the huge bag of flesh suspended from the ceiling of the stall. Now that the unnatural darkness was gone, even the avaible light was enough to make out the cocoon hanging overhead, covered with wrinkles, irregurities, and human faces. Five of the faces were unfamiliar to him, but in the sixth he easily recognised the missing salesman.

  "Why didn't he say anything?" Igor thought out loud. "He had a beautiful voice..."

  The creature did not shrivel or disintegrate into ash, but it faded away, as if it were falling through the fabric of the world right before his eyes. It was as if this abomination was still too heavy, too full of its power, and its corpse could not yet remain in our world for any length of time. The anchor of six faces eaten away by the cocoon had been enough to sustain itself and hunt, but now that the creature was dead, its body was sinking back into the swamp from which it had floated. There was a kind of realisation, like the clues of a leaf of images: it was still struggling to stay in reality, but if it had been here longer, had eaten more, its corpse might not have been dragged away, not to mention the fact that the power of its attacks would have increased, because that power wouldn't have been wasted on resisting the squeeze.

  There were no other clues, but the very shape of the creature, this predatory cocoon, whose hand pyed the role of head and tongue at the same time, told Igor that he did not want to check what kind of crap would hatch from this pupa. Because logic said, the creature that was fully born already in the native world of the earthling would have had ten times fewer problems with squeezing out. The young man stood like that for several minutes, while the streaks of brown crap and the carcass of the creature made their way home, noting at the same time how lonely passers-by began to walk across the scaffolding again. Either it was a coincidence, or the creature somehow scared away extra eyes, but it did not work on him, under the protection. The Protection Charm almost did not block the influence on the brain, but precisely that “almost”, some kind of reaction still occurred. It was enough to react and try to dodge, to understand that something was wrong. And all the other victims, it seems, did not suspect a trick until the very end, perhaps even dying with the taste of their favorite candy on their lips.

  Igor straightened his clothes, pulled back on the boot that had fallen off his foot, God knows when, the cing of which had become completely unusable, found and picked up the empty spray can, not wanting to leave evidence with his fingerprints near the crime scene. He also cleaned off dirt, snow, and God knows what other nasty things. The bde, by the way, remained sticking out in the flesh of the murderous limb and disappeared along with it. During this time, the corpse completely dissolved, and after it, there remained a small cloud, reminiscent of the multi-colored iridescence of pollen, changing color like gasoline on water. And this cloud gradually dissolved in the surroundings, but it was worth only wishing, as it was drawn into his body, and with such naturalness, as if this is how it should be. Only this way. Blinking a little, the young man felt the slightest shadow of a change in himself, in his status list, as if he had taken the first step towards something important, and very, very necessary.

  Step: 0 [11/1000]

  "Well, now, at least it's clear how to level up here." The guy, suffering from bruises all over his body, hissed venomously, coming to an obvious conclusion. "I, damn it, won't even think about leveling up like that until I get the barrier to the maximum. Or at least to fifty. Or until I find myself a machine gun. Or better yet, a grenade uncher. Maybe even a tank. Yes, it would be very good to drive over this stall along with the cocoon in a tank."

  Passers-by paid no attention to the lonely boy standing near the closed stalls, mistaking him for a romantic waiting for a date or a drug addict looking for a cache. And the inaudible muttering under his breath could not reach anyone's ears, except his own. Igor was about to leave when it dawned on him that it was not over yet. With the death of the creature, the suffocating background of extremely vile energy, the nauseating pressure on the nerves, and the very essence of man disappeared. Disappeared, but not completely. Another background remained, also cold, like dead water, icy and with a bunch of corpses in it, but not so ominous. It is not coming from the creature, but as if existing on its own, and its epicenter could not be anywhere except inside the stall.

  "Oh, shit, I'm not going to get into that now, am I?" A rhetorical question doesn't require a rhetorical answer, but it makes it easier for him to convince himself that he's not an idiot, but a thoughtful and experienced munchkin. "Oh, right, that's exactly what I'm going to do, what a nightmare."

