If you’re reading this, I’m probably dead.

Damn, I’ve always wanted to say that.

Anyway, in my hunger for knowledge and abilities many would call unnatural, I dug too deep. Well, not actually dug, but metaphorically dug. Assuming you’re not a crayon eater, you know what I meant.

Anyway, again, maybe I should have paid more attention to the early signs. They were all there, but in my pride, I ignored them.

But before we get to that.

Months have passed since I returned from that quest during which I met the pettiest elf alive. I still cannot forgive him for splitting the base in half, then trying to kill me by detonating the bits I was on. In an incredible show of greed and pettiness, he did everything he could to stop me from saving the Fragment of the First Sun from the planet’s surface. I mean, it was lying there for hundreds of years, so clearly no one else wanted it.

Ever since that quest ended and I got my rewards, I’ve been asking my handler when I would finally get the promised S rank Beyond quests and events. So far, the answer remains the same:

Fuck off.

My handler remains cryptic as always, so I can only hope it will be soon. She says if everything works out, I will understand why she chose the rewards she did.

In the past few months, a lot has happened. I think it surprised more than a few people in the Primordial Knights when I became an A rank. According to the contract, my salary should escalate along with the benefits, but of course, they pushed back, hiding behind some fancy clause that gives them grounds to postpone things a bit.

I fought back, too. Literally.

Turns out blowing up half of the guild’s sparring zone makes them give you a bit more respect. Those fancy clauses suddenly became less strict, and I got my escalators leading to better pay. Not like I need that many shards. I doubt there are many Beyond attendees with more shards than me, but it would feel wrong not to demand what I deserve.

Weslin acted like a big tsundere about it when I blew up the sparring zone, screaming at me, complaining with that vein bulging on his temple like it might pop. But I believe, deep down, he was happy for me.

My progress to clear the third floor to reach the fourth, where I might meet Nyssa, continues well. With Weslin’s help, we’re working on creating a safe zone for the Beyond floor quest. Of course, we’re not going for a small one either, having decided to focus on building a larger one. I am fine with that, since it is more dangerous and more interesting. The branch leader and the security lady also say it should help build up the standing of the Primordial Knights. So we’re gathering materials, building outpost arrays, and killing monsters. Lots of monsters.

There were a few times where it got dangerous, but my partner and I are a good combo. Weslin gets punched in the face, and I blow up the area, often as he uses his primordial void to strip defenses, where the enemies make attempts to block it.

Once in a while, Weslin leaves to train alone. For some reason, even I see it, a spark inside him reignited, an ambition to get stronger. I also think he and the security lady were together for a few weeks, but they must have broken up. Maybe that’s why. The same kind of thing that motivates people to hit the gym after a breakup, except Weslin’s hitting monsters instead.

Anyway, Talon tells me there are rumors that Weslin might become an S rank before the tutorial ends. That would make him the third person currently in the Primordial Knights to do so.

I even found out a bit more about it in my curiosity, but both Luan and Weslin have similar amounts of time left in the tutorial, while Nyssa has even more months left than they do. It’s even been said that she might soon be the strongest S rank in the tutorial.

Overall, I like Weslin. He is a cool guy, and I bet if I keep acting this way, it won’t be long before I’ve got him saying, “I’m too old for this shit.”

I really want to hear it.

So, if I really am dead as I said at the start, someone please give Weslin my collection of antomic bombs, sparrow obliterators, and all of my prototype items. Especially the mana batteries shaped into crowns and halos. I think they might suit him.

Do not, for any reason, let the Doc get my body. I repeat, DO NOT LET THE CATBOY GET MY BODY.

Burn it if you have to. Now that I think of it, even if I’m dead, it should still be resistant to fire, so I don’t know… throw it into a volcano or shoot it into outer space.

Group 4 is also doing well, from what I’ve seen on the ninth floor. It’s a one year survival challenge, so I’m not worried about spending most of my time in Beyond. I think it’ll help group 4 prosper in the long run. Those beautiful lunatics just keep getting stronger.

Sophie killed Faora. Just like that, she ended her. May that feylith bitch find herself revived one day so Sophie can kill her again. I always knew Sophie was a terrifyingly talented mind mage. I even told her to stop being a scaredy cat and start using her abilities again, but now that she has, I’m actually a little scared.

