Nate looked over his handiwork. The lines snaked like the roots of a tree as they wove through the wood of the Solaris, shining in his Conceptual Sight like filaments of light.

When Frick had told Nate he wanted to be bound to the Solaris, at first Nate had taken that to mean stashing his anchor within the bowels of the ship. But a quick discussion with the little Goblin Spirit had put that idea to bed. Frick didn’t want to be housed in the ship. He wanted to be the ship, making the Solaris an extension of the Undefeated Horde. Nate could easily see Frick turning pirate the moment he got the chance, but he was unwilling to deny his Familiar this last thing before undoing the Familiar Contract.

So, Nate had spent Divine Energy tiering up crystals and imbuing them with the Concepts of Soul and Durability before, literally, with great difficulty, grinding them into a fine powder. Kiri had teased him a little that he was behaving like an Enchanter. To repay the playful slight, Nate had made Kiri use her own Engraved on my Soul Ability to write the runes into the soul energy that Nate had sealed inside of the tiny crystals.

The end result created a network of soul crystal lines that were now woven throughout the ship, with small crystals as hubs between them. There were hundreds of them. Each one would house a piece of Frick or, as Frick put it, the Undefeated Horde. That was how Frick would maintain himself. The final piece of the masterwork was the addition of Time Control runes that would let Frick rewind time on pieces of the ship if they were heavily damaged.

All that was left was to add Frick into the network.

“Are you ready?” he asked his Familiar for the last time. The next time they spoke, Frick wouldn’t be a Familiar. Instead, he’d be the Goblin Spirit inhabiting and controlling the Solaris. An only partially scary thought.

“Born ready, Boss man. Let’s get Fricky!”

Nate carefully began unpicking the threads of the Familiar Contract that hung near his Class Core. Immediately, it was obvious that pieces of Frick were flying free as Nate sensed soul energy not his own flying out of his chest and into the walls. At first, it was just one or two but as he continued to tear apart the Familiar Contract, the number of little fireflies of soul energy continued to increase until it looked like Nate was surrounded by them in a whirlwind that was bleeding into the wooden walls around him.

Frick’s laughter filled the room as the fireflies darted through the goblin spirit, unimpeded by his physical form.

After five minutes of constant work, the final lines of the Familiar Contract unravelled and Nate closed his eyes. He could sense Frick’s location. It was at once right in front of him, but also above them at the Solaris’s control panel, with a fainter sense of him all around as though Nate was encased in a thin layer of Frick.

“Welcome aboard the Fri…” the goblin hiccuped at a frown from Kiri to the side.

“Don’t even think of renaming the ship or I will carve you out of its walls,” growled Kiri.

“Wouldn’t think of it, Lady Kiri! Swear on my mother’s grave!”

“You don’t have a mother!” countered Kiri.

“But, if I did, I’d swear on it. I mean her! Honest!”

Kiri lunged at Frick but the spirit’s form vanished with a woosh into the wall.

“Promise I’ll be good!” came Frick’s voice from all around them.

“What have you done…” groaned Kiri with a glance at Nate.

Nate shot his sister an amused smirk, “Don’t worry. He’s about to figure it out.”

“What…noooooo!!!” moaned Frick through the walls. “Why can’t I see into the bedrooms!?”

Kiri started snickering.

“Because you’re a little pervert,” explained Nate. “And I don’t want to have to worry about you doing anything weird while people are sleeping…or otherwise occupied. You want to go into someone’s room? You have to use the door like anyone else. So Kiri or myself can thump you for being a little weirdo.”

There was a pregnant pause before Frick’s voice came back from the walls.

“Yeah, that’s fair. I totally would.”

“He already seems less crazy,” commented Kiri. “How far can he get from the ship?”

“Further than he could get from me. So…measured in kilometres at least. Maybe ten?”

Kiri nodded, before patting him on the shoulder as she went past, “Nice work.”

The flight returned to normal after that, and the entire time they hadn’t paused in looting the world they found themselves on. Nate had known that getting more people involved would be good but he had underestimated how good. Since they were able to send out teams of two or three to collect Divine Artifacts, they had widened their search zone. The pile of mostly Low-Divine Artifacts was racking up and, to Nate’s surprise, Jak and company had been handing them all over to him, which was doing wonders for his score on the Leaderboard. It made him realise that the Seeds of the other Factions were likely doing the same.