  The only thing was that he first waited for the Vessel spiral to fill, cast a new protection, restored this Vessel too, and only then approached the unlocked door of the stall. Inside, not another creature was waiting for him, but only a whole carpet of quickly dead wasps, and mountains, mountains, and mountains of garbage, mostly candy wrappers. Only candy wrappers, because there was not a single candy left here. Not that Igor would have decided to eat anything brought from this death chamber, but the fact itself was very disturbing. It seemed that the seller himself ate it all, ate, ate, ate kilograms, tens of kilograms of sweets, not afraid of the pancreas leaving the chat. Ate so that, having eaten his fill, having collected building material, he could spin himself a cocoon and turn into a chrysalis of something else. To turn into something too alien to this world, so alien that even his body was not left here.

  Approximately in the middle of the stall, right on the floor, there was a small hole, at most enough to stick your head through, but not your shoulders. It was from there that the stream of power was gushing, easily felt by Igor. Noticeable enough that he did not want to stay here for long, because he could feel sick, even despite the fact that the Vessels in his body were burning through the filth, cleansing his body with their shine. Yes, now he clearly saw, clearly understood that the sources of his power spinning in an endless spiral... they were not just spinning, but were sucking in the cold muck, gradually grinding it into absolute nothingness, leaving no trace, no memory. He had protection, but he also felt uncomfortable here, uncomfortable, unpleasant, but at the same time bearable. He could stay here for at least a day, at least two, without being damaged either in body or mind. He would just find such a pastime a burden, and a burden mainly moral.

  And the familiar seller, whose name Igor did not even learn, had no way to cleanse himself, as well as no way to know for sure why he was getting worse and worse. There was no other option but to go to work and trade, trade and hope to sell more goods. Perhaps he could not simply close the stall and take a day off, or maybe he did not want to, but at some point, the concentration of the force that permeated this pce reached such a value at that an ordinary person ceased to be a person. And became what almost devoured Igor, adding a seventh face to its instaltion. Igor did not arrange retribution, paying the creature for killing the seller with his favorite candies. He gave peace to the seller, who began to devour people after the candies ran out on the shelves.

  Coming closer to the breach and closing the door behind, the guy carefully sat down next to the hole, looking into it and not risking shining a fshlight. The light, however, was still there, coming from the depths of the hole, as if there, about a hundred meters away, some kind of fshlight was shining, only greenish-gray in color, as if shining through a thick carpet of fog. It looked ominous, but at least it was not approaching... well, not so fast that it could be noticed with the naked eye. He felt no danger, but something else, in some way, resembled the instinct that allowed a person to understand the position of up and down, which allowed people to walk and move their legs without concentrating on each movement. And this feeling was also vaguely simir to the images of the "interface", but they did not come from the status list, but as if from the very nature of a person gifted with Vessels. Igor looks into the depths of the hole, a typical hole, only with suspiciously strong and smooth walls that don’t crumble, and he understands.

  He now has two paths. Either put at least three Vessels into a single impulse, colpsing this hole and blocking the passage, blocking the flowing force's access to the real world, or put all five charges, doing exactly the opposite, expanding and stabilizing this passage, which itself is gradually weakening, making it convenient enough to go down himself. After all, there, in that hole, there are probably creatures like the ones killed. Since there are creatures, there is an opportunity to pump up his current zero level, to grow not only in the mastery of understanding the only tablet, but also to grow in general. Igor saw all these possibilities as if in reality, remembered the fight with the creature, how the multi-colored fog from the killed abomination flowed into him like a soft rainbow, estimated the speed of development taking into account the progress already received...

  And then he made a logical and only correct conclusion, immediately voicing it in a confident tone, reflecting a complete absence of doubt:

  "Oh, fuck!" He didn't even think much, starting to pour out the vessels from his body, but not onto the Tablet, but simply outside. He had done this before, but there was no point. "I'm leaving!"

