As we climbed the ladder to the surface, I decided to try contacting Hazel. I hadn't spoken with her in a little while. It felt like every time I wanted to chat over the past day or so, something more important would come up, and I'd be distracted, which, considering the circumstances, was probably to be expected.

"Hey, haven't heard from you in a little while. You've been busy as well?" I sent over the connection.

I only received silence as a response.

This kind of worried me. She had a team member who was stuck in a time loop. If he ended up looping, then everything I was doing right now was pointless. Would he loop if she died just to save her? Can she even die with the level of power she showed me? She mentioned a loop only occurs when he dies, so I don't know.

Maybe she just broke the artifact I gave her? I sent a pulse of Mana through it, checking every circuit. The artifact was still technically part of my body after all. It felt like it should still work. Unless she had broken the speaker part and the Sound array was just exposed to the air, she'd need to have done something weird to the microphone as well. It was possible that she had somehow damaged the artifact but left the wires completely intact. I wish I had put the circuits that allow me to sense through the material, so that I could tell when she touched it.

I let out a sigh, ruminating on all that was pointless. I took a look downwards to check on Autumn's progress. They had given up climbing the normal way at some point and were now just dragging themselves up by their vines. I had to look through a shiny, see-through metallic substance that kind of made everything blurry. Despite that fact, I could see their suit's zipper equivalent was slightly open to allow the vines out. I couldn't help but snort in laughter. I'd have to ask them to close that hole before we made it to the surface.

It was unfortunate I couldn't start working on levelling my Profession by designing and creating a few useful artifacts, but we were in a bit of a hurry. I was climbing the ladder by throwing myself up multiple rungs and catching the next available one. My height was a bit of a disadvantage here, especially after I was shortened again, and the suit not fitting didn't help. I couldn't wait for a way to upgrade my Biomass limit. If I ever get a Skill that allows me to increase it I think I'd take it even if I had to discard an Eternal Tier Skill.

Well, actually, I guess that depends on what the Eternal Tier Skill actually did. I'm not a dumbass, power is power.

With nothing else to do and a ladder that was at least a kilometre long to climb, I decided to open the next puzzle that Eryx had given me access to. After saving my body as a design in the ring, of course, I wanted to be able to repair myself quickly whenever I took damage. I continued pulling myself up the ladder while splitting my focus in half, which was not quite what I did while fighting the Maliform, but similar.

As I entered the puzzle menu, I noticed something odd. There seemed to be an additional option I could click. Ignoring the puzzle for a moment, I mentally selected that option.

Eryx's Design Lexicon

[Artifact Logic I] Status: Unlocked Design: Symbolic representation of reversing Mana type. Example: Fire Mana reverses into Cold Mana

[Artifact Logic II] Status: Locked Requirement: complete 10 more levels

[Symbolic Encoding Language I] Status: Locked Requirement: complete 20 more levels

…

My eyes widened, and sensors automatically grew on my face to fulfill the physical reaction I was experiencing. This was more than I expected. How hard would the levels be to compensate for this massive reward? A whole fucking language is given to me in twenty levels? I'm so excited to bash my head against these until I find a solution.

Scrolling through the list, I noticed it just went on and on, seemingly forever, just like I asked Eryx for. I had no idea how this was allowed when I just asked for puzzles. Unless these unlockables are needed for the puzzles! Oh, that's genius!

I mentally tapped [Artifact Logic I], and a piece of knowledge was revealed to me. Similar to the last time Eryx imparted knowledge onto me, it was as if a chunk of knowledge was attached to the outside of my mind that I could access at any time. This design seemed to be some kind of three-dimensional symbol; it struck me almost immediately that this was a symbol from a Mana-based language of some sort.

Likely one that was far more efficient than just using a logogram from the Nature language I knew. In fact, all the Mana conversion runes that I had seen in the puzzles had similar design principles. When comparing it to Rootspeech, it was like looking at two different alphabets with very different origins.

I was getting close to the surface, so I opened the puzzle just to check what it was. It was like when you were a kid and you'd start a new game just to see the intro before your parent made you run errands. I managed to hold back the eye-widening response this time because I was already going to have to dig my eyes out and rebuild them, which would be annoying.