They’d reach the next System Challenge, the Endless Maze, later that day. But, by the time they got there, Nate suspected they would have accumulated another sixty or so worth of Divine Energy in the form of artifacts, coupled with another thirty Divine Energy from Orbs they had taken off of Lesser Divine beasts.

Wulfgar had been strutting around after he came back with the two Orbs. Nate had known that Wulfgar felt a little overshadowed by Kiri and himself. It was hard to go from being the strongest around to playing little more than helper and seeing how high the mountain truly was. But, with Nate focusing on the Frick Familiar Contract removal and Kiri teaming up with Gwen, there had been an available spot with Jak and Fili. Wulfgar had jumped at it and, after getting to show off his Skills and Regalia, was preening at the attention of once more being seen as a powerhouse.

Fili, on the other hand, had shot Nate curious looks and Nate wondered who from the newcomers would be the first to request a Regalia. None of them had equipment of even the High-Grade calibre right now and Peak-Grade equipment was well and truly beyond High-Grade equipment. The increase was not a linear one and Nate guessed Fili wanted that force multiplier for herself.

He’d do it, of course, once they had the artifacts to provide him. While he liked Fili, Gwen, and Jak, he didn’t feel in any way beholden to them and, so, intended for them to mostly pay for their own equipment. Mostly, because he knew Gwen would get some from Kiri and Jak might get some from Wulfgar. Nate gave it a second thought, realising maybe that was why Fili was eyeing him. She had no one to help pay for hers. The eyeing was clearly not one of attraction but more one of consideration. For now, Nate would leave that alone.

The rest of the day continued in the same vein and, finally, after four more hours, they arrived at the location of their third System Challenge.

Descending from the skies, Nate made the Solaris vanish into his spatial zone after they had all disembarked. Even Frick, although the goblin did make a big show of leaving the ship. He had a whole crew of Fricklings on deck waving goodbye and cheering them on. Nate had asked if the Goblin Spirit was going to attempt the System Challenge and was surprised when he said no. Apparently, he was going to work on the Solaris a little. Nate had no idea what that meant but allowed it, opening up the spatial zone for Frick to zip inside. All the Fricklings on deck took out various tools, mostly hammers, and started running around pounding on the Solaris.

The area above ground was a jungle that reminded Nate faintly of Ankh’s planet in the Wild Realm. The cave where The System challenge lay was beneath a lake behind layers of illusion and obfuscation enchantments. Another place that Nate was willing to admit he would never have found without help, at least not with his current Sigils. Maybe he could study the Concepts hiding the Challenge to make it easier to find them in the future.

With everyone arrayed around the portal, Kiri pushed mana into the gems and, with a wave, vanished into the System Challenge.

Nate, on the other hand, sat down on the floor and glanced at Wulfgar. The old warrior understood and moved to guard the entrance.

With one last look at the others, Nate repeated Kiri’s earlier warning.

“Not a word of what you’re about to see to anyone. Understood?”

Gwen, Fili, and Jak readily agreed and Nate got to work.

Multiple artifacts with hints of Space and related Concepts slowly appeared around Nate. He ignored them for the moment as he created the rune he had been working on for a while now, and overlaid it on his body. The blue wisps of mana, so thick they could be seen with the naked eye, began to flow over him and, after a moment, lines of gold lit up along his skin, shining through his Regalia. The runes for his other Abilities were plain as day.

Conceptual Sight was almost entirely around his head, ending at his neck, and making him look like some holy judge the way the complex rune spun through his actual eyes before turning into a kaleidoscopic rainbow.

Runic Reality was woven around his chest where his mana reserve lay. The organ initially created by his Class Core and improved over time was now the heart and soul of his ability to change materials and shape runes from mana. It shone on his chest like a multilayered star.

Around the two, woven into and over each other were the two halves of what made him a Reality Manipulator. Art Imitates Life and Life Imitates Art were similar but different. The first took Nate’s artworks and gave them life, enforcing the changes in his art on reality. He could summon elementals or change the nature of the world around him with the first. The second, the one he used more frequently, let him change things about Reality by creating art of them, such as rewriting his position in Reality or exchanging his wounds with a painting.

