Nate waited as the judges reviewed his creation, listening in to their commentary.

“Clever use of Concept resonance to separate the materials,” remarked what looked like a short, red humanoid. Nate decided they would be Little Red in his mind.

“How’s he turning the material into dust then reshaping it in the collection bowls? I can’t get a sense of the Concepts through the self-destruct barrier,” queried the elven judge from the Dynasty of the Heavenly Serpent. Sect Leader Jair, thought Nate, reminding himself of the judges name.

“Your attempt to steal the boy's secrets has been noted. Maybe save it till after the competition when I am certain that you will try to break through whatever safeguards he has put in place,” grumbled the hulking female Orc wearing the colours of the Golden Tide.

“Steal? Steal?! This already belongs to the Dynasty. He should be marked down for even putting safeguards on the item!”

“Not against the rules,” interjected Little Red as they looked at the underside of Nate’s Affinity Separation Apparatus. “I like the way he sequenced it with a timer. He’s even added some sort of control pad to let you modify the time between each step.”

“Mana efficiency seems to be very high. It’s behind another self-destruction barrier but I would bet the mana batteries are using a Grandmaster-tier Mana Sigil. Not sure how he’s getting the almost loss-less transfer though,” remarked the Golden Tide Judge.

Nate was proud of that little idea. After all, he had Sigils for Space and Connect. So he did away with any sort of mana distribution field or mana pipelines and simply had the mana teleported from the battery directly where it needed to go. The small amount of loss the judge had noted was merely the cost of creating the connection.

Nate couldn’t help but notice that while the Golden Tide Orc and Little Red reviewed his work, Sect Leader Jair simply fumed by their side as Nate felt small filaments of mana continually trying to get through his self-destruct barriers without triggering the safeguards.

“Verdict?” asked Little Red, addressing their fellow judges.

The hulking Orc woman tapped away on a tablet before looking up, “Ninety-eight. The device is clever and shows a deep understanding of mana, Concepts, and usability. The timer, control box, and almost loss-less mana transfer were all well thought out. Unfortunately, I am deducting two points for not including something to handle the residue dust that didn’t respond to the separation step. Overall, an excellent device.”

“I concur on all points. Ninety-eight,” replied Little Red.

Sect Leader Jair ground his teeth visibly, having still failed to bypass Nate’s honestly haphazard security, “Ninety-five. I am deducting an additional three points for putting safeguards on an item that was never meant to be his.”

The Golden Tide judge opened her mouth to respond but was cut off by Little Red.

“Not against the rules. Competitor Nate Weber’s averaged score is ninety-seven. Let’s move on. We have quite a few more to get through.”

Nate watched as they left, Sect Leader Jair taking Nate’s newest creation with him. That was fine as far as Nate was concerned. It was just a prototype and wasn’t in any way revolutionary. Just efficient, like the unbiased judges had pointed out. But, once Nate created an industrial scale production version, he could start farming and storing materials for creating things back on Galle. After all, he had basically just been guaranteed a spot in the World Reaping. A world that had been untouched for potentially decades. While the Divine Artifacts and Beasts were the primary targets, along with some apparent System Challenges, that didn’t mean he couldn’t take a lot more than that from the world. Hopefully anyway - to be honest he hadn’t looked at all the rules just yet. He probably should get around to that but maybe he could claim Kiri should handle it as part of the business side of things.

He waited patiently as more and more of his fellow competitors received their scores. Jemima was no slouch with a score of ninety-one. The woman with the blue rat familiar got a ninety. The Seed from the Dynasty looked furious when he got a ninety-four for his lightning bow and it was, at that point, that Nate decided to take his leave. Even if someone did manage to get a higher score, which he doubted, he had sealed his spot in the World Reaping. Now he just needed to shadow Kiri and Wulfgar to their tournament matches and they’d be all set. Nate was only a little sad that the Crafting Tournament didn’t have rewards, but he supposed getting a free entry into the World Reaping was the reward, so he wasn’t about to complain. As Kiri met him at the gate with Wulfgar, he convinced the two to wait for Jemima.