  The power flowed out of the Vessels slowly and carefully. He was afraid of making a mistake, despite the fact that he instinctively understood what he was doing. Well, well, animals often follow instincts, too, only they often die from it. Especially if these instincts are used by hunters who know the habits of animals. What if, on the other side, is one of them waiting with a fishing rod, getting ready to hook the impudent mortal woodpecker who did not want to come to visit himself? Therefore, all three Vessels were emptied slowly, and Igor was ready to break away and get out of the belly of the Stal of Doom at any moment. To be honest, he was even surprised that everything went as smoothly as it could go. Yes, he was sweating almost completely, and his temperature clearly rose in the process of sealing the passage, obviously leading to the very Other Side, about which the VOICE warned him and the other "pyers".

  The Vessels' energy covered the walls of the hole with a viscous mass, like a spider web and cement at once, destroying the icy coldness of the passage walls with its warmth and shine. And when Igor, obeying his instinct, abruptly shifted his energy, sending a kind of impulse along the entire coating, the walls could not withstand it and the hole with a quiet rustle and sigh sank in on itself, becoming no longer a mystical hole into the beyond, but simply... a hole in concrete and earth. A hole that could not withstand the weight of its structure, ignorant of the strength of materials, and crumbled in on itself, even under the stall, it sank a little, making one nervous. The feeling of an ominous flow of power emanating from the hole did not disappear instantly, but weakened right before one's eyes. But just before the colpse, a thick stream of rainbow fog shot out of the hole, enveloping the young man, who jerked in surprise, and soaking into him like a warm rain.

  Realizing that the closing of such crap was as if repaid by either his native world or the universe in general, Igor began to absorb this warm mist, slowly and calmly. He wanted to hurry, literally stuff this rainbow into himself, because it was gradually dissipating itself, and the faster the further. He wanted to, but he was not greedy, he was not in a hurry, and was generally afraid of catching "overeating", so at least two-thirds of the mist disappeared, dissipating in the air and space around Igor. Putting three Vessels into some action at once turned out to be unexpectedly difficult, much more difficult than spending three charges separately. So difficult that he sincerely doubted that he would have been able to expand and stabilize the course, having spent all five Vessels, even if he had gone nuts enough to try.

  Step: 0 [106/1000]

  Understanding: 32/100

  A quick gnce inside confirmed that a direct duel with all sorts of aggressive freaks is much more effective for understanding one's own Tablet, and also proved the benefits of helping one's native dimension in clearing out all sorts of filth. Almost a tenth of the level scale for one fight and one closure, an understanding of the Tablet that has increased by half for the same single battle. Yes, you involuntarily understand the correct approach to development, but Igor, estimating all the possible risks, understands even more clearly that he no longer wants to do the pumping alone and will not, unless he is directly pressed. The first fight in his life for the extension of this life and the avoidance of a fate worse than death very clearly proved to him that if he is not a pacifist, then he is close to this philosophy. Any reasonable person will be against violence... especially against himself.

  Meanwhile, the structure of the breach into the Other Side, which had finally colpsed, had completely blocked the flow of power, but the remnants of this power seemed to have mixed with that same rainbow mist. And not the one Igor had received as a reward, but others, thicker and more viscous, unsuitable for absorption. And this thickened energy seemed to have begun to condense, to fuse into something else, gathering into three separate structures, formed from the void due to that same outflowing power. What, is this not only pumping but also System loot? What's next? Will they add a rating table? A forum and a trading ptform? An auction between worlds? It would have been funny, but he couldn't ugh. He managed to connect my perception-status to these balls, receiving, albeit fragmentary and clearly not as exhaustive as in the personal status list, but still information about what exactly he received as a reward for his actions to improve the surrounding reality. Yeah, by getting rid of parasites, damn.

