The Systemic Lands

Chapter 453: Day 890 – The Waiting Game

Chapter 453: Day 890 – The Waiting Game

I focused on the energy inside of me. I had taken to observing the soldiers guarding me as references. It kind of helped give me an idea where there were issues. I had noticed that the energy inside of my body was not like the energy outside or from skills. It was a blend of various types.

Thinking about the matter during my breaks, it had made me wonder how force energy was applied to Acid Shot to make it move without annihilation effect. I had used the skill in an unclaimed building a couple of times and looked at the skill with my Sense stat.

It appeared that there was another layer of energy in between the two components of the skill or modules as the Astrologer had called them. The skill activated so quickly it was hard to observe in that split second and understand what was going on. Even with my perception of time slowed down with my Mind stat, it just wasn’t enough. My skills were too good. Once I went through the process of updating my skills I would need to observe the skills at a lower level very carefully.

I had been hoping for some insight, but nothing had come to me. That was the problem with being so far ahead of everyone else. I had to figure out my problems on my own. Now people easily knew about the stats, the skills in the dungeons, summons, and so much more. While they had it easier, that knowledge had been paid for by my hard work and the deaths of countless people to get this far.

Right now, I was working on fixing the energy inside my hand, feet, and gut. I was able to manage all the remaining issues I could spot at the same time. That didn’t mean there were more, but I spent the start of each session in the anti-curse box carefully looking for new issues with my energy in my body, but mainly in my gut and in my head.

I didn’t want another tumor baby and if there was anything in my head, I needed to get rid of it, carefully. Altering the energy in my head was very dangerous, since it created a feedback loop, and the energy was constantly shifting. If I focused on cake, then I would be hit with constant thoughts about cake, which would make me think on cake some more. It was a struggle to break off that loop as quickly as possible.

A feedback loop was a real risk. The reason I was so easily impacted was that my energy just went through my defenses and its resistance to other energy. I was mentally forcing it to change, which impacted my body in a weird form of self-hypnosis. I considered if it could be weaponized, but the risk of losing thought and causing a permanent injury was too high.

The constant shifting of energy through my head and the lack of ability to invert my eyeballs made it very hard to look into my brain. A mirror didn’t reflect energy, only light. That meant I couldn’t look back at myself that way and observe my head.

The only option was to carefully feel the energy moving in my head, which changed with every thought. The act of observation changed the result. This was what made it impossible for me to find anything wrong in my brain.

Divine Empress, you have my sympathy for having to deal with this. Now I knew why she was stuck for a long period of time just sitting around doing nothing. Trying to locate what was wrong in my head was incredibly frustrating.

The first thing I had done was only focus on one topic, observing my brain. That had kind of worked, but my observations caused fluctuations. I had to parse with just a vague sense of what was happening. I couldn’t look at my brain and spot an area of disturbance like I did with my other body parts.

I had looked for the neck block the Astrologer had used to paralyze me with, but there was nothing. It wasn’t a physical change he had done, but a something to my energy, which trickled into my body. So much more potent and quicker, but also much easier to find and remove.

How the Astrologer developed independent brain tumors that could impact a person was beyond impressive. While he had the United City States, UCS, to work with back then this wasn’t an issue that resources could solve on their own. A person had to have the skill and knowledge of energy in a way that was beyond impressive.

I felt like a caveman trying to start a fire by banging rocks together while the Astrologer had a lighter in his hand that made the process simple. Dammit! Why couldn’t we have worked together? I knew the answer was greed and a desire for power. But it would have made everything much easier.

The flip side of that was someone like the Protector. Talking with Clarissa, he might not even be in contact with the Avatar but would agree to work with her once I was disposed. It was no secret he was angling to replace me if I died. Killing him would accomplish nothing but remove a person who could act in the wider world while I was stuck in the anti-curse box.

He needed to kill the Astrologer. Clarissa and I could endure the attacks that were unleashed at the Empire. The more attacks were done, the more the Astrologer exposed himself to being tracked down and hunted. People were moving in groups now, just to be on the safe side.

