It had been a few days since Salazar Bromwyn had seen her mysterious visitor from the multiverse. It had also been a few months since the woman had appeared so suddenly.

But on this occasion, with a very loud pop, Gud was suddenly in the room. It was a lot more violent than usual as well, her entrance. And she seemed to be panicking.

"Salazar!" Gud shouted, "it's time! It's time!"

"Time for what?" Salazar asked.

She was not yet used to her friend's boundless energy.

Gud moved across her desk and stopped in front of the ostentatious mirror she had planted there months ago. And indeed, there was something different about the mirror today.

There was a boy standing on the other side of it, his hair long enough to reach the roof of his neck, his eyes blood shot. He was dressed in a large blue gown that seemed to be some kind of emergency clothing. He looked wild, and he had a scar running across the left side of his forehead.

And then there were tattoos, tattoos that started at the bottom of his eyes. And as she watched, one of the tattoos moved , almost imperceptibly, but she saw it. The boy looked wild, unrestrained, dangerous.

For some reason, Salazar found herself transfixed, unable to look away.

He turned away from the mirror, looked around the room in which he was. Salazar had seen into this room for months now. She knew what the boy was seeing in those pods.

And then the door opened and someone familiar stepped in. The Chosen of this planet, wherever it was located in the tutorial sector. The boy turned towards this monstrous man.

The man should have said something, because for some reason the look in the boy's eyes changed. Unfortunately the mirror didn't transmit sound. An uncontrollable anger took shape on the boy's visage, visible even through the magic mirror. But the Chosen was a D grade individual, and this boy was…

"Level fourteen?" Salazar breathed, not daring to believe it.

But he looked so strong, magnetic even. Just one look at him, and Salazar had been sure this boy was a powerhouse. She doubted she could beat him. Yet now the mirror was displaying a level above the boy's head, and his class as well.

A basic class at level 14. The chosen would squash him like a bug.

At that moment, a blue light appeared in front of the boy. The boy reeled back a bit, but the other person in the room didn't seem to notice this phenomenon.

"There is something wrong with him," Gud said.

Salazar looked at her with rapt attention.

"Those emotions…they seem like the effects of some kind of berserker skill. Hmmm. Maybe it is some kind of backlash for a skill."

That made a little sense. In most cases, for a F grade, even being in the presence of a D grade would make one's knees weak. This guy wanted to attack a D grade, ignoring instincts that should be present even in the most primitive beasts.

"What about his level?" Salazar asked. "How can he only be at the level fourteen?"

"That is indeed curious," Gud said. "We will need to get a better opportunity to speak with him."

"But…" Salazar started, not sure how to explain it. "When I saw him, I thought I was no match for him."

"Oh?" Gud looked back at Salazar questioningly. "Hmmm? I think you are getting more and more sensitive to fate energy. What you sensed was probably his fate. His fate is overwhelmingly higher than yours."

"But…in this way anyone who sees him might get insecure and squash him like a bug," Salazar said thoughtfully.

Gud only shrugged. "Not necessarily. First off, fate cultivators are rare. And of course, the boy does have a strong veiling skill. Unless an immortal pays too close attention, the boy should have nothing to worry about."

For a few moments, the two of them watched the mirror in silence.

"What is that thing shielding him?" Salazar asked.

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"What does it look like to you?" Gud asked.

Salazar frowned as she looked at it more closely. "Some kind of blue energy curtain," she concluded.

Gud nodded. "It is a local deity," she said.

****

Rafe wanted to growl straight in Ma'la's face, but even he had long since suspected his emotions were not right enough.

It did not make sense to pounce on a D grade suddenly, but he wanted to do it.

He took the chance to calm his breathing, to pay attention to what was going on around him.

'Ding': Emergency quest failed! Emergency quest failed!

Punishment: -10,000 quest points, all unused free stat and spec points reclaimed, possible credit fine.

And there was something strange going on with his status screen. What the hell was going on with the system? Luckily, he used all his free stat points the moment he got them, not to mention his free spec points.

He could somewhat understand though, considering what he had seen in the tiny pods. The chosen captured the pixie-like beings that were connected to the celestials. He had at least one of every type Rafe had seen before, and many more besides that.

He remembered the black ones, the blue ones, the golden ones that came from the unclaimed throne itself. There were red ones here, white ones, yellow. So many. He had seen at least ten golden pixies.