  His loot was two small glowing lumps of dust, fragile, ready to crumble in his fingers. These were "Tiny Marks of Valor", which, according to the description, "slow down or completely stop the flow of absorbed Multicolor for some time, slowing down the regression to the beginning of the Step". That is, if you think about it a little, you come to realize the sad truth. The level here is not just difficult to get, it also crawls back to the very beginning of the Step. It remained to hope that at least the completed levels do not bounce back, otherwise, this is some kind of really tough hardcore. Well, roughly like real life, without systems, pumping, and magic, yes. But in general, it seems logical. If you take into account those parting words, as well as the timer ticking on the edge of consciousness, promising something unpleasant for the entire pnet, then such an approach seems very banced. After all, the very thing that turned the individuals who found the shining ball into budding wizards clearly pushes earthlings to hunt creatures and destroy them.

  If you work, you get your honest bowl of rice and a cat-wife. If you don't work, your bowl of rice will be taken away from you, and your cat-wife will be given to a more successful Exalting One. You will go to a bor sanatorium, zy Exalting One. But seriously, Igor wouldn't trade his ability to manipute the ws of reality for a dozen cat-girls, which come with a patent for owning rice pntations in half of China. It's hard to convey even a shadow of the delight you experience when you break the ws of physics with your will and knowledge, bend the fabric of reality to your will, and break logic and expectations. This... this intoxicates you better than strong rum and is much more addictive than any drugs. In general, Igor didn't see the data he received as a reason to despair and stop trying to develop, since it was so difficult to jump up the levels. No, here he saw a reason to intensify the search for colleagues in the hopes of finding a normal group. Or look for a way to get a firearm in a safe way.

  The second type of loot was called "Dim Lantern", which really resembled a miniature and translucent, almost ghostly, trinket in the form of a ntern. Its description won Igor over almost completely. This description cimed that the Lantern "ignites a riot of forces in the bonds of the free Patch chosen by you, provoking the formation of the Tablet of the spiritual basis, illuminating the Halls of Mysteries with its light, allowing you to find the Shine of Revetion whose Brightness will be determined by the Dying or Dim." The actual way to get new Tablets more conveniently and calmly than he had pnned for himself. Because intuitively, Igor felt, knew, and understood that he could open the barriers of the Patch. It was not difficult. It will be more difficult to withstand the Mystery that will form the Tablet and not leak your brains onto the pillow, at the same time not allowing the protective essence of the Patch to burn itself and block the communication channel with the Mysterie, depriving him of the opportunity to receive the Tablet. And from this short information block, he also found out that his dim Tablet is not the lowest-ranking of all possible. There are worse ones.

  Dying light, dim light... the thought involuntarily comes to mind that this Brightness can be of a higher rank, yes. If only he knew the gradation, the difficulty of obtaining and pumping up, as well as the risks of getting irreversible injuries. The description of his Gift directly said that for him, the probability of injuring himself when trying to unfold the Patch into a Tablet or increase the grade of said Tablet was reduced. Reduced, not leveled, that's the problem! And no clear percentages and coefficients for you, Igor, only murky descriptions and your intuition. The young man hated these games with intuition all his life, especially in clear recipes. Add salt to taste, damn it! Throw in a pinch of cloves! Fry until done! Urgh! In general, Igor was not good at cooking, and now he needs to cook not Peking duck, but rather reassemble himself on a deep level, using an even less detailed recipe.

  Dammit.

  * * *

  He got home completely exhausted, nodding to his neighbor returning from work, and almost falling asleep right in the elevator. He left no traces of his stay in the kiosk and even wiped the pces he touched with a damp napkin, but he was still worried. The death of six people, or rather, the mysterious disappearance without any traces, would clearly excite the police, and not just Igor himself. And he really didn’t want to become the only suspect, especially if the instrument of interrogation and obtaining a confession would be such a memetic bottle of champagne or a shovel handle. Having already arrived home and forcibly stuffed dinner into himself, the young man activated one of the Marks, simply crushing it in his hand and feeling how it covered him with a thin yer of some strange immaterial substance. And it seems that this film really helps him not to lose progress to the next step. If before it seemed like tiny specks of rainbow mist were flying off from him, now this process has completely stopped.

