I activated [Broken Sky] and basically ran through the world, looking for the next anomaly or rift. They were usually relatively far apart distance-wise, but distances barely mattered in the confounding string-world.
I would have despaired if nothing ever changed, but I was rapidly making progress doing this, so I wasn't going to complain. Closing rifts and getting rid of anomalies gave quite a bit of experience for the amount of effort I needed to exert in order to handle them. While it wasn't much when viewed individually, a level gained here, another one there, and so on, it all washed together into an amalgamation of experience and levels from the perspective of a slightly longer period of time.
I was maybe a month at most into this, and I shot up from level 30 to level 51! And all that in a time period that was almost laughable when compared to the amount of time I've already spent underground! If this continues, I might even tier up again somewhat soon. Level 75 was the peak of tier two, so not too far away now. Give me another 20 levels and I'll almost be there!
[Name: Hanah Mayflower (Sentinel of the Realm)
Race: Human
Level: 51 (Tier II)
Mana: 4010/4010 | 9800/13500
Achievements: [Hero Candidate], [Predator III], [Molten Rebirth], [Slayer of the Leviathan], [Sentinel of the Realm]
Class: Broken Star (Epic+)
Active Skills:
[Celestial Fire Lv. 26]
[Broken Sky Lv. 12]
[Regalia: Starfire Corona Lv. 27]
Passive Skills:
[Thermal Conversion]
[Broken Celestial Physiology]
[Regalia: Starfire Corona Lv. --]
General Skills:
[Identify]
[Heightened Senses Lv. 13]
[Pain Resistance Lv. 15]
[Fire Resistance Lv. 7]
[Mana Sense Lv. 1]
[Corrosion Resistance Lv. 2]]
Apart from just leveling up, [Broken Sky] and [Regalia: Starfire Corona] both vastly increased in level. While [Broken Sky] had crumbled around at a measly level 3 for a long time since I got it, it now sat at a comfortable level 12.
Due to the constant use of the ability I was strictly told to not overuse, my crooked halo also got quite a level up. While it only went up six levels in comparison to the 9 of [Broken Sky], they were (probably) higher-value levels.
Looking at my status from the perspective of only skill levels, I was actually really far outside of the norm if I remember what Instructor Wyn told us a long time ago. I'm pretty sure he said something along the lines of 'it would be extraordinary to get any skill above 10 or 15 before reaching tier three', though I wasn't sure about the exact value or tier.
And yet here I was, in the middle of tier two with two skills scraping at level 30. Level 19 was the maximum back in tier one, would it be 39 for tier two? Maybe even level 29, though I held that for slightly less likely.
Apart from my level and my active skills, nothing much changed in my status. With how little [Mana Sense] ended up mattering for me over the course of my life in the world up to now, it was almost laughable how much distress not being able to gain the ability to sense mana naturally had given me. Maybe it was more useful for people actually talented in using it, but I didn't mind it staying at level 1 for now.
I hadn't ever used it yet, and I highly doubted that would change anytime soon. [Heightened Senses] was a bit odd, however. I didn't feel like it did anything, but it still continued ticking up in level every now and then. It was probably so ingrained into my perception already that removing it would feel like a monumental difference, even if individual level-ups weren't noticeable at all.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
[Thermal Conversion], on the other hand, was the true workhorse of my skillset, even if seldomly used for any extended periods of time. The pure utility of converting mana into vitality was basically just a fancy way of incredibly potent healing and life magic that held my body in absolute peak condition at all times. Well, as long as I was in an environment of extreme heat, but I could obviously easily create such an environment for myself in seconds.
Just the benefit of mitigating any sort of permanent or temporary injuries that could occur during fights was enough to completely change the way I fought. Having no fear of injuries or losing 'health' made it all more a calculation than a thrilling fight at the edge of death like I imagined it must be for normal people without almost unbeatable regeneration among their skillset. They all have my respect for that, though I would never want to go back to that, even if I could.
Having said that, it was time to continue farming some more juicy rift. Since I was mostly running on autopilot anyways, it felt like I got rewarded for not even really doing anything. I just hop into [Broken Sky], follow the occasional tremors to their source, and eliminate whatever I find there with a quick application of [Unstable Space] through my regalia.
I hadn't even encountered any real invaders yet, the moss didn't count for that in my opinion. It was there, but it wasn't doing anything, at least not something I could clearly identify it doing. It couldn't defend itself, and it didn't even give experience when eradicating it. It was just slowly spreading from the rifts for a maybe existent, but very much unknown, reason.
As long as I got great amounts of experience from the rifts themselves, I didn't particularly mind, though. It not fighting back meant a lot less trouble when cleaning up for me. Only stupid people would complain about not having to fight every time they encounter a rift.
Well, maybe I was among those stupid people, at least partially. While traveling through the string-world of [Broken Sky] was somewhat meditative, it was also relatively boring and made me long for a bit more action here and there.
It was exactly for that reason that I almost jumped in excitement when a particularly strong shockwave rushed through the strings. While I usually had to strain my perception a bit to really feel them, this one was so strong that everyone would have felt it if they had been in my place.
I didn't know why it was so strong, but I wasn't going to complain. It could not only finally mean some action for me, it was probably also a very juicy bag of experience waiting for me. Anything producing such a shockwave could not be ordinary after all. Maybe I'd finally see what those so-called invaders look like? My imagination had been running wild for the past month of closing rifts, so it would be nice to get confirmation if any of my guesses were even close to correct.
It didn't take long before I arrived at my very unmissable destination. I wasn't entirely there yet, but I could already see it from where I was. Like stumbling into a den of spiders, there were hundreds of rifts and anomalies strewn about here. Less to the outskirts, but the center was so populated with them that some of them even touched others right next to them.
That wasn't all there was, though. At the very center of it all was a gigantic rift that truly deserved being called a rift. Unlike the smooth rings that rifts usually appeared as in the world shown to me by [Broken Sky], the ginormous version looked like someone had repeatedly driven a butcher's knife through reality. With uneven proportions and jagged edges, it almost looked intimidating.
Just like a normal rift, though, this one also just showed me the real world on the other side and not the other realm like I had hoped the very instant I saw it.
Unlike the previous singular rifts I had encountered, there were things here that weren't usually present. Must be the invaders then, though my imagination of what they could possibly look like was so far off that it wasn't even funny. I had expected something like green aliens from Mars at worst, but nobody had warned me that they would be so utterly disgusting.
Out of all things that existed in our realm and theirs, did it have to be mushrooms out of all things!? This realm's and Earth's versions of them were already disgusting enough. I liked eating champignons occasionally, but that was already it. While there were some harmless or even cool-looking mushrooms out there, most of them were horrible to look at. Slimy, stringy, fuzzy, covered with holes, all of them were horrible to touch, especially when doing so accidentally or being forced to in some other way.
On that note, I seriously could not get behind how people genuinely enjoyed eating moldy cheese. Out of all the good cheeses there are out there, why the moldy ones exactly? Mold was probably one of the most disgusting fungi out there, especially since it was also so incredibly common.
Moldy bread aside, these 'invaders' looked worse than anything else I had ever seen before, though. I thought the occasional [Abhorrent Cave Crawler] I encountered back before I started space hopping with [Broken Sky] were already the worst there was, but I was apparently very wrong about that.
Normally I wouldn't mind being wrong in something, but in this unique occasion, I would have very much preferred being right. Since they somehow developed in every dimension I have encountered now, fungi must be the law of the world. Unfortunate, but at least I won't even remotely feel bad when eradicating their entire species in the future. They were invading us, so they could get what they had coming.
With careful steps, I slowly made my way to the centermost portal, avoiding all the other rifts in the process. Before storming out with my guns blazing, I wanted to first get an overview of the situation on the other side.
In a moment of genius, I used [Identify] on one of the many mushroom monsters tumbling about on the other side of the rift. I didn't know what I expected exactly, but it certainly wasn't [Invader, Lv. 55-65 (95%)].
...We're doing percentages and ranges now, huh? Well, it wasn't that much less helpful than getting the exact level was, at least in this one case. Whether something was level 55 or 65 barely made a difference, especially since levels were just numbers missing a lot of context. If you compared my level 51 or even my past level 30 to a common-grade class at level 75, I doubt that they would stand much of a chance in the light of my superior skills, mana amount, body, and so on.
The only boundary that was actually worth being informed about was the tier of an enemy. While you still couldn't entirely disregard the level either, it was certainly a lot less informational when trying to gauge the strength of something.
I observed the other side a bit longer, identifying all the invaders I had the displeasure of seeing. Maybe I was just wasting time, dragging the inevitable moment where I had to step into their den out as far as possible, but I justified it to myself under the shroud of well-placed caution.
I didn't think I needed to be cautious in particular, but it couldn't hurt, could it? Time didn't really matter right now, so it wasn't even that bad of an excuse to give, even if I knew the real reason for dragging it out deep down in my heart.
Honestly, can you blame me? I doubt anyone would be enthusiastic at the thought of stepping into a den of disgusting mushroom monsters.