“Fine, fine, we’ll walk the provider of my booze back to the hotel. You know they could just take her from there anyway though, right?” griped Kiri.

“Did you want to bring her to dinner?” countered Nate.

“Fuck no. We’re celebrating and she’s a killjoy.”

“You two are so freaking weird,” grumbled Wulfgar. “Kill… joy… someone that kills joy. This the way the new generation is talking?”

“What would you have called her?” asked Nate.

“A miserable cunt, obviously.”

Kiri snorted, “Are you allowed to say that word now that you’ve got balls again?”

“Oi don’t you start with me! Only had my balls back a few weeks. Haven’t even had a chance to use them yet!”

“You ask Jemima?” teased Kiri.

Wulfgar hacked as though he was going to vomit while Nate just shook his head. Three-hundred or something years old and the man was still just a big child. Loyal though, and with his heart in the right place.

“How’s Frick doing?” asked Kiri.

Nate looked inside into his spatial zone where Frick was curled up on the floor of the gallery with his arms and legs wrapped around a small misshapen rock that oozed chaos. Pulses from the rock kept trying to unmake or change the space around it, fighting against Nate's control of his own miniature world. Frick was gnawing on the rock with sharp teeth that shifted in colour and shape as his Familiar slowly absorbed the Chaos into his Spiritual Body.

“Still working on it. I think he’s getting close though. A couple more days.”

“A couple more days,” agreed Kiri as Jemima finally joined them and they headed for the hotel before dinner.

*************

Days turned into weeks as the World Reaping approached. Nate had kept himself busy throughout that time. Kiri’s matches had gone easily. Every opponent except her last surrendered at the outset of the fight, unwilling to fuel the Second Evolution’s growth. Only the last, a female elf who had already lost twice, made a desperate attempt to face Kiri. Even then, she lost, though if Nate was being honest, he thought Kiri had taken it easy on the girl. A kindness as far as he was concerned, which tracked with his sister's nature. Be kind to those who deserved mercy, and merciless to those who did not.

Wulfgar’s matches had not gone as smoothly and the old Bloodborne Executioner had lost a match to the same Golden Tide Captain that had surrendered to Kiri. Seeing how a Seed matched up against even an old and experienced warrior like Wulfgar had been an interesting experience and Nate could see why Seeds, and especially Prime Seeds, were so feared here in the Heartlands. The match had been a clinic on how to take apart an opponent with superior Skills, Stats and, most importantly, Divine Energy.

Still, despite that one loss, Wulfgar had made it through the combat tournament as well. Then there was Frick. The little Familiar refused to tell them the name of his new Primary Class, claiming it was a surprise for the World Reaping. The little bastard had however confirmed that he was now a Lesser Divine. As a third evolution that should’ve put him on par with a Seed, however his lower-tier Classes and Skills meant that there was a gap between them that the goblin spirit would need to bridge before he could claim that he was a Seed’s match.

Nate had, in his heart, hoped that the factions or foolish Lesser Divines would decide that it wasn’t worth the risk to keep striking against himself and Kiri. He knew that he had set this all in motion by revealing his Second Evolution status, but still, he didn’t relish the fighting even if he did need the Divine Energy that came from it. His hope had been in vain and, in the few weeks since the crafting tournament finished, they had been attacked four times. Each time had resulted in somewhere between thirty and a hundred Divine Energy for each of them, Wulfgar included. The latter was mostly sitting in Nate’s spatial zone ready to put to work improving Wulfgar’s equipment.

Nate glanced at his System notifications.

Spatial Creation 37 > 40
Spatial Doors 33 > 40
Artist’s Desire 19 > 20
Spatial Network 1 > 20

All his Skills that were below Divine had progressed and were sitting ready to evolve. The only reason they hadn’t already was that Nate was suppressing them ticking over to the next level by preventing the runes from changing on his Class Core. He supposed it was time to have a conversation.

“Are you there, Kali’Terra?”

“I am.”

“If I let these Skills evolve, will I be increasing my debt to you for the Class Core?”