Thankfully, my mental defenses are better than ever. I gave up on having mental defense passives and developed a new way to protect my mind instead. When I was training with Sophie, it seemed to shock and even scare her.

That must be a good thing.

Instead of defending against mind mages with labyrinths and walls, I went for a better strategy. I lovingly call it “Oh, You Dumbfuck Actually Walked In”.

Tess continues to develop her [Declaration] and even got a fancy new skill to boost both the range and purity of her primordial lightning. After she found just the right metal for her javelins and started using that railgun-like attack, she’s become far scarier than before.

The piercing power of her attacks is now comparable to my [Empyrean Lance], but they’re much faster too. I mean, much, much faster. And she can shoot those things off from miles away with really high accuracy.

She’s also started sparring more with Lily to reduce her weakness in close range combat, and damn, the bouts really get close sometimes. Tess and Lily are now on the second floor as well, while Sophie, with help from Luan and some support from Frontier, is on the third.

As for our petite bulldozer? Well, she grew her own unholy mech. A massive suit of armor made from her own flesh and bones, stored in our camp so she can wear it when the need arises. It allows her to go toe-to-toe in melee against much larger monsters.

I don’t know if we’ll be able to drag it up to the tenth floor, but there is still plenty of time on the ninth. And damn, if it isn’t likely to turn into something truly terrifying. Lately, she’s also been experimenting with growing wings, and the other day I saw her pummel a bunch of level 350 monsters without using even a speck of mana. She did it purely with the power of her body.

And Min-Jae hasn’t been slacking either, and his flight speed is the fastest after mine when it comes to group 4. Well, only he, Tess, Biscuit, and I can fly, but it is still impressive.

And now he has a better hold on his gravitational primordial energy through his work with [Telekinesis]. He’s also started experimenting with that thing Malika once tried to do to me: the thing where you pierce a person’s natural defenses and compress their brain.

And he reads. A lot. Sophie made a wooden cabin for him, and somehow, he made it float a few hand widths above the ground while storing books, mana stones, and other things inside. He has to recharge it, but it is the first step toward making his very own floating island.

I’ve already reserved the second one from him. He agreed to make it for me after he completes his own. We’ve even been thinking of stealing one of those huge aircraft carriers and making it float. We both agree that those ships have always looked cool, and making them float will only make them better. And if I’m not wrong, they only cost a few billion dollars, so we can probably just have Lily heal a few CEOs or something for some quick cash. If we don’t just steal it.

The twins can now place marks on items and teleport to them whenever they want. These marks last for a long time, and they love putting them on the daggers they like to throw around. It reminds me of something, but I can’t recall what exactly. They’ve also been investing heavily into Dexterity while working on their [Haste] and stat sharing. I think when one of the twins stacks all their stats and they go all out together, they become almost as fast as Tacita for short bursts.

They have also created a few nastier ways of using [Connection] in their fights, and they’re getting better at using their opponents’ skills against them, thanks to the efforts of their combined minds.

I’ve spent weeks with Izzy, too, hoping to understand her Fragment of Eternal Fire. After losing the Fragment of the First Star, I am determined to improve my channeling and get a new fragment on the thirteenth floor.

Both Izzy and Noodle are really good at burning stuff now. I tried to compare their fragment to my thermal energy, and it’s actually really difficult. I think when it comes to raw damage, their fragment is stronger. Thermal energy just feels like it’s focused in a different area.

I talked about it with the Doc while applying the trait strengthening token to my Mana Physique, letting him observe me as I squirmed in pain. He just said he doesn’t care about that stuff.

Good enough answer.

When I also applied my second token to push my Mana Physique to the second stage, I thought the Doc would jump out of his skin with happiness. I passed out, but he collected a lot of data, which I went over later with Lily. We’ve spent many long nights studying and theorizing.

As for Maya, I keep getting more and more jealous of her tattoos day by day, the way she stores mana and even her mech blueprints inside them. She’s become really good with tricolored mana and honestly uses it more often than I do. Where I like to overwhelm enemies with quick attacks using normal mana, she’s precise, like a sharp tool. She trains in martial arts for hours every single day. And she spends every night playing the instruments we borrowed from the Academy.

Before, I thought she might not be able to reach Champion rank, but now I am almost certain she will.

I also met Biscuit’s new friends: a T-Rex, a Chameleon, and that creepy-murderous maniacal-little-shit-ferret-looking-spawn-of-the-devil.

