Alex pulled his cellphone from his pocket and noted how odd it felt to hold the bit of modern metal in his hand after eight months without it. Swiping down, he pulled up the clock app and opened a stopwatch function to time the casts of his new skill.

In the privacy of his workshop, he felt comfortable delving into the intricacies of his clones and activated the skill as he started the stopwatch. At the same time, he watched his mana counter drop through the status window.

When the fractal body stood before him, complete, he stopped the timer and saw that it took just over four seconds to cast. More startling was that the single use drained almost all of his mana. Even though he wasn't in danger of running out, it was still well past the threshold that would cause a headache.

He slid the phone into his pocket, grabbed a new mana stone to refill from, and walked around the naked clone in front of him. Just as before, his stats were evenly split down the middle.

Excited, he activated his new version of [Parallel Mind] once again and tested its uses. The primary concern was whether more than one consciousness could transfer to the clone. His hope continued to climb as two of the four minds easily slipped into the clone, allowing it to come alive.

They looked at each other and both burst out laughing in delight.

"Well, that's awesome," the other Alex said.

"No kidding. Okay, can you have all three?" With another mental push, the third consciousness transferred to the clone, and a moment later, he was able to pull it back without issue. "Well, that's pretty amazing."

Test looked around at the space and down at his naked body. "Can I get some clothes?"

Alex tossed him the same set of clothes that the previous clone had worn in his office. "Next test is to see if I can create two clones with the new skill. Never had a reason to try with [Mirage], but now that there are a few minds to pull from…"

"Nice, go for it."

Alex pulled from his mana to start the skill, but quickly cancelled its activation when he realized his mana pool was a quarter of the size it had been previously.

"Sorry," he said simply, before pulling all of the minds back to himself and canceling the mental skill. The clone collapsed to the ground, and he winced again. "Maybe I should sit down next time."

With his magical stats whole once again, he activated the [Fractal Body] skill and saw the clone form anew. He took several minutes to let his mana regenerate while looking at his adjusted stats.

"Hmm," he said while looking at his adjusted Status. "They dropped again…"

After his mana was full, he pushed the skill to activate a third time. It did so. While the skill didn't have any issue at all, Alex felt his physical body begin to grow tired, and he was certain he knew why. Legs shaking, he made his way to the nearest stool and sat down, heaving a breath of relief while tilting his hat backward.

After his stats had been split in half once more, he examined both his own stats and those of his new clone bodies. When he attempted to mentally label each clone, he was surprised to see the small status windows near his own automatically adjust their titles at the top of each window.

Alex Moore (Fractal Body 1)

HP: 480/480

Physical Stats:

Strength: 14

Agility: 25

Constitution: 48

Vitality: 15

Alex Moore (Fractal Body 2)

HP: 240/240

Physical Stats:

Strength: 7

Agility: 12

Constitution: 24

Vitality: 7

Alex Moore (Fractal Body 3)

HP: 120/120

Physical Stats:

Strength: 3

Agility: 6

Constitution: 12

Vitality: 3

He breathed deeply in through his nose and pushed down the minor feeling of panic he felt coursing through him. His Physical Stats had been split in half three times, back to back. The final readout for his own stats matched the most recent clone, putting him at a mere 3 Strength and Vitality.

The realization that he was weaker than he had been before the integration was startling.

Despite his desire to immediately dismiss at least the weakest of them to gain back some of his Constitution, he went through with the test, splitting his mind into all four possible consciousnesses and allowing them to all enter one of the fractured bodies.

"Damn," all three of them said in unison. They moved their arms and legs around, getting used to the drastic change in stats across the board. The third body, with the physical stats matching his own, knelt on the ground before standing back up on shaky legs.

Alex's eyes went slightly wide as he saw the two skinny bodies in front of him. The second and third clones' physiques were noticeably different from one another. The third one specifically looked frail and had a very slight frame.

He stood and moved over to the nearby mirror and saw that his own clothes had grown baggy on his adjusted frame.

"Well, fuck me," he said to the others.

"Dude, you look like you just got starved for a few months."

"Shut up," the third said to the first. "Can I get some clothes?"

"Me too," the second added.

"No, not yet," Alex answered. "We have a few more things to figure out. Mainly, I need to see how activating or deactivating these skills works. Can I dismiss individual minds? If so, does it restore my main mind's stats, or does it distribute them evenly, like when I activate it? What about physical stats? I'm assuming if I dismiss you," he pointed at the third, "then I'll get the stats back, and the other two will stay unchanged. But what if I dismiss the second? It has more stats. Are those split between you and me? Or do I get them all?"

