When the chosen spoke of going to a festival in the capital, Rafe had no intention of going. Rafe had no interest in learning about this world he was stuck in.

Instead of going to explore the world, he'd rather stay in the dungeon and try to hunt and level up. He was close to a class evolution, he was sure. Unfortunately, the system had other plans for him.

'Ding' Tutorial Quest chain: Quest three received.

Objective: Go to the festival in the capital of the Ma'la kingdom.

Rafe stopped talking immediately. He had to attend the festival.

It wouldn't hurt that he would be getting some information about promotion out of the tutorial sector, whatever that involved.

Helare seemed happy about the outcome as well, even if she had seemed to harbour no love for the chosen.

Preparations for their visit to the capital took up most of their remaining time, and Rafe hardly got time to see Helare out of training. Plans to talk about the last moments before she disappeared were considered and quickly discarded.

Two weeks after Helare's return to the dungeon, the three of them left the Deufont Dungeon.

"The festival is in a month, is it not?" Filoria asked Helare.

"Yes, but we will need a whole month to get to the capital," Helare answered as she cheerily led their group of three.

"Dare I ask how come?" Filoria said.

"We are taking the scenic route," Helare said in a very excited voice. "Remember we are not going to the castle, so warping straight there would kind of…you know?"

But she was looking at Rafe as she said that. When she noticed him noticing her, she turned back around in a hurry.

It took a few more hours of travel before they reached something that looked like a second camp. Rafe had never travelled in this particular direction before, so it was all new territory for his map skill. The terrain of the dungeon was very uniform no matter where they went.

Which was to be expected. It was a low level dungeon after all, not a real world.

The difference between this camp and the one Rafe and the girls were from was that it was smaller. But that was hardly all.

There was a cave around which the whole camp was built. It was in this cave that Rafe and the others were led after a full hours rest.

There were two things that surprised Rafe in the central cave. First there was a shimmering portal. He would recognise the spatial mana it contained anywhere, although this particular portal was more stable than Rafe was used to.

The second thing was the group of Elemenoids standing around a gigantic crystalline thing. It was huge and rounded and it was transparent like plain glass, and it was lattice shaped, though Rafe could not count all its faces. The people standing around it had the look of people interacting with their status screen.

Rafe had seen something similar before, although the one he'd seen had been smaller and had a pedestal on which it sat. He had seen it next to the stage, next to his mother during the auction.

This one had what looked like a personalised stand made of the same material as the large crystal.

"We will not be teleporting to the castle," Helare declared.

The three or so technicians around the crystal stopped what they were doing and looked down at them. The ones who'd escorted them also stared at them uncomprehendingly.

"So then…" one of the technicians prompted with a tilt of the head.

"Get a communication node," Helare ordered. "Contact the best ship the swimmers can provide."

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

The way the word swimmers came out, Rafael suspected there was some kind of problem with his translation skill. He was sure whatever the real word Helare had used, swimmers was just a rough translation of. Could be he was about to learn more about Primus, even though he wasn't very desperate to.

The technicians brought out another crystal lattice, this one red and smaller than the first one, though not by much. They were both bigger than the one he'd seen with his mother back during the auction. He wondered what size had to do with their functions.

After they set up this smaller crystal on a pedestal much like the one from Earth, one of the technicians started interacting with his status again while everyone else simply watched.

"The red one is a communication node," Helare explained, probably after she saw Rafe focusing on the crystals too much.

He already knew though, because he had a skill he could use to get information on most things in the multiverse, as long as they didn't outrank him too much.

Name: Communication node(crystal)

Type: System peripheral implements (third model)

Description: A device created to mimic the connectivity of the ways of the system. This is an old version. It is too big and unwieldy and only allows voice over communication or the occasional text messages through the system.

As for the big one.

Name: Central node(receiver)

Type: System peripheral implements (second model)

Description: Used as a marker, other nodes are connected to it. It marks coordinates in space and time for any connected node to send users. It can also send users to any of its interconnected nodes, though they would need permission from someone on the other side.

The ways of the system was one of the primordials, the artificial gods the gods of Skyholm had created to stand watch over the multiverse. It seemed the ways was some kind of all purpose connection system. If there was some thing like the internet in the multiverse, then the ways was probably in charge of it. Or at least in charge of the inter-planetary version of it.

It seemed everything on any specific planet would need to be taken care of by the authorities on said planet. There were even implements like these, and Rafe was sure they weren't the only ones. After all, the system was based on things similar to computers, according to the Enchantress herself. And computers used a lot of peripheral devices. Even game consoles had a few essential implements.

The other primordials were more like software supporting the main operating system.

Rafe thought about it a little more. The system was like software, and the human body was its main terminal. Wherever it was that Enith had first created these primordials, that was where their mainframe could be found for maintenance.

And to take control of them as well, Rafe considered. If he wanted to take control of the system, he'd have to go to the mainframe. He'd also have to go there if he wanted to fix it. Although fix it how?

Anyway, the system and all its fellow primordials were universal software that every user in the multiverse got. Then the classes and skills were the specialised packages you only got if you met certain requirements.

And so there had been a need to create more hardware for the system, Rafe realised. Even for something like engraving, in fact, Rafe had seen special pens for it sold in the system market through Hestus. They had been insanely expensive, but they had been advertised as being very helpful for an engraver hoping to step up their game.

Rafe wasn't much of an engraver, so he had not looked into it much. Although he was interested. If he were to one day get a profession slot and turn into a real blacksmith, learning about engraving could help give him a direction to evolve his profession. But that was a consideration for future him.

There had been cooking devices that were said to send one a notification straight to their status. Rafe was violently not interested in cooking his own meals, let alone anyone else's. There were alchemy sets, special microphone-like things (at least according to the recorded functions), and even other kinds of musical implements.

There was nothing impressive for smithing he could see. There was a suit advertised to be completely fire proof that could let one use the hotest flames, but it was not an implement and was very expensive. The one implement he was interested in was an adjustable metal refinery. One could use it to refine any metal, to purify any ore.

It had been advertised for higher grade users though. In fact, most of these specific implements were said not to work for anyone below the peak of the E grade. Rafe wondered whether that had something to do with soul strength, or maybe the inventors of these things wanted the users to first strengthen their foundations before getting crutches.

He was still deep in his thoughts when the red crystal started to beep, pulsing and ringing very similarly to a phone call.

"We found a ship to transport you and your friends, your highness," the man handling the communication crystal said.

Helare only nodded, but in the direction of the central node. The other two technicians immediately started interacting with their status screens again.

Rafe frowned and started to approach Helare with a question, but then the central node started pulsing, and a familiar mana started to stir in the atmosphere.

He felt it when the spatial mana held him. It felt familiar somehow.

He arrived on a beach-like place, in front of another transparent crystal very similar to the central node although smaller. Helare and Filoria appeared at the exact same time, a few seconds after him.

He tried to take a step, but the consistency of the Earth beneath his feet was not what he was used to. He found himself swaying slightly, taking a few more steps than he'd intended to, to orient himself. The ground beneath him was not exactly soft, but loose somehow. Like sand on a beach. He had just formed the thought when he heard the distinct sound of lapping waves.

He turned around, and his breath caught in his throat.

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