  The next four days, he hardly leaves the apartment, diligently torturing the remaining hamsters and himself, noting with some pleasure how his Protective Charms grow stronger and more powerful with each unit on the development scale. Understanding comes with new repetitions, with attempts to use the amulet in other conditions, with attempts to apply it by ear and from memory, mocking the pigeons, and Borisv Gennadyevich catching the pigeons. It turned out very badly, but he still managed to hang the protection on the hamster, standing with his back to it, even though he spent almost a minute on it, and his understanding jumped up three points at once. However, he paid the cat back by the fact that when the new mongrel, aggressive and probably rabid, tried to gobble up the cat, who was mencholically observing the world, Igor managed to cover his impudent whiskered face with a talisman a moment before the cat, who had not had time to react to the surprisingly fast dog, would have been torn to pieces.

  The cat, having become temporarily invulnerable, did not lose his head and, being in an adrenaline frenzy, did not notice the strange sensations from the imposed protection, starting to fight for his life. He sshed the dog, probably forcing it to bleed out from the received wounds, because the dog's muzzle and throat were pretty badly damaged. Well, Borisv Gennadyevich had already suffered his share back when he received his st rabies vaccination - despite the status of the yard king, he was a domestic cat, with a colr and even a chip. By the way, Igor, during his entire time living in the house, never found out who was formally the official human pet of Borisv Gennadyevich. Another important detail - for the successful use of the protection in a mortal fight, albeit mortal for a cat, he got two more units of understanding.

  As, but he had to admit the obvious. With each new division of the scale, it was harder and harder to take the next one, so in a week, he barely managed to finish the scale to forty-four points out of a hundred and paused. Yes, he did not hide from himself that he was scared. He did not want to risk and use a brand new consumable, fearing to cripple himself, destroy the Patch or even die in the process. But he had no choice, because without a normal way of pumping, having only a shield and not a sword, he simply would not be able to defend himself or escape, only survive longer in a deadly conflict. It does not matter with whom. Whether it will be a creature or a person who decides to py PvP against the defenseless Igor, but direct combat is deadly for him. So, a new tool is needed that enhances not defense, but attack ... or at least the ability to heroically retreat, mistakenly called flight, yes.

  Intuitively, with that gnce into himself, he realises that his Lot is simply not meant for lightning strikes, fireballs, or even a trivial magic arrow. No, in theory, he could try to get a suitable Mystery from beyond the Patch, take the Revetion, and all that. But if in the case of the Protection analogues he would be assisted by his Lot, holding the entire load and leaving Igor only a fraction of the necessary effort, then the spherical fireball in a fucking vacuum would have to be mastered by those very personal talents. It would hardly be an easy way, and Igor would hardly have many talents, even taking into account the gifts he had acquired for free. Fortunately, wherever you can't py directly, you can often find a way round, which is what the young man was going to do.

  The essence of his pn was to look for not just another defensive skill, but to form a Tablet that would enhance his offensive abilities. It would still be a blessing effect, not a direct attack, but, as with the protection, no one and nothing would stop him from casting this thing on himself. In this regard, Igor was confused by a small, even tiny, doubt that he would simply be given a choice of several different options for a suitable Tablet. Take it, young padawan, choose to your taste. This game is not so much a game, and based on how he uses his existing abilities, he will have to customize the Patch and engrave the Tablet personally, manually, with his own efforts, and they may not be enough.

  Before the operation, or ritual, Igor had fasted for half a day, drank only a little boiled water, curtained all the windows in the ft, id his mattress on the floor, put water, pills, a change of clothes, even a pte with sandwiches, only covering it with a second pte. The ntern looked like a tiny glowing lump in the dark, about the size of his little finger, but in its shape, it was easy to see the ntern. Maybe that's why his subconscious had decoded the image-concept of the thing with that word combination. He does the same with the loot as he did with the Mark before, clenching it in his fist and smashing it with rainbow dust. The dust is absorbed into his skin so easily that he doesn't even have time to be frightened, and then the energy fills all five Vessels, emptying them to the bottom a moment ter, against his will.