What the system wanted was for him to save these little pixies, or free them from the pods. It was being very unreasonable with this demand.

And then there was Ma'la herself. She looked just like her statue he'd seen once. She was there, standing in front of Rafe and urging him to calm down, yet the chosen didn't seem to notice. He was smugly monologuing about something, but Rafe couldn't be bothered to care about it.

"Why the hell do you have these things here?!" Rafe shouted, rubbing at his temples.

There were so many people here, so many voices, so many distractions.

Then with a jolt, he remembered it was only the Chosen and Ma'la here with him. He frowned, scanning the room. The people in the pods were in a near death state, far worse than even vegetative state patients, so it couldn't be them trying to scan him.

He could feel that his veil skill was being invaded, but it wasn't offering any resistance. It was like the person or thing seeing through it was even stronger than Ma'la and the others.

Rafe knew that the gods of Primus could see through his veil skill. They had something similar to his status display, but even stronger. But there seemed to be something even stronger than them watching him now.

Rafe frowned and stared at the mirror he had seen when he first woke up. To his surprise, Ma'la was staring at it too, her eyes wide.

"You have time to worry about others?" the chosen said disbelievingly. "You are going to be like these people soon. That empty tank is your new home."

The Chosen was looking straight at Rafe. He couldn't see Ma'la at all even though she was right between them.

Rafe stored that piece of information away for later. His brain was slowly by slowly calming down. He was getting more rational in its actions.

"Do you think the system is a joke?" Rafe asked.

The chosen looked at him for a few moments. Then he smirked and shrugged his shoulders.

"The system is passive. It can't do anything to me even if I directly attack its mainframe," the Chosen said in a voice different from before.

When the chosen said that, Rafe happened to be using his soul sight to study the man's soul. It looked typical. For other people's souls, Rafe could only see their mana pools and stamina pools, and vague outlines of the two sides of the curtain. Now that he knew of the existence of soul cores, he could also vaguely see the outline of a soul core in the Chosen's soul.

But when the Chosen spoke of the system being too passive, something dark and strange passed through his soul. He sounded a bit different, like he was a different person. And that black thing seemed to have its own vague stars, like it was a soul itself.

Rafe frowned as he stored this information away. Things on Primus weren't simple at all. He should be getting at the core of his mission here on Primus, he reckoned.

First, the system wanted him to save these pixies, although whether to save them or offer them the release of death, he did not know. Maybe they were different from more organic lifeforms?

And then probably his next assignment would be to deal with this corrupted Chosen. How else except by destroying him? Maybe the only way he could defeat a person two grades higher than him was by leaning into his soul architect heritage?

'Ding': Tutorial Quest chain: Fourth quest received.

Objective: Become a prisoner in the Ma'la capital. Survive until the promotion event.

Warning: Do not allow yourself to be kept in the soul pods the Chosen owns, otherwise the tutorial quest chain will be failed.

Rafe almost cursed. So the pods had something to do with souls?

But how the hell was he supposed to resist being placed in one of the pods?

At that moment, a loud banging sound invaded the room. The chosen snapped out of whatever manic trance he was in, looked at Rafe, then back at the door through which he'd entered.

"Please don't go anywhere," he said with a taunting smile.

Then he went out of the room in a rush. He closed the door behind him firmly, but Rafe had seen enough to guess the room beyond was some kind of office. And this room he was in was some kind of secret room.

"Mr Kingsley," Ma'la said. "Are you willing to be patient with us? Now that the promotion event is so close, it's time you start to prepar—"

"You guys are the reason I'm stuck here, aren't you?" Rafe asked.

Ma'la hesitated, probably because she sensed Rafe wasn't in the most friendly mood just then.

Suddenly, a familiar windy body appeared in the room. The god who had been spying on Rafe when he first came into this city with Helare and Filoria. Somehow, she looked smaller now, more faded, if that made sense, than how she had a few weeks ago. Her body seemed weaker.

Rafe didn't know how he knew, but he knew this somehow. He frowned, wondering what the cause might be.

"It is one of the high secretaries," the god said, her voice like a very faint wind chime. "They say the boy is to be tried for murdering a member of the royal family, and that the chosen doesn't have the authority to personally punish such a criminal."

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