Nate looked around the stadium at the gathered Lesser Divines that surrounded him. The arena was packed with both teams and individuals who were ready to be sent to the World Reaping. All the competitors had separated themselves into their various factions and Nate felt that it looked a lot like a sports event with the various ‘teams’ in uniforms. The Golden Tide stood to the left in their red and golds. Flux Industries clustered at the front in their black high-tech looking gear. Next to Flux Industries was the white and blue of the Heavenly Dynasty, pride of place and with easily the most entrants. There were other less prominent factions that Nate noted. The Eternium was one, along with some smaller groups all in similar uniforms that he assumed came from smaller Sects.

Then there were the unaffiliated entries. That was the section Nate found himself standing in alongside Kiri, a newly minted Lesser Divine Frick, Wulfgar, and a cowering Jemima. Nate noticed Jak’s team nearby and didn’t miss the few glances Gwen threw Kiri’s way. Still, Jak and his team were keeping their distance and Nate was going to do his best to respect that.

Finally, interspersed among the unaffiliated were a few teams that had their identities completely concealed. Nate could feel the Conceal Concept leaking off their varied face masks and suits of armour. Assassins, he decided.

“Think they’re here for us?” asked Kiri quietly as she followed his gaze.

“Doubtful. Maybe one or two are, but I suspect they’re here to target the Seeds of opposing factions. Still, I bet they would take a shot at us if we give them the opportunity.”

Nate returned to looking around, getting plenty of glances back. Among the many faces were a few he specifically recognised. Among the Golden Tide contingent, there was the Captain who had surrendered to Kiri. Near the front, among the Dynasty section, Nate could see both the elf from the crafting tournament along with the silver-haired elf that had approached them in the restaurant.

Then there was the pink-haired elf, also from the restaurant. On her hip she wore a thin blade that looked like spun glass but, as Nate stared at it, his senses screamed a warning. Even without activating Conceptual Sight he could recognise the Truth of the blade as it cut his eyes just to look upon it.

“Severing,” he whispered. Reality answered his Embodiment, his Truth, and Divine Energy crept into him.

All eyes nearby turned towards him and he sensed Kiri move protectively but Nate hadn’t taken his eyes off of the crystal blade. It might be hidden behind layers of obfuscation but concealing the strength of a Concept from him took more than a few Enchantments. Concepts were everything to him. They, along with his art, were his entire Path — to understand the tapestry that made up Reality. And with that power came the ability to see the Truth of that sliver of glass. It would Sever whatever it touched. There was no blocking that blade. Or at least not outside an opposing Peak-Grade Divine Artifact. Because Nate had no doubt in his mind that the blade was Peak-Grade. And potentially a match for his own Regalia.

Continuing to ignore the mutters and stares of the crowd, Nate’s eyes drifted up to the pink-haired elf who wore such a powerful artifact. His green eyes met her pink ones and he found her gazing back at him with an unexpected intensity. Kiri’s voice drifted into his ear, breaking the spell.

“She’s pretty enough… and an elf, so maybe old enough as well. Should I go make an introduction?”

Nate laughed awkwardly, noting how quite a few of the competitors around them had averted their eyes from him. Instead they shot worried glances in the pink-haired elf’s direction or were studiously ignoring both her and Nate.

“That’s not what we’re here for,” replied Nate to Kiri with a calm smile.

He punctuated his whispered words by locking eyes with a few of the people around them still willing to look at them. Most turned away but a few smirked or stared back unflinchingly. The standoff was brought to a close as Worldhammer took the stage.

“Welcome, one and all, to the World Reaping of Seventeenth Scale. In accordance with the Reaper’s Accord, as the host faction and present owners of the world in question, we have taken thirty percent of the slots for the Dynasty of the Heavenly Serpent. A further thirty percent were sold at auction while the remaining forty percent were handled using standard tournaments. Can my fellow adjudicators please confirm that the terms of the Reaper’s Accord have been followed?”

One by one, high-ranking members of other factions stepped forward to attest that the rules had been followed. Chairman Jarim was among them, as was Grand Marshall Grommir. As they spoke, Nate cast his senses out. They’d gathered everyone to kick-off the World Reaping, but Nate couldn’t sense any teleporters or portals nearby.He was a bit confused about how they intended to send the roughly one thousand competitors to the world of Seventeenth Scale.

“With that out of the way, there will be a slight addition to this Reaping. In addition to any rewards bestowed by The System, I will be granting a single item from my personal vault to the individual winner of the Reaping. As determined by The System of course. With that said, it’s time to begin. I now invite The System to begin the Reaping.”