It was a confusing line of logic to follow, and it felt odd to be explaining something to himself, but he found that talking through it aloud helped organize his thoughts.

"Let me take a few notes first, then we'll do some more tests."

He started by recalling the mind from the second clone and thought about melding it back with his original consciousness. It did so without problem. But he found that he was unable to activate the skill again. This left his main mind with fifty percent of his normal stats, and the two clones with twenty-five percent.

"This is really flexible. Okay, so now to try dismissing the clone skill…"

When he did, he felt his stats rush back into his body and laughed as he felt his shoulders fill out his t-shirt and energy rush back to his limbs. Flexing his hand, Alex laughed and looked at his stats.

"Okay, so that puts me back at…" He pulled out his notebook and took some notes, doing rough math. "First split was fifty, second was twenty-five, third was twelve. So, cancelling the second clone brings me up to thirty-seven percent of my normal stats." Glancing at his status window, he nodded, seeing the correlation. "Wait… so is there a way to game the System?"

He set his pen down and looked at the rafters, thinking through the problem.

"I see what you're thinking," The first said. "It's going to take a lot of time and mana to do that… and for what?"

"It will take a bit, but I think in the long run that's definitely worth it. The System seems to want me to be at the same health as the lowest fractured body… but if I'm willing to dismiss and resummon these in the right order, then I should be able to have all of the clones and my own stats at about twenty-five percent instead. Not exactly a loophole, but since the skill bases it on my current stats, it's definitely better than being so weak." He picked his pen back up and started writing down a list of available stats, where his own general percentage was the last number in the lineup.

50/50

50/25/25

50/25/12/12

25/12/62

25/12/31/31

25/31/43

25/31/21/22

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

25/21/53

25/21/26/27

When he was finished, he took a deep breath before letting it out. "Man, that's going to take a while if I want to regenerate my mana between each summon."

"You could use mana stones," the third said.

"Seems like such a waste. That's almost a mana stone every three summons. Easily using three D Rank stones drops their price by a lot."

"No, I'll work on it and start creating a list of future skills and hiring requirements for Edwin while I wait. It'll take a while up front, but the difference is that I'll have twenty-seven percent of my total physical stats at the end, compared to only 12 if I do things how we were. That's a pretty drastic difference, considering how things were just a moment ago; I had 3 Strength. That's got to be close to a grade schooler. There's no way I'm willing to be that vulnerable. It's either we try this, or I only use two splits."

Both fractured bodies looked at him and shrugged. "Go for it," they said in unison.

"First, go and sit on the chair before I dismiss the mental skill. Since yours is fifty percent already, no need to remake that one at the moment."

Once he was seated, Alex dismissed both minds and bodies at the same time, leaving only the first created clone's physical body. He felt the rush of mental and physical reinforcement as they returned.

"All right, time to get to it," he said to the empty room, while activating the skill once again.

The process took several hours, and he wasn't done until well after sundown. But after he'd completely the dance to evenly distribute his stats, he felt much more comfortable. It was more vulnerable than he had been in a long time, but not so much so that he was worried an errant spell might kill him.

He glanced at his physical stats one more time before splitting his consciousness into four and sending them into the fractured bodies.

HP: 260/260

Physical Stats:

Strength: 8

Agility: 14

Constitution: 26

Vitality: 8

It put his physical strength and Vitality toward the top of what was normal pre-integration, and left him plenty of Constitution and Agility to play with. He'd spent months training and fighting at his maximum stats, though, and he felt like it would be a chore to learn to fight all over again at these lower thresholds.

All three Alexes sat up simultaneously and looked around. He passed a set of clothes from his time in the Rift. They were practical, mundane pants with cargo pockets. The olive green color made them look militaristic, despite the lack of a camouflage pattern. Each put on a black t-shirt and boots.

When he stepped back and looked at the versions of himself, he was happy to see that they all looked alike now. Not just in the way they were dressed, but their physical builds and muscles as well. None of them looked emaciated or underdeveloped, but they didn't look as muscular and deadly as he was used to seeing himself in the mirror.

Walking to the same one as before, he sighed when he saw his slight frame. He still looked like a lean fitness influencer from before the integration, but he'd begun to like his enhanced appearance as his physical stats grew.

He started to laugh as he realized that his first thought was of Olivia and what she'd think of his shrunken state.

"Okay, now. Time to go over your roles and new names," Alex said to the various versions of himself. "For now, I'm just going to call all of you by what you're going to be doing. You," he pointed to the first clone, "are going to be Warrior. You're going to be working on our physical training and combat. If this skill is as much like the [Parallel Mind] skill as I hope that it is, you gaining muscle memory and training there should translate to me. It'll just be a matter of finding out if that's in real time, or only when I dismiss you.