Nate felt the tug of Reciprocity from the question.

“Yes. Question minorly decreased the debt owed to you.”

Nate sighed as he got the expected response. He was going to be forced to continue suppressing the Skills for now, preventing their evolution. Because if he didn't, the debt The System owed him would decrease, which was the opposite of what he needed. Instead he brought up the improvements to his Divine Vessel.

His Divine Vessel had finally exceeded the limits of his Class Core. A Seed of the Heartlands, a third evolution Lesser Divine, had a maximum capacity of sixty units of Divine Energy. Nate had over three-hundred. He didn’t know how much a Greater Divine would have yet, but Nate was willing to bet that it was still probably less than his own capacity. So much progress and yet the World Reaping hadn’t even started. What would he look like when they came out the other side?

Nate didn’t know, but he was eager to find out.

*************

Perenthia looked down at her beautiful pink hair on the floor, bits of skin attached with splotches of blood where she had ripped the silken locks out of her head. It didn’t matter! Nothing mattered! Nothing would ever matter ever again because she couldn’t have him to herself no matter what she tried. Nascent Mind continued to whisper that there was a way. A path forward. Two paths, in fact, though only one worth mentioning. The path of sharing her beloved with anyone else was a non-starter. She’d rather die!

But the other path was a possibility. Probability Assessment had been clear, again and again and again and again. Killing his sister was impossible. Perenthia still thought her Fated Confluence was just failing her. She was a Prime Seed. No one within her strata should be unkillable for her. It should be an impossibility. Because it couldn’t be an improbability because she could fucking manipulate probability!

She screamed again, ripping out more hair. Forget that Nascent Mind was certain, absolutely certain, that Perenthia could successfully decapitate the girl called Kiri. But apparently that wasn’t enough. Nor was fire, poisoning, electrocution, gravity bomb, even somehow getting a Greater Divine to stomp on the woman wasn’t enough.

Fated Confluence was definitely broken.

But what if it’s not? whispered a voice in the back of her mind.

Well, if it wasn’t. If the girl really was immortal, then the only other option was to convince Nate to leave her. And that was the other path. But it required something of Perenthia. It required a sacrifice. A sacrifice of who she was so she could become someone else. Someone that Nate would want to be with. Want to be with so much that he would be willing to give up his friends and family. And she could be that someone. It just meant she couldn’t be Perenthia anymore. But who was she without him anyway?

Bleeding, with pink hair scattered on the floor around her, Perenthia screamed into the night, ignoring her cowering servants.

*************

Kalin Silverscale was many things, but a fool was not one of them. He’d seen the aftermath of what the second evolutions had done to Flux Industries. Heard the rumours of an Eternium team that went rogue and took a shot at the pair only to also wind up dead. The writing was on the wall. A single team, no matter how strong, was doomed to failure against the siblings.

So, Kalin would take more than one team against them. And where better to do so than in the World Reaping itself? Especially since doing so would earn additional points from The System.

That was what Kalin had been doing. He’d used every trick in the book. Fear, generosity, political favour. He’d even had a fellow Sect member quietly killed because of how outspoken he had been against Kalin’s suggestion that once the World Reaping had begun, the various teams should link up and work together until Nathaniel Weber and Kiri Beaufoy of the Risen Sun Sect had been removed. The whole process might have been even harder, but Kalin found an unexpected ally in Kole Darkscale. The fellow Seed of the World Forger Sect seemed to have an axe to grind with Nathaniel and had become a surprisingly vocal voice for unity of the Sect in the face of these interlopers.

Of course, Worldhammer himself had warned against banding together to take down the siblings, but Kalin saw that for what it was. The old man wanted the pair for himself. Kalin might have been worried about offending the Greater Divine, but then, if this plan came off, Kalin suspected he would be a Greater Divine soon himself and all while under the aegis of his own Greater Divine father. He could weather Worldhammer’s ill regard.

All that was left to do was wait. Wait for one more day. Then everything that Kalin had planned would be set into motion, and the feeble house of sticks propping up the Second Evolution siblings would come crumbling down on their heads.