  Without being confused, Igor did not resist, but channelled all his free power in one swift stream straight into the unopened Patch, without even having time to be properly frightened. The stream pierces through the barrier of the Patch with incredible ease, revealing to the invisible eye all that is there, behind it. It cannot be described in words, nor in writing, nor in drawing, nor in sound, but if one tried to depict it, one would draw with one's own blood a vast and endless spiral that eats itself and those who are part of it. That itself is a part of each of those who live in it, that eats and gives birth, perishes and is resurrected every moment, closing itself in an endless cycle. This madman would sing of a deep and fathomless abyss, eternally being even when eternity itself was not born, eternally waiting and taking away, capable only of remembering and knowing, taking away and locking up all the secrets and mysteries that any eternity knows.

  A madman would tell, coughing out lungfuls and giving up his own soul on the exhation, would tell how the shining rain falls vertically upwards, each drop of which is a chain of destinies of the whole world, and the drops are innumerable. And those drops, coming out of the spiral, fall into the abyss of the abyss, giving up all of themselves to be born again and fall again, because that is the outcome and the limit, that is the world itself, in which there is no pce for anything else. A madman would py the keys of a gigantic organ, whose melody would raise graveyards and sprout dense forests on bare stones, and blow a flute, whose sound would cause mountain ranges to colpse under their weight, to show in the sound of music a round dance of dancing fairies, beautiful monsters and ugly miracle-workers that dance in a round dance of spirals, that dance right over the mouth of the pool, leaping between the drops of vertical rain, leaving each drop a moment before the hour of oblivion arrives.

  Igor had never done drugs, except for the time when he'd been forced to inhale smoke in the pot-smoked dormitory room when he'd come to pick up his borrowed notebook. But now he was shaking and sputtering so extensively and comprehensively that the half-joking thought that his brains would boil in his skull didn't seem joking anymore. The young man was simply drowning in a flood of images, shifting and changing those who saw them. He could not find a way to save himself, trying not even to learn the Mystery or to form the Tablet, but simply to return to the normal world, to feel his body, and in general, THERE WAS NO MORE OF THIS. Perhaps he would have found a way back. He felt it. He understood approximately how he had to cut himself off from the insane Knowledge, pure Mystery, which was simply beyond the size of his mind. Yes, he would have found it, he would have saved his life, even at the cost of the window-passage colpsing behind him, the Patch torn to shreds.

  But here again, the power released from the Vessels pyed its role, imbued with the glow of the Lantern. However dim its light was, it was his, belonged to him, carried in itself a particle of the life he had taken. And this light, a brief fsh in the middle of eternity, became for Igor a beacon, a support, a strong shoulder, gave him only one brief second, or maybe several eons, who knows? Igor realised himself, stopped drowning, pushed the unwanted and unwelcome knowledge away, casting it away and leaving only vague images that did not threaten to liquefy his brain into sour milk. And, having gained a shadow of self-awareness, Igor began to filter what he saw, searching for what he needed, relying on the part of himself that was the Standard Bearer's Lot, turning this Lot into a prism that dispersed his attention and pointed to what he needed at that very moment.

  He sees fragments of knowledge beyond his mind and human nature in general, but now he is able to see, able to hold his gaze a little longer than before, to understand what exactly he sees. At some point, his mind, accustomed to relying on the System Status, begins to perceive these fragments as skill icons, beautiful pictures, under a thin yer of which the real shit is hidden. Acceleration allows you to become faster, perceive faster, see and think faster, but only while you spend all your avaible free Vessels on this matter at once, and all the extra ones do not provide any enhancement. They are simply spent. Bzing fme on the fingertips, turning any touch into a burn, but burning the user himself, quite capable of being used as an instrument of torture, not an enhancement. Strength of muscles and bones, electrification of blood, icy breath. He is at a loss for options. Some might even suit him, but they disappear from his field of perception faster than he decides to choose them as his Tablet.

