While I waited for my Guild pals to show up, I checked my level and XP.

  Well that was disappointing.

  I had only received 700 XP.

  I shrugged to myself and decided that I didn't really care. If I wanted to level up like crazy, I'd just nuke the surface. I closed the window and continued watching my drones.

  The Newman's were working hard, but the metal was harder. They were getting some of it though. A very small amount. I took this time to test my new Omni Forge Skill, and reached out with my mental grasp.

  ...

  --------- Xyke ---------

  I am a blacksmith, an engineer, and a mechanic of passing skill.

  Not the best but certainly better than most.

  I don't know why they bothered to show me the video.

  My time was better spent working on my craft, but I had seen it all the same.

  The video of the Human, The Dark Lord Azurath, decimating an AP in minutes.

  I was surprised and scared, but the fear went away when I realized it was some intimidation Skill.

  Christinia had Gill go and scout the Human, which I thought was dumb. Why would someone that young and promising even consider us?

  I was proven wrong when Gill got back, bragging about how easy it was and how the Human had paid him 50 million Shop Points to punch Derth.

  Gill was always bragging about something or another, but the Human was his latest 'accomplishment.'

  I really should stop doubting Christinia, but it was just so hard to believe some of the things she says.

  Christinia is a very powerful psychic. Abnormally so. Some genetic quirk allows her to communicate telepathically, lift things with her mind, and even see the future sometimes.

  So what if I found it hard to believe a level 4 would save the entire mess we were in?

  We were going to ask an infant to go down to a world 200 times it's level. That's ridiculous.

  When the Human did show up, I had missed it.

  Fraya kept going on and on about how cute it was.

  She didn't have the same air about her when she practically dragged us to Communications.

  We watched while the kid looked at a Adamantium vein, not sure what to expect.

  Gill tried asking questions, but got no answer.

  Then it happened.

  We all felt the oppressing terror from whatever the skill he had used.

  "RISE."

  The Human spoke, and the world obeyed.

  The mountain lifted into the air, slowly gaining speed.

  As if that wasn't enough, a monster came from it and attacked the child.

  It died.

  There was no words.

  No movement.

  It simply ceased to be. Crumbling into a red mist.

  Like it was an illusion and not a Black Monster. Given it's name by it's 3 black unknown symbols for it's level.

  5 more monsters came.

  Red mist fell where they used to be.

  Then, as if growing impatient, the Human created a black hole half the mountains size.

  It vanished.

  We watched as he created another, smaller one, and walked through it.

  In an instant, the Human was back on the moon.

  A new mountain sat in a crater too small to hold it.

  I didn't bother waiting for orders.

  I was sprinting toward the small ship we had docked.

  I didn't care for the weird tricks the kid had.

  Or the way it had killed those monsters.

  What I cared about was the literal mountain of rare metal dropped into my reach.

  How many craftsmen like me could say they have access to an actual mountain of Adamantium?

  'One. Me.'

  I smirked as everyone else scrambled into the tiny ship, doing their checks.

  No one said a word.

  Once Christinia took her captains seat, we took off.

  Heading straight to the Human.

  ...

  --------- Greg ---------

  This was hard.

  The Adamantium did not want to leave its vein.

  I could, with extreme effort, slowly extract the metal by melting it and dragging it through the dirt. My Omni Forge Skill wasn't high enough level to work with it quickly.

  I didn't want to do that though. So I did the next best thing. I grabbed the stone and dirt clinging to the magical metal, and ripped it piece by piece. Tossing the stone and dirt away like trash, and exposing the vein more clearly.

  Now it looked like one of those aluminum cast ant hills, with all the branching shiny paths. Except this was a raw mineral and it was white like milk. When the light caught it just right, it had a silvery accent. kind of like a holographic playing card.

  I turned away from the massive exposed vein, and saw a rather small ship making it's way to the mountain. I didn't know if they could see me or not, but I gave them a friendly wave anyway.

  The ship, which was sharply angled and looked like a shitbox of a vehicle, landed down near the area I was. The door on it's side opened and 1 figure shot out of the opening. Going right over the ramp and ground. It ignored me as the humanoid was buzzing around the exposed vein like some crazed wasp. Then 3 figures walked up more calmly, but one looked nervous if the weird ticks were anything to go by.

  The suits they were wearing were different than Gill's, though he was there too. I recognized the nervous one as Fraya, which was surprisingly hard to do without her turtle neck sweater. Then I realized I was fucking stupid because I could use my Identification Skill now.

  "Sup guys. Got the first mountain ready to go." I said, smirking behind my visor.

  "First? Of course it's the first. You're going to do this again aren't you?" The buzzing weirdo behind me asked, not bothering to turn back as he hit the exposed vein with a tool. His name was Xyke.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  "Yep. Preferably Mythril or maybe that Unknown one. Though I wouldn't mind something mundane. Not much to work with up here." I nodded, not caring about the eccentric behind me.

  "That would be good. I feel as though I should have asked before our friend there started messing with the vein, but does the Guild have access to this mountain as well?" A feminine voice I recognized as Christinia asked.

  There was only 2 faces I didn't know now, and only one of them was in front of me. I gave the odd alien woman, my new 'boss' or 'leader', a nod. She was much taller than the others. Maybe 50 feet.

  "Of course. Though I do want the right to claim whatever I want if I bring it back to the moon." I posed like some arrogant young master, slipping into my persona.

  "That is fine. While our first meeting is... odd. I hope we can become friends, The Dark Lord Azurath." Christinia did a slight bow and I instantly hated it.

  "Just call me Azurath or Az. And no bowing!" I sighed and let the dumb persona go.

  "Very well, Az. What do you plan on doing now?" The Guild leader asked with a thoughtful expression.

  "Hmmm, either get another mountain or do some Dungeons." I looked up as I pondered the decision.

  "Dungeons? But you can't enter Dungeons." Gill smirked and gave me a look like I was some dumb kid.

  "Can the camera feed reach you guys if I go into a Dungeon? I'll do it right now. You guys could watch from my ship." Feeling challenged, I make a hasty decision.

  "It... Should. I don't know for sure. Will it not be... dangerous?" Fraya had gone from acting like an aunt to stand offish.

  "I can turn anything into dust. Which reminds me..." I turn slowly to the vein as I feel an idea form.

  With a mental probe and tug, I snap a branch off the vein like a dead stick. We all just gawk at the floating chunk of Adamantium. It was expensive as all hell, but compared to my 7 million Energy? It might as well have been nothing at all.

  "HOW?!" The weird guy screamed as he clutched his head with his hands.

  "I can sense everything down to a molecular level. I simply just... severed it? I don't know how else to describe it." I had a gut feeling that the metal would be much easier to forge now that it was separated from the rest of the vein.

  Before anyone could respond or ask another question, we all watched as the metal began to turn molten. It surprisingly didn't go red or anything. Just a clearer white as it liquified, turning into a perfect sphere like all the other liquids I hold with Telekinesis.

  "Huh... No touching! It's hot!" I called out as the weird one tried to touch it and I made it float higher, out of his reach.

  "Fascinating... You can sense things at a molecular level? I can only sense down to the pores on your skin." Christinia responded while we all watched the orb of liquid metal.

  "I have a lot of weird abilities. My species is... I'll just say that we don't like the word 'impossible'." I mused as I formed the liquid into several ingots.

  "Fitting. I see many things when I look at others, but you... You confuse me." Christinia gave me a soft smile. One you'd find on some all knowing older woman.

  I just shrug. Once I finish shaping the ingots, I'm left with 18 large rectangles of Adamantium the size of my forearm. Which is now 2 and a