The words had an almost religious connotation to Nate’s mind. A moment later blue text began appearing before his eyes.

Welcome contestants to the Reaping of Seventeenth Scale, currently held by the Dynasty of the Heavenly Serpent. In accordance with the Reaper’s Accord between the factions of the universes known as The Heartlands, I will officiate this competition.

For the duration of the Reaping, two Leaderboards will be maintained for all participants as well as relevant officials. The first Leaderboard will track team performance, the second Leaderboard will track individual performance.

Points for these Leaderboards will be awarded for the following:

• Collecting Divine Artifacts - Points awarded are variable based on Grade of Artifact and Rarity of Concept.

• Defeating Divine Beasts - Points awarded are variable based on level of Beast and contribution.

• Completing System Challenges - Points awarded are variable based on the challenge.

• Killing Competitors - 20 points.

All point decisions are final. As is agreed upon in the Reaper’s Accords. I will supply views of all competitors while completing any Leaderboard related task.

Prepare for transport to the world of Seventeenth Scale.

Space began to gather around the arena and Nate felt a bubble of it solidify around himself, Kiri, Frick, Wulfgar, and Jemima. Then space tore and the next thing Nate knew they appeared in the middle of a desert. Sand dunes stretched in every direction and there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky.

“Nothing unexpected,” commented Kiri.

Nate nodded his agreement. In the weeks leading up to the actual Reaping, they had managed to get some more information on how a Reaping was conducted. It seemed The System itself was involved, which to Nate’s mind made sense. After all, Kali’Terra wanted more Divine Energy to flow because a portion of it would always flow back to itself due to Reciprocity. That Divine Energy could then be used to make more Class Cores. So, of course, The System wanted this whole process to go smoothly and, more importantly, to give options that didn’t involve purely killing.

However, it didn’t go so far as to completely disincentivise combat. Whether that was because all Paths were valid in its eyes or due to a restriction of Reciprocity, Nate wasn’t sure. He also didn’t care. The reason didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Nate had to finish in first place on the individual Leaderboard. Well, either him or Kiri. Which meant they had to make some decisions right now.

“You or me?” asked Nate.

Wulfgar and Jemima looked confused while Frick just grinned toothily.

“You, obviously,” replied Kiri immediately.

“Okay, game plan time. Let’s get off this sand first though.”

Nate opened his spatial zone, calling forth Solaris. The flying ship hovered over the yellow dunes, the light from the sand reflecting onto the hull making the ship itself seem like a mirage. Nate boarded quickly with the rest of the team and Frick took up the piloting position, causing them to rise quickly into the sky, where they should be able to see any attack coming from a long way off.

“Alright, what’s the plan?” asked Kiri. “System Challenges give the best rewards but they’re also the hardest to find. I’m thinking we find a more target rich area than this desert, then split up. We’ve got the communication devices Nate made so we can call each other and Nate even included the ‘triangulating’ runes on it so he can use that to teleport to any one of us. Show them the other one, Nate.”

He smiled. Kiri was right. He had been far from idle these last few weeks. There had been two improvements he had been working on, both based on the Low-Grade Divine Artifacts he had taken from Severen. The first was an improved portal rune that used the positions of their Risen Sun Sect badges to determine locations. As long as three were in play, he could figure out the exact location of any member of their team and then open a portal directly to them. The item had a cooldown but it could be sped up by feeding it Divine Energy.

The second item he had made was more of an improvement to an existing one. The Seeker of the Divine Ring had been good for a world like Galle where the sources of Divine Energy were few and far between. But in a place like the Reaping, where there was Divine Energy all over the place in the form of beasts, artifacts, and fellow competitors, the ring would’ve just gone wild and pointed everywhere. So, Nate had fine-tuned it, effectively adding a shaping function that would let it identify multiple incidences of Divine Energy and also showing their magnitude.

“This will help us select targets,” explained Nate as he laid down a flat bowl with the Seeker of the Divine Ring embedded in the centre. The enchantment was intact but was now interfacing with Nate’s runes.

Turning it on was as simple as allowing mana to access the bowl and a moment later the Light runes activated and two small orbs of light appeared on the bowl at different distances.

“What’s the range?” asked Wulfgar.

“It should be at least twenty kilometres. So, Kiri’s right. This area is pretty barren. The question is, which way do we go?”

Kiri shrugged. “It’s early days. Shouldn’t matter too much. We’re liable to be here for at least four months. Maybe as long as a year. Let’s just pick a direction, pick up the things we find on the way and keep going until we find an area with more of what we want.”

Nate looked around, “Any objections?”

When everyone shook their heads they took off in what Nate decided was a northerly direction. That was purely based on where the sun was in the sky. The Solaris was a fast ship and Nate had been making improvements to it over the last week. Mostly his changes had been defensive in nature, as the last thing he wanted was someone cutting his ship out of the sky. The memory of the crystal blade was still fresh in his mind. That said, the ship should be able to hold up against most other attacks and Frick had assured him that he could leave a piece of himself on the ship to ‘Captain’ it. Nate was already shaking his head over what that would lead to.

Just because he’d focused on durability didn’t mean he had neglected speed though. There were runes in the front of the ship to not only move air out of the way but also to compress space ever so slightly. The result was a flying ship that shot through the clear skies like a bullet.

Approaching the blinking dot on the Bowl of Divine Seeking, Nate spotted the source.

“First one is a beast,” commented Kiri as she looked over the railing. “Alright everyone. Here’s the plan. All kills, all artifacts, and any solo System Challenges we find go to Nate. Once he has gotten the points, we will then distribute the takings. Any objections?”

Jemima kept her eyes downcast while Wulfgar just grunted his agreement. Frick as a Familiar technically counted as part of Nate anyway and he intended to abuse that.

“You want this one?” he asked the little blue goblin.

Frick didn’t even bother responding. Instead, like fabric ripping, a second Frick tore free from the first, before running and leaping over the side of the ship like a lunatic. Blue runic lines that had been painted on by Nate himself lit up as second-Frick fell towards the gigantic, Lesser Divine Scorpion waiting in a pit of bones and offal below.

Real-Frick ran over to the railing laughing, “I love this bit!”

Nate sighed with a slight grin as he heard the scream of second-Frick reach their ears on the ship.

“Kamikaze Frick!”

Then the explosion went off and all Nate could hear was the screaming and thrashing of the scorpion below. A quick look made it clear the beast’s shell was cracked all over its back. The stinger, which had held pride of place a moment ago, was nowhere to be seen and unless Nate missed his guess, the creature was now blind.

“How much did that cost?” asked Nate.

The runes he had painted on Frick’s skin were designed to let the little goblin Spirit transform Soul Energy into Demonic Energy. They came courtesy of a Sigil for Chaos, which Nate had managed to get off of Grand Marshal Grommir in exchange for a couple of Divine Cores. While the Sigil itself was only Grandmaster-tier, that didn’t stop it from being plenty powerful when backed up by Frick’s own Divine Energy, which came filled with the Concept of Chaos.

“A third,” replied Frick gleefully.

“A third of your Divine Energy?” said Kiri in surprise.

“No! Only used a sixth of that. A third of my Soul Energy,” countered Frick happily.

Kiri rolled her eyes and Nate surveyed the damage. The Divine Beast wasn’t quite dying, but it would only take a little nudge to change that. In theory, Frick should be on par with a Seed of the Heartlands but in practice he was slightly behind on both Skill Tier and overall Stats due to staying so long in a lower grade and skipping Mythic-tier to get to Lesser Divine.

Nate glanced at Kiri, then hopped over the railing himself. The wind caught him as he used a Gravity Control rune to slow his descent. Then, with a hand slightly raised, he sent a beam of pure Destruction through where he assumed the brain of the beast would be. Unable to see, the beast still sensed the incoming attack and tried to burrow under the ground only to find its claws ineffective as Nate used Earth Control to prevent an escape. The lance of black energy punched a hole through its head and it died seconds later. Nate felt the rush of processed mana and captured it within some prepared gems before grabbing the Divine Orb and the corpse, placing both into his spatial zone.

As he did so his position on the leaderboard flashed in front of his eyes.

Individual Leaderboard (Top 10)

• Kalin Silverscale - Dynasty of the Heavenly Serpent (45)

• Perenthia Illari’svell - Severing Blade Sect (43)

• Kole Darkscale - Dynasty of the Heavenly Serpent (41)

• Drim Hall - The Eternium (38)

• Lunar Sylvin - Dynasty of the Heavenly Serpent (38)

• Captain Borin Vaughn - The Golden Tide (37)

• Sel’kin Might - Flux Industries (34)

• Nathaniel Weber - Risen Sun Sect (33)

• Wu Tos’ama - The Starbreaking Guild (32)

• Gee’k Dumma - Dynasty of the Heavenly Serpent (32)

Nate sighed. He had his work cut out for him. But, he’d never failed yet. Repainting his position in Reality he appeared on Solaris and they took off, searching for the next target. He had a competition to win and the first of three items to deny Arikanvil.