Up here, on the broad flat petal that jutted from the flower like a balcony, the world felt almost gentle. The petal was wide enough to lie down on without worrying about rolling off. Its surface was smooth and faintly textured, like fabric.
When Kelix lowered himself onto it, expecting something springy and unstable, the petal gave just enough to cradle his weight. It felt like resting on a mattress.
Kelix let out a breath that sounded more like surrender than relief as he stretched. His muscles ached in the deep, honest way that came after too much movement and too little certainty. The kind of ache that made you grateful for pain because pain meant you were still intact. He stared up at the bubble-sky one last time, bright and unchanging, and then looked to the two creatures that had become his unwilling entourage.
"Keep watch," he said, with a yawn.
The slime wobbled into position near the edge of the petal, glossy surface reflecting the drifting light. It looked like a teardrop of night perched on a flower.
Endigo sat at Kelix's side like a statue placed there intentionally, cloak pooling, skull head angled outward toward the horizon. It simply remained, which in Endigo's case was as close to agreement as Kelix had gotten.
Shrugging, Kelix closed his eyes. Sleep came faster than he expected. Not the slow drift of someone settling into comfort, but the sudden drop of someone whose body had been holding itself together through sheer will. The petal's soft give under his back turned the fall into something almost kind.
For a while, his mind tried to stay awake, cycling through questions. Where had the squad back at the amusement park gone? Finn. Celeste. Aria. How exactly did he and Endigo connect to the magenta-aura monster? Since his arrival to this odd world he has learned of Existence. Bounds. Civilization. But still questioned as to how to get home.
Then the questions blurred. Then they stopped.
When Kelix woke again, the first thing he noticed was the silence. Not the absence of sound. The world still breathed. Leaves rustled. Petals creaked faintly in slow sways. Something distant chirped like glass being tapped.
It was the kind of silence that came from darkness, when your ears listened harder because your eyes could not do all the work.
Kelix opened his eyes. The sky had finally darkened.
It was not a normal night sky. The bubble-clouds remained, drifting overhead like suspended spheres of glass, but now they caught faint glimmers of pale light inside them, as if stars had been trapped within. Between the bubbles, the sky was deep and rich, a color somewhere between ink and bruised violet.
The giant flowers around him glowed softly at their edges, like their petals held residual daylight and refused to let it go.
Kelix sat up slowly, rubbing his face with both hands. His body felt less heavy. Not fresh, but functional. His joints no longer screamed. His breathing felt deeper. His eyes flicked instinctively to his status. It appeared immediately, as if it had been waiting for him to wake.
EX = [61%]
AP = 125 {Total} [90%]
MP = 40 {Total} [80%]
Kelix stared. Sixty-one percent.
He had been at thirty-something after the Endigo bolt and the fights. He had been hovering at the low end after burning AP through shockwaves and concentrated strikes.
Now he was above half. So rest did recover Existence. That was a relief. It was also a reminder that Existence could drop again just as easily.
Kelix swallowed and looked around the petal. Endigo was still there, seated at the same spot, gaze outward. The slime sat near the edge, wobbling faintly as if it had shifted a few times during the sleep but never left.
Kelix exhaled, then frowned. "How long was I out?"
Endigo's skull head turned slightly toward him.
Its voice came quiet, the same younger tone carrying that grim weight as if it enjoyed putting darkness into simple numbers.
"Two."
Kelix raised a brow. "Two hours?"
Endigo did not answer immediately.
Kelix's brow tightened, mind churning in disbelief. "Two days."
Endigo said nothing else. It did not need to. Still, Kelix's stomach dipped.
Two days.
He had slept through two full days of Zeldritzon's stretched daylight. And now, somehow, the sky had shifted into darkness anyway. That meant either time here had no respect for his assumptions, or the day cycle was longer than he could track by instinct.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Kelix shuddered from the realization that he could lose time here without meaning to. He forced himself to focus on what he could control. He thought about his full status, and the screen expanded into view.
Name: {Kelix}
Rank: F [15/20]
Discipline: {None}
EX = [61%] AP = 125 {Total} [90%] MP = 40 {Total} [80%]
Points: 56
STR: 30 END: 30
AUR: 67 RES: 16
SPD: 67 TEQ: 70
[Passive] LMT: 25 · INS: 45 · CTRL: 20
Kelix's eyes squinted below the exertion parameters. Points: 56.
He had been sitting on forty-four at level twelve. He had climbed to fifteen. Three levels. Four points per level. Twelve points gained.
Forty-four plus twelve equaled Fifty-six.
Of course, that was clean and predictable. And he had not spent a single one.
Kelix let out a slow breath. He had known points would matter. He had been avoiding them anyway, because allocating them meant accepting the system as real, and accepting it meant it could shape him. Yet he was already being shaped.
Kelix's gaze slid to the slime in his lap. It had climbed closer when he woke, settling against his thigh like a cold pillow. He had not noticed the movement, but he felt it now, a subtle weight that reminded him it existed.