Aura was a surprisingly popular stat, since it was known to counter hostile energy. What had once been unknown was quickly becoming a must have stat purchase for anyone out in the wilderness to prevent whatever the Astrologer was doing to make people explode themselves in his constant terror campaign.

It was annoying to be passive in the face of a threat, but I couldn’t play into our enemies’ hands. Clarissa had increased patrols in Purgatory, especially the inner district. Turning this place into a veritable fortress. There hadn’t been an attack yet, but the soldiers guarding me had speculated it was only a matter of time with the current terror campaign.

No matter what happened, I needed to focus on fixing myself. Until I was confident, I was a liability. A part of me was concerned that nothing in my head couldn’t be found until the Astrologer activated it. Once I cleared out all the issues I had identified, I was considering moving to another strategy.

The basic premise was to cut off all sound from my head with a bubble of energy and increase my Aura stat by a lot to ensure the Astrologer couldn’t use his techniques against me anymore. Possibly expel and create a layer of energy around my head.

I wondered why the Astrologer’s proxy wanted me to learn how to expel energy? That was one question that was unanswered. It was a simple technique, that didn’t have much use except providing an initial line of defense that was very weak. Since his proxy had taught it to me, I was concerned it would leave me exposed in a weird way. A trap that looked useful but would provide a critical weakness that could be exploited.

Any technique I used to counter the Astrologer, I needed to develop myself. First the curse damage, and after that I would try and figure out how to check my head. Perhaps a secondary person to inspect by brain while I meditated on a single topic, and they would try and spot issues. I would speak with Clarissa on this when we had our next meeting.

Get a team of four people, just to state at my head. Right now she was trying to use the diviners in similar boxes like this but without the blankets to pinpoint the Astrologer by the amount of energy he had or used. I didn’t think it would work, but it was worth a shot, even if it just gave a general direction.

Clarissa had a large map of the Systemic Lands and was using colored stones to track the days of the attack. She reasoned that he couldn’t have sleeper agents, since there was a risk of his control failing as his energy degraded and a person fought back.

She was getting closer to pinpointing his movements. He was operating around Esperanza and there were large high stat teams looking for him in the area. Everyone was motivated to stop the bombings, but he wasn’t letting up. If he thought I was going to move, then he was mistaken.

I was reckless when I needed to be to live, but now that I had a path forward without pointless risks, then I was happy to send other people to their deaths, fighting him and dragging him down slowly. That was the mistake the Divine Empress made. She liked to take the lead too much on her own. That probably came from confidence in her abilities, a love to fight, and insanity. Lots of insanity.

It was a nice feeling being the final boss to someone else that had to go through my minions to get to me. While it was a bit of a joke in games and stories, in real life the concept of wearing down a person first had a certain appeal. No person could remain on guard all the time. There was a mental strain.

If anything, I would say it would be like playing a long game like Skyrim for the first time and having to complete all the side quests before finishing it and not being able to sleep or rest. You would get worn down mentally. That was the kind of pressure the Divine Empress had put onto me, and the kind of pressure I was hoping I was currently placing on the Astrologer.

A bell chimed. My session was up, but I kept the flow of energy within my body consistent, even as I moved. There were minute changes, but I was able to keep the patches in place as long as I didn’t move quickly.

I left the anti-curse box. “Emperor Michael, your immediate presence is requested due to an emergency.” Of course. I left the room with my soldiers guarding me and made my way to Clarissa and entered her office.

The door was closed and she handed me a piece of paper.

Priority 1: 872GHT-276-21

Esperanza wiped. All humans inside disappeared. No crowd spotted leaving. Assumed dead. No witnesses. Investigating.

Captain Carol

The numbers at the top were the ID code for the sender and confirmation that they weren’t under duress when sending the message. The numbering system was incremented differently for different people to ensure sending a fake message would be difficult and to know if one was intercepted. Another one of the many things Clarissa had implemented during the war.

The actual content itself was the most concerning. We had lost an entire city and the city that was on the main route between the West and East parts of our Empire. The Astrologer was escalating very rapidly to draw me out.