The two Abilities were arguably two halves of a whole and the way they connected and wove through each other across his form was a testament to that fact. Now, he would add the last. The one they needed to weave through the gaps between them—the space between. The place where creation and destruction met. The physical realm. The realm of space.

Nate lost track of time as he pulled at the artifacts laid before him and, using their Divine Energy, carved a new rune, a new ability, into his Divine Vessel. Piece by piece, he exchanged parts of the Skills on his Class Core for fragments of his Divine Vessel as he created a new Ability. An Ability that he was more than willing to admit was inspired by the Worldforger Sect.

With each new part, he felt the world inside of him, the spatial zone he’d had for what felt like years, grow larger.

At first, it was just a small increase—a metre here or there, but as he accelerated through the Ability creation, the amount kept growing. Nate was already stealing dirt and stone from beneath their feet and water from the lake that lay beyond. But soon enough, even that wasn’t enough and he couldn’t take more without destabilising the area around the System Challenge. Instead, the outer edges were like space around a planet. A void, devoid of life and air, with only a few free-floating pieces of rock barely held in orbit by Gravity.

As Nate finished, he felt the final carving of his Divine Vessel lock into place. A notification pinged in the corner of his vision but he ignored it for a moment to take in what he had created. Hanging inside of him was a small world the size of Earth's moon. The Gravity was greater and so everything stuck to the planetoid just fine. Around it hovered pieces of stone that Nate had not yet managed to tether to the world and an expanse of space that stretched well beyond the moon. He’d known the Mid-Grade artifact of Expansion would be useful but was still surprised at the outcome.

The world was, of course, mundane, with some mana leaking in through the aperture but nothing about it was Divine except for the items already within. Frick, the Solaris, and the warehouse he had built looked like little ants when viewed from the outer reaches. Nate smiled. It would take some work but it could grow and it would become the place where Nate experimented with what came next on his Path.

Opening his eyes, he looked around at the others.

“That was a lot of Divine Energy,” grunted Jak.

Nate glanced at his Status and sighed. He’d overdone it.

He’d used almost eighty of his own Divine Energy plus the sixty or so from the Divine Artifacts. That was enough to create another Regalia. Still, he couldn’t be mad about it. He had all the pieces to make a small world. A world where he defined the rules and laws as well as the Concepts involved. And, since this world was meant to be his cultivation realm, he intended it to be filled with Creation, Space, and Destruction.

With that in mind, he finally looked at the notifications as The System tried to classify his new Ability.

Skill Synergy discovered between your Conceptual Spatial Authority (Divine) Skill, Spatial Creation (Mythic) Skill, Spatial Doors (Epic) Skill and Spatial Network (Rare) Skill. Combine these Skills to gain the Created Space (Divine) Skill.
Proceed?

Nate accepted since it wouldn’t change the debt The System owed him.

Created Space (Divine)
Space, the final law of the Physical Realm, is yours to wield. The user of this Skill may create and manipulate the space around and within them. All spatial effects are empowered by Magic Control divided by forty plus Skill Level as a percentage. All mana costs for spatial manipulation are a third of their normal costs so long as the Concepts within the environment are not negatively opposed to space. Spatial barriers made by the user are stronger, with the increase equal to Skill Level percentage. Conversely, the user may break spatial barriers and wards of others with far more ease with the effectiveness of their Skills increased by Skill Level percentage. Finally, the user of this Skill may create, connect, and network spatial zones. The maximum number of zones is one plus one per twenty Skill Levels. All created spatial zones may be networked to each other. Size of spatial zone is equal to [error].
Divine Bonus I: Spatial Empowerment bonus is multiplied by four. Cost: 1 Divine Energy. Duration: 10 seconds.

Created Space 61 > 61

Nate smirked as he read over the improvement, especially when he reached the error. His Ability was not the same as the previous Skill and The System seemed unwilling or unable to give him a Skill that could match. That didn’t matter, though. He could see the size of his Ability’s world for himself and he would continue to grow it.

Kiri chose that moment to exit the portal.

“Alright, you’re all up. Get in there and, whatever you do, avoid the water,” she implored.

Nate shrugged as he headed for the System Challenge. Sounded like fun to him.