The level was a massive manor and its grounds, and the goal was to design defensive systems that would protect it from an army that would appear the moment I unpaused time. The manor had a single Mana battery in the basement with a collector array on the roof of the building, which was my only source of Mana. Information given to me indicated I could only use materials from my available materials list in my Core, which would use my Stats, and I could use Profession Skills in the puzzle.

I felt a shiver pass through my form, and I nearly missed a rung. I'm so excited! This was way more complex than any puzzle I'd seen before. I wanted to try it out right away.

Unfortunately, the ring would have to wait as we had arrived at the surface. Looking down, I saw Autumn hanging by their vines right behind me. I didn't expect them to keep up with me, but those vines were apparently more effective than I thought. Through the hole at the top of the ladder, all I could see was that hazy corrosive gas that came from cracks in reality, which seemed to be blanketing the surface at this point. I poked my finger through what felt like an invisible barrier at the top of the ladder's hole to confirm that we wouldn't melt by entering the gas. After nearly a minute, nothing had happened, so I decided it was safe enough. The suits were supposed to be resistant to dimensional changes.

"Close up your suit, and be careful. We may need to retreat the moment we exit if we're unlucky. But the suits should make us basically invisible to them if my Core was correct about the materials the suits are made of," I said through a remote connection I had installed in their headgear. Looking down at them, I could see them put their vines away and nod to me. I allowed myself to let out a sigh, disappointed I wouldn't be able to check out the new puzzle, then pulled myself up to the surface.

As I passed, I could feel the suit's material suddenly squeeze itself tight to the skin of my shell, as if under immense pressure. I also couldn't feel any Authority like I had expected to, so apparently the suits blocked it out as well. I hadn't actually tested whether that was a thing, but I was glad it was. Otherwise, I'd probably feel like my soul was being crushed inside a garbage compactor. Not that I could see very far, it felt like I was back in the crucible. Taking a deep breath, I reached down and helped Autumn up to the surface. They were shaking, with what was probably rage, if my emotional state was anything to go by.

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I was feeling immense disgust and annoyance at the fact that these abominations had nearly gained a foothold, free emotions probably delivered straight from The Lady. I felt like I wanted to gag as the sight of their influence spread this far. I was glad I struggled to feel anger. Otherwise, I wasn't sure I could keep a cool head right now.

"Follow me, and stay close," I said, squeezing Autumn's hand. "I assume, based on your reactions and the emotions planted in me, that your world had a Maleficarum infestation problem. Have any advice that would help right now?"

I pulled the map out of my Inventory. It was wrapped in a see-through protective film that I obtained from the same room where we got the suits. Then checked which direction we had to head in, then charted a course around the crater for us to travel. Although we could stand in the fog out here, I didn't want to gamble whether the suits could still maintain integrity if we travelled straight through, passing by the rift. I also didn't want to gamble on what we might find down there.

"Unfortunately, I never became a Sylvan, so no. I never received the training to fight the Maleficarum threat," Autumn replied over the remote connection. Luckily, their suit perfectly contained the sound they made speaking aloud. I pulled them along, beginning our trip towards the other facility's emergency exit. I would have gone for the elevator, but it had definitely been destroyed in the explosion.

"You've never really spoken about how your home Plane was affected by them yet," I said. I was rather curious about that detail. Why would I have a hatred for these awful abominations installed into my species?

"It's a bit of a long story, is this really the time?" Their words were hiding something within. Was that embarrassment I detected?

I waved my hand through the corrosive mists. "Not much else to do, right? Unless you see a wretch coming towards us. But I think it will be too late to do anything about it by then," I noted, stripping all the usual emotional markers from the words I was using.

Autumn flinched, then seemed to think for a second before they spoke, "Did you mean to convey barely constrained anger, or are you just playing with the language for the first time?"

"Playing with the language for the first time… I was trying to indicate a flat tone. Whatever that is in Rootspeech?" I asked, then my mood dropped as I realized what this meant. Because I hadn't added that meaning to my words. Which meant, "I'm speaking in Rootspeech at the level of a child, aren't I? And you've been compensating to help me understand."