It makes me worried, but Biscuit’s cute, so he can do whatever he wants.

So here I am. Things are going well. I have everything. Money, houses, a dog. I might even get myself a car. Young, no loans, secure for life.

But it wasn’t enough. Not for me. The more I level up and put stats into Mana, the more I feel my body breaking apart. And my constructs have only pushed it further, and my mind has been strained beyond the limit. I have become very good at it, though. Escher’s Cube, Penrose Triangle, the Klein Bottle, and Möbius Strip. I can see them all clearly in my mind. They look real to me, and in my mind, my mana moves through them even when it shouldn’t work.

That was my calling. It made my mind far stronger, and Mana Cycling much easier. It allowed me to accumulate more mana than ever before, and it let me split my mind into a lot more fragments. I set the basis for techniques and optimizations I’ve named Sequence Pinning, Load Rotation, and Parallel Mapping.

But then something changed. At first, I barely noticed, just small hints, but over time, it became impossible to ignore.

My separated minds began to optimize themselves, only by the tiniest fraction, about 0.05 percent, and only on occasion. Especially the older ones, I’ve kept running for months, like Mapthaniel and Assholethaniel.

I kept them running because I needed them.

After all my experimenting, I discovered not every mind fragment had to be the same. For example, for Mapthaniel, I slowly stripped down useless functions, increasing efficiency and freeing processing power. Some fragments need more raw power, others require more speed, and others need things like stability, durability, or long-term persistence. And I’ve come up with ways to do that.

Then I found out about something Mapthaniel did behind my back.

It had one job, one simple job: to maintain the map of any area I enter so I wouldn’t have to.

But that part of me, Mapthaniel, split itself, creating a new sub-sub-mind. Then it gave the sub-sub-mind a single task.

To maintain the map so it no longer had to.

So if I am dead, it is probably my own fault. It wasn’t the butler this time.

Anyway, my new unique arcane passive is strong, but it’s turned out very different from what I wanted and expected.

I considered selling Mental Attunement Loop (Mid Arcane) and buying another low arcane passive to combine with Mana Fortified Mind (Low Arcane). And that would have left me with the original three passives plus the new one:

Mana-Kinetic Conversion Reservoir (Unique Epic)

Mana Wavelength Tyrant (Mid Arcane)

Subdermal Combustion Weave (Mid Arcane)

But this wouldn’t have left me with a slot to get two more upper arcane passives. I still don’t want to give up any of them, and if I had to, it would probably be my unique epic. But for now, I wait. I think I am really close to turning kinetic energy into mana, thanks to months of observing this passive at work.

So that passive combination token (low arcane) will likely rot in my inventory forever.

The only choice left was to sell both Mana Fortified Mind (Low Arcane) and Mental Attunement Loop (Mid Arcane).

After that, I got Retinal Fractal Interpreter (Upper Arcane) and Wavelength Signal Differentiator (Upper Arcane).

That, in turn, got me a new passive. Something called Mana Wave Predation (Unique Arcane).

Even without strengthening the trait, my Mana Wavelength Iris is stronger than ever before, while at the same time, I can process much, much more than ever before. All in preparation for choosing my third trait far in the future, with help from the advice I got from the trait grandpa.

Simply said. If you use mana and face me, you’re fucked, assuming you aren't A LOT stronger than me.

P.S.: This letter will destroy itself in five seconds. I tried to estimate your reading speed and time it so that it burns right as you reach the end.

P.P.S.: But enough jokes. I know we already talked about most of these things, Weslin, but thanks for reading anyway. I just really wanted to write a letter like this. I also set it so that it would only show to your mana signature. Please tell the branch leader I will be back in two days instead of a few minutes. I want to check on my group, and that asshole threatened me with a fine for breach of contract or some other bullshit. I will…

Before the man can finish reading the letter, made of yellow paper with visible threads of mana woven into it, it bursts into wild flames. A massive blaze of golden fire shoots up to the ceiling of the room, setting it on fire.

Multiple alarms ring all at once.

(You petty little shit, what have you done this time!) A voice echoes in the room.

“It is me. Nathaniel’s not here.”

(Oh.. I..)

Weslin ignores her apologies. He brushes the ashes from his hands and with a single pulse extinguishes the thermal flames. For a moment, he stares at his empty hands where he once held the letter.

“What the fuck.”