He pulled up the slime's panel.
At first he expected to see small changes. Level creeping upward. MP recovering slowly. Maybe a skill or two.
What he saw made his eyes widen.
Creature: {Dark Blue Slime}
Rank: {F}
Evolution Stage: {Fledgling}
Level: 11
EX = [85%] AP = [100%] MP = [82%]
Points: 16
STR: 13 END: 24
AUR: 10 RES: 28
SPD: 9 TEQ: 8
Skill List: [Heal], [Lash], [Slime Bubble]
It had leveled up to eleven.
It had been level three when he first checked it. Somewhere along the fights, the healing, the lashes, and the general survival, the slime had climbed in levels fast.
Kelix's mind clicked through it. Eight levels. It had gained points too. The line read sixteen.
He frowned and did the math without meaning to.
Two points per level, eight levels gained, and sixteen points. So it gained two points per level, not four like him.
Different growth rules. Different pacing. That meant the system treated him differently.
Or he had entered at a different baseline? Or his level ten start had been an anomaly that carried different mechanics?
Kelix looked away from the slime's panel and rubbed his temple. He should have been pleased. A support creature leveling that quickly meant his survivability improved. Heal and Lash were already useful. If it evolved, it might gain better support options, better resilience, better… whatever the system decided it deserved.
He felt a thread of responsibility tighten in his chest. The slime's EX had dropped when it healed him. It had spent itself for him. Whether it was mindless or not, the system tracked its cost.
Kelix could not pretend it was nothing. His gaze drifted back to his own screen, to the passive line at the bottom.
LMT: 25 · INS: 45 · CTRL: 20
Those had bothered him since the first time he saw them. They sat apart from the main stats like they were meant to be different. Not muscles, not speed, not aura. Something more foundational.
Limit. Instinct. Control.
Kelix's eyes narrowed, and he wondered if he could raise them.
That thought landed heavy, because raising those felt like raising the rules that governed him rather than the traits that served him. He lifted a hand, as if he could touch the numbers.
He focused on LMT.
Allocate Points to LMT?
A prompt appeared immediately, smaller and more precise than the status sheet.
Requires: 5 Points per +5
Kelix leaned forward. "What?"
He tried it again, narrowing his intent.
Allocate 1 Point to LMT.
The prompt rejected it in a way that felt almost stern.
Minimum allocation: 5 Points
Effect: LMT +5
Kelix stared, then let out a quiet breath through his nose. So LMT, INS, and CTRL were not raised in single steps. They were chunk upgrades. Costly. Significant. Like they were not meant to be tweaked casually.
He shifted his focus to AUR.
Allocate Points to AUR?
This prompt felt different. Cleaner.
Kelix tested it.
Allocate 1 Point.
Confirmed: AUR +1
Points: 56 → 55
Kelix's AUR ticked up by one immediately.
He frowned, then repeated with SPD.
Allocate 1 Point.
Confirmed: SPD +1
Points: 55 → 54
Then TEQ.
Allocate 1 Point.
Confirmed: TEQ +1
Points: 54 → 53
Kelix's mouth tightened as he felt a pleasant surge of power wash through him. It was like laying a warm towel over his neck to loosen tight muscles.
So the main stats could be raised by one per point. Straightforward. The passive trio demanded five points at once to raise by five, as if they were grouped into larger, more meaningful thresholds.
Kelix sat there on the petal, night sky and bubbles overhead, the flower forest glowing softly around him, and felt the weight of choice settle over his points.
He could pump AUR and SPD and TEQ and become more of whatever the system already implied he was: fast, technical, aura-heavy.
Or he could invest in LMT, INS, and CTRL and gamble on deeper mechanics he did not understand. The kind of mechanics that might control Existence recovery. The kind that might influence summoning bounds. The kind that might decide whether his lightning stayed a trick or became a weapon he could rely on.
Kelix glanced at Endigo. The deer-skull creature sat quietly, as if the entire concept of allocation was beneath it. Or as if Endigo already knew what Kelix was going to become and was waiting to see if Kelix would figure it out.
Kelix glanced at the slime again, at its sixteen unspent points and its steady wobble. He wondered if the slime could allocate its points on its own.
Better yet, he wondered if he was supposed to do it. He wondered if doing it would change what the slime became, and whether that would make him responsible for a creature's evolution in a way he did not want.
Kelix exhaled slowly and leaned back, letting the petal cradle him again. The sky was dark now. The world had shifted. Time had passed without his permission. He could not afford to keep drifting the way the bubble-clouds drifted overhead.
Sooner or later, he would have to spend points to catch up with far superior monsters.
Discipline: {None}
Kelix exhaled slowly and dismissed the prompt without selecting anything yet.
He needed to think. Really think. Not just react.
Right now, he would have to decide what kind of thing the system wanted him to be, and what kind of thing he refused to become.