"Ah, well… Yes, in a way, but you did just catch the hum today. So it shouldn't be a surprise that you're speaking like a newly sprouted seedling. You're actually doing much better than most who weren't born knowing the natural path. The kinds of things you seem to miss are also usually cultural. The hydrophytes have their own way of using Rootspeech, for example. It took me a few years to understand a rustle of anything one of them said," Autumn explained, with a certain fondness within the undermeaning at the end that I couldn't determine the reason for. It was probably just something I hadn't learned yet.

"We're getting a little off topic, you were going to speak about your world and how you're familiar with th—" I was cut off as what looked like a massive Wretchling the size of an elephant travelling at what I was pretty sure was supersonic speed flew directly past us towards the center of the crater. The force of wind that passed us by flung Autumn to the side, only my hand holding theirs kept them from being blown away as my feet dug into the desiccated soil.

I let out a breath in relief. The suits were working. They couldn't detect our Mana leakage.

"With those wretched blights on reality," I finished while helping Autumn recover their footing.

"Before I get to that, I should probably tell you a bit about the history of the Verdant Veil. My home, it's an old Plane, one of the Primordial Realms in fact." When they saw me turn and give them a look, they seemed to realize they needed to elaborate. "The Primordial Realms are the Planes that existed since the Creation, the ones that held dominion over their chosen elements."

"The Veil was the Plane of Nature then?" I asked, wasn't The Lady called a Primordial Herald by the system?

"No, the Veil is the Plane of illusions, the Verdant Veil is the Plane of Nature," Autumn said, putting a layer of innocence into the meaning of their words despite the fact they were being a cheeky little shit. "The first spriggans were created when the Plane first came into existence, hundreds of billions of years ago. Created as the rampaging fluctuations of Nature Mana coalesced into spirits who were then bound to manifested forms. Not much is known about those days. What Nature actually was hadn't really been properly defined yet. Massive, monstrous creatures ruled the endless forests and plains. The first spriggans barely managed to eke out an existence.

"At some point, however, these first spriggans discovered their strength was not set in stone. By consuming plants with specific properties, known as Wildegrafts, they could splice these characteristics into their bodies. After enough were consumed, a spriggan would reach a threshold point where their forms would evolve, becoming a Sylvan."

"So… that's why you wanted the Bloodroot seed? And the vial of Klyven Dew?" I asked, which made sense. Autumn seemed to have a bit of a complex about never having become a Sylvan. "Also, why didn't you want the ones I can grow myself?"

"You could say that… I certainly wouldn't mind being given the opportunity if we come across any more," Autumn replied, their voice soft with a tinge of uncertainty. "The ones you grow have lost their lustre. I can't sense that transformative essence they once contained anymore, so consuming them would have no effect. Whatever the case, the Sylvans were what allowed the spriggans to begin gathering and forming into communities. Beating back the wild beasts who would prey upon our kind."

"How would I stand up against a Sylvan power-wise? Ignoring technique completely because I know I'm inexperienced, so it would be a useless measure."

Autumn laughed at the question, "A Sylvan would have absolutely no trouble killing the Minor Wretchling that passed us by earlier. It's not a fair comparison. There's a massive change that happens to a spriggan's soul when they become a Sylvan. Even ignoring the abilities granted to them by the Wildegrafts, which, when combined, created a unique set of abilities and characteristics, you wouldn't stand a chance. Becoming a Sylvan isn't even the end of where my people reached on their own, either.

"In the correct conditions, using a ritual that involves combining multiple sets of Wildegraft into a Sylvan at once, we birthed a Sylvan Queen, the original rulers and the civilization builders for the spriggan people," Autumn continued, however, I became a little distracted at that point, because I could feel the air shifting. Something was happening. Checking my log, we still had an hour and thirty minutes left.

Why was that Minor Wretchling heading for the rift, though?

Suddenly, a hurricane-force gale began blowing towards the centre of the crater, and Autumn was picked up off their feet again. I pulled them into a princess carry. "Looks like we're going to have to pick up the lore dump once we're somewhere safer, alright?"

They just nodded in response.

I began to pump [Natural Enhancement] into my movement, the ground suddenly flying by at a speed I didn't even realize I could reach. Huh, am I running faster than a car? But I'm not leaving the kind of marks in the dirt that I should be for that to happen, odd.

My musings were interrupted as the mist began to clear.

"Oh, well fuck that's not good," I muttered to myself.

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