  Some of these Mysteries are barely visible. They have long since perished, leaving behind only a shadow of the shadow of their former power, continuing the inevitable with their dying radiance. Having chosen them, he will start from the very bottom, most likely remaining there. One must have inexpressible patience and power to rekindle these Mysteries. Others shine brighter, but also dimly. They are not yet dying, but are already close to it, but their brightness does not burn the one trying to learn the cherished knowledge. There were even brighter, no longer dim, but some other Mysteries, and he, striving for power, perhaps could have taken them. But he did not risk it, and ter did not have time. These Mysteries disappeared from the illumination of the Lantern faster than the others, disappearing first. And he, having experienced the process of creating the Tablet from scratch for the first time, simply did not have time to react, preferring the good to the best, a bird in the hand, two in the bush. Or, rather, preferring the crane in the hand to the giant eagle that had disappeared into the sky, on which Gandalf and Frodo were already sitting.

  When he opened his eyes, Igor wiped away the sweat and drank half a litre of cool water. His stomach grumbled like a raging wolverine and a honey badger at once, his head was a little buzzing. His body demanded a proper rest, but he was as happy as a hundred and fifty elephants. The reason for such a satisfied face was the change in his Status, where a new Tablet, the second of three avaible, was clearly visible. And even though this Tablet was also dim in terms of brightness, it was no less useful than the protection that had already saved his life. Well, in the long run, because at first it is also necessary to bring this Tablet at least to the second ten units on the scale of understanding, strengthening the effect.

  Tablet: Minor Combat Shine

  Understanding: 1/100

  Foundation: Spirit

  Brightness: Dim

  Effect: Creates a stable aura of the Light Aspect around the target, passively weakening negative effects and territorial influence, and strengthening every strike or offensive action of the target with the used Aspect. Cast on yourself or the target, draining one of the Vessels for ten minutes, automatically blocking one of the Vessels of either the carrier of the effect or its creator. The effect is fed by the blocked vessel and cannot be dispelled simply by the passage of time as long as the creator of the effect and the target remain conscious.

  Effect: [will be revealed upon mastering 75 units of understanding]

  Effect: [will be revealed upon full understanding of the Tablet]

  I will be your Light, your Executioner...

  The Tablet he had discovered was perhaps not the most optimal choice, but certainly one of the best he had ever seen in his rather darkened state. In choosing this Mystery to form the Tablet, he was guided by two main factors - the need to somehow inflict damage on the enemy, not just receive it, and the extremely nasty, musty power that emanated from the hole to the Other Side. In the sense that he needed to dissipate, suppress, and destroy this oppressive energy and background, especially if he ever risked going down into the hole for the sake of pumping. No, he had not gone mad and would not go there alone for any promises of power, but if he could still find a reliable group... or at least some group.

  It's hard to be a support character when pying solo, yes.

  His observations, mostly limited to gnces out the window, showed practically nothing. Several times, he saw that same suspicious homeless alcoholic who managed to survive hypothermia without harm to his health, but he was simply rummaging through the trash can and behaving in such an authentically homeless manner that it was impossible to recognize a colleague in the magical gift in him. Once again, he saw very suspicious fshes from somewhere, not even from the neighboring yard, but further, but it could have been an arm, a fshlight, fireworks, or a hallucination of Igor himself. Lack of sleep can cause even more hallucinations. He was constantly tired during training, exhausting himself emptying Vessels and using the protection, so it is not surprising that twice in the st three days he simply fell asleep on the windowsill. It is good that he did not push out the gss with his small weight, fortunately, he is short and slender, not to say skinny. To die such a stupid death would be extremely pitiful.

  The new trick captured him completely, forcing him to spend a full working week again on mastering the skill. First of all, on himself, not on animals. Within the framework of the imposition on the target, the skill acted according to the same rules as the Protection Charm. Only in the field of vision, only on living things, only at a limited distance, and the range grows with the growth of the scale of Understanding and the line of sight, the same understanding helps to py quite freely. The only problem is that the effect of the Shine is somewhat more noticeable and obvious than the almost invisible Protection. No, Igor's fists did not begin to shine with a bright light, and he did not sparkle in the sun like the characters of Stephenie Meyer. But at the moment of striking, the effect was very noticeable and not in the barely visible shining white film that covered the pce of contact with the target. It was the case.

  He tried his hand at a door that had been removed from the closet and had been repced during his childhood, and never thrown out. The young man covered himself in shine and punched the door. A strong wooden door made of thick sheet metal, slightly dried out but not rotten. He struck, leaving a neat stencil in the shape of his fist, which pierced right through the material. If he hadn't used the new trick with the protection, he would have also stabbed himself with splinters! Taking the kitchen knife in his hands and swinging it again, he managed to cut off the corner of that door with the knife. A full three centimeters thick, damn. Okay, not exactly one swing. He needed two swings, and the wood wasn't cutting easily, like fresh bread, not warm butter. But still, gentlemen, the fact is! Igor, without even striking, managed to simply slice the door. He crumpled tin bowls in his hands as if they were paper, and tied nails into rings around his fingers.

  No, he didn't get stronger. It was just that the same shine that appeared when a body or weapon came into contact with something it was being used against literally broke and squeezed through any physical barrier. Characteristically, this effect and the mystery behind it had a decent inbuilt recognition module. Random touches didn't hurt anything or anyone, as long as you didn't wave your hands around too much. To activate the glow, one had to consciously wish for harm. Using the effect on the hamster robbed it of its cage, for the creature, furious at the new sensation, chewed its way through the iron barrier in two seconds. When he panicked a little and removed his feeding of both effects, the hamster died quickly. The hamster didn't have a vessel; it was fueled by Igor. It's hard not to panic. The creature is coming at you, snorting ominously and aggressively!

  Perhaps the animal became aggressive because of the sensation of the imposed shine. It was as if you were filled not just with strength and power but a confidence that you could do it, that you could cope, that all paths were open before you. The effects of fear and dysmorality in such a high would not be effective, but even he, a human, found it hard to resist the urge to blow up the whole ft for the first time for the sake of training. It was funny to watch how the pigeon blessed by the novice Standard-bearer zily pecked not only the grains on the windowsill of the crazy grandmother, but also the windowsill itself. And when Borisv Gennadyevich, under this effect, began to run like a butthurted it was also funny. But not when the cat left deep cwed furrows on the material of the iron door to the entrance. He could even see them from the window, damn it! It wasn't enough to attract public attention with weird chupacabras and other creepy stuff.

  In fact, that's how his working week went. He even refused a visit to the birthday party of a cssmate. Anyway, he was not too fond of him and invited him only for the sake of propriety. He was raising the second Tablet little by little, and the first one, taking into account the new experience, had also moved up. Now, possessing two full-fledged superpowers, the young man noticed some interconnections, saw their simirities and differences. Thus, it turned out that the better cognised Tablet was pulling up the gging one, and there was a mutual synergy between them as well. Igor felt that he was not yet close to understanding how the impossible Mysteries behind the Tablets were connected, but he had grasped the direction to move.

  Minor Protective Charm: 57/100

  Minor Combat Shine: 24/100

  It didn't just look beautiful in terms of numbers. No, each unit literally made him stronger. To break through the barrier of the protection it was already necessary to sweat his whole body and to stagger. Well, if not to use radiance. And when trying to break through the protection with radiance, it's great. You realise and analyse the information received to adjust skills. Involuntarily came the idea of buying or even catching rats, which should be kept hungry, wait until they start eating each other, and then reinforce them with amulets and radiance to fight to the death. It was not mercy or squeamishness that stopped me, but the fact that so far there was enough data to master without creating his fights in the cage and without rules. So much so that he had to remind himself to eat, drink, and watch hygiene, otherwise he was in danger of turning into some overgrown doter no-lifer. He had not even downloaded and installed Doku-2, he would simply not be accepted into the company, expelled from the club!

  In fact, it was precisely because of his unwillingness to lose his human appearance that his next adventure happened.

  * * *

  _RIP_

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