Now, you will be Mage. Your entire goal is to work through this list of spells." He tore a page from his notebook that he'd put together while waiting for his mana to regenerate. "These are all of the spells I can form at the moment. There are five spell circle bases, and six primary runes we can use now. I've obviously used some of these more obvious ones a lot now, but that still leaves you with almost twenty of them to test. I want descriptions for each one and what they do."

"Ugh, that seems dangerous," Mage said.

"More fun doing magic than just punching and running all day," Warrior said.

"Knock it off." Alex rolled his eyes and gestured at the final fractured body. "You'll be Scout. For now, you're job is going to be to prepare for a trip to the Safe Zone. We'll need to get you some more normal clothes, and I'll give you a normal backpack with some supplies and mana stones to take with you."

"What? He gets to go shopping?"

"Dude, why are you acting surprised? You knew that as much as I did," Mage said while hitting the back of Warrior's head.

"Sure, but it feels more fun to complain. Look, he's getting frustrated already." Warrior laughed while rubbing the back of his head.

From overhead, Valtherion stirred for the first time and looked over the side of his perch. Alex could see his head move back and forth as he surveyed the scene below. "Nope," the amphiptere said simply while curling his head back into the coil and lifting his wing over to shield himself from the light and sound.

All of the Alexes laughed.

"Okay, you guys get started in here. Scout, use this." He pulled the laptop from his bracer and set it on the table that had been pushed to the side. "Do some research on what you can. Start local and focus on the Safe Zone, then work your way up to global-level news. I'm going to ask Edwin for some of this too, but I want to see what you can find. There's still a lot of testing to be done in terms of the damage you guys can take, how far you can get from me, and some stuff like that. The biggest thing I want to see is if you're able to cross into a Rift now that you have some actual substance."

The thought of being able to enter and clear multiple Rifts at once seemed so enticing that he had to suppress his emotions intentionally.

"You want me to start with non-empowered exercises?" Warrior asked.

"I would guess so, but I haven't put too much thought into it. We have the same thoughts, so you and Mage should spend a bit of time coming up with a plan. We'll see what the results are and if we can't come up with some better ideas later."

All of the fractured clones waved to him as he turned to leave the room. He stopped at the door as an idea occurred to him. "One more thing to test, while I'm here." He pulled up his status once more to view all of the bodies' stats beside his own and removed the Magician's Cap. "Shit," he sighed while dismissing the windows. "Too good to be true, I guess."

"Wow, that felt really weird," Scout said.

"Yeah, sorry. Probably won't be doing that again. Guess the mental and magical stats can update in real time. If I remove the hat, it allows my mind to be debuffed, so it splits properly among us all."

Mage held his head and shook it. "Wow, dropping almost 90 points of Intellect and then gaining it back is trippy."

Alex laughed and left the workshop building. He closed the door behind him and wished that there were already wards for the workshop created, so he could prevent anyone from entering on the clones.

Another thing for the list.

He planned to head into the house, but took a detour instead. While making his way to Sam's new greenhouse, he pulled up his new Status to look at his new, adjusted stats.

Status Name: Alex Moore - Level 57 Class: Spell Weaver (Novice) HP: 260/260 MP: 460/460

Traits: (1/3) {Primordial Will}

Titles: < The Magician > Pathfinder Unbound One Against Many Control Freak Journeyman Ritualist Gifted Mage The Magician Integration Champion Iron Will

Physical Stats: Strength: 8 Agility: 14 Constitution: 26 Vitality: 8

Magical Stats: Intellect: 143 Willpower: 301 Mana: 46 Wisdom: 39

Bond Skills: [Mana Siphon] (Journeyman - Level 14) Primary Stat Shared - Mana

Active Skills: [Mana Thread] (Journeyman - Level 15) [Mana Infusion] (Journeyman - Level 3) [Feather Step] (Novice - Level 19) [Fractal Body] (Novice - Level 5) [Parallel Mind] (Adept- Level 1) [Intimidate] (Novice - Level 5) [Spell Storage] (Novice - Level 17) [Shrug Off] (Novice - Level 16) [Running] (Novice - Level 15) [Meditate] (Novice - Level 12)

Passive Skills: [Sleep Resistance] (Tier III) [Efficient Rites] (Tier I) [Spell Weaving] (Tier I) [Mana Conduit] (Tier I) [Quick Recovery] (Tier I)

Bound Items: D Rank Growth Item (Unique) - Spectral Eye of the Celestial Sage D Rank Growth Item - The Magician's Cap Unique Identification Item - [Manifest Planetary Title]

All of his stats had been pretty drastically reduced, though, without most of his titles and Epic class, this is very close to what his stats might look like if we were a normal awakened.

Except for my Willpower.

He had to stop himself from chuckling at the realization that his Willpower, even cut down to a quarter of his normal total, was likely so high that no one would be able to scan his status. Even if they were someone who focused on Willpower, they were unlikely to be in the 300 range until they were close to the top of D Rank.

The yard was mostly dark, save for the lights from the main house and the lights that spilled from the greenhouse windows. It was nearly sixty feet long and thirty wide, built with tempered glass. It was a modern design that Alex had let Sam pick out, and the matte-black framework gave it a modern look that Alex loved.

When he walked up to the door, it slid open with the pressurized release of air. That, combined with the exterior, reminded Alex more of one of the research labs in the Rift than it reminded him of a garden shed or greenhouse.

The smell of fresh construction and soil hit him as he entered. He noted the cool, slightly humid air and the lit panels from overhead, ensuring growth regardless of the season and climate outside. He looked around at the layout and was impressed with the progress that Sam had already made.

The space was lined with a countertop space and then divided into two main aisles with raised stone beds running from the front to the back of the space. They came up to about Alex's waist height, and he ran his fingers gently over the soil in the long bed.

Other than some marked-off plots with colored twine, the right side was largely empty. The left side, though, was already almost completely full of different herbs. With Sam's familiarity with Eura's garden and the addition of his Druid skill, Alex had no doubt that the entire building would be budding with life in no time.

Straight back, against the far wall, there was a countertop and sink with a built-in refrigerator unit off to the side. There were drying racks and a small door that led to a closet with shelves, storage, and pre-ordered tools.

All in all, he was impressed. The Grants hadn't skimped in the planning or construction of the building, and it made him happy that Sam was off to such a good start.

He was surprised that the building was empty until he looked at the clock on his phone and realized that it was well past 10 PM. The team was likely exhausted and looking forward to a good night's rest in their beds.

Taking a deep breath, he looked around the greenhouse once more. It was then that he noticed some mana exuding from the soil under the already placed plants. Moving closer, he confirmed his suspicion and was almost certain that the soil in the planter was from a Rift. The mana density was higher than any of the dirt he'd seen on Earth.

That thought gave him an idea, but one he wasn't sure he knew how to follow up on… yet.

Alex removed his notebook and began to scribble notes in it as he walked from the greenhouse, flicking the light off as he went.

Moving toward the house, but he stopped, cocked his head to the side, before snapping his fingers. "Shoot! Forgot my phone in the workshop," he said. Changing course once more, he adjusted the hat on his head unconsciously.

He entered the workshop and reemerged a few minutes later. He'd shed his black hoodie and was wearing a black t-shirt and green cargo pants. Casually, he locked the door behind himself and stuffed his hands into his pockets as he walked.

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end after taking a dozen steps. He could see mana activate from the edge of the trees to his left, and a furious rush of movement followed. Out of curiosity, and to truly sell the act, he decided to fight back.

Best way to test out the new stats, right?

Lifting his left hand, let mana flow from his core and formed a spell circle before the three figures reached him. The blast of lightning that followed cracked through the silent night, and the flash of light was so bright as to momentarily blind his normal eye.

He jumped away, feeling the drastic change in his strength as he did so, but his relatively high Agility made up for it with a graceful slide into a ready stance. At the same time, he pulled his right hand from his pocket and tossed up a barrier spell just as the two remaining assailants reached him.

A translucent barrier blocked one, and he met the other with a hard left hook.

That's where everything went to shit.

The punch caused the man to pause for a heartbeat before he was on Alex, barely fazed at all. The previously blocked attacker got around the fading barrier spell and joined the fight.

Both of them cursed and beat him viciously. It wasn't until the second kick landed on his stomach that he remembered was supposed to be acting.

"Ow! Oh, Jesus, oh no. Ouch!" He heard cursing from overhead as he covered up and wondered what the purpose of the attack was.

They stopped when he pretended to go limp and grabbed him under both arms.

"Is Davey dead?" the one on the left asked.

"I don't know, give him a potion and meet me at exfil. That wasn't quiet. If his team comes out, we'll have our hands full."

"Fucker was weaker than I thought he was. We sure he wasn't one of those illusions like last time?"

"You knew he was a mage. Probably put all of his stats in magic like those idiot researchers. If he was an illusion, we couldn't have just beat the snot out of him. Now shut up and get moving." The man said, all the while dragging Scout's limp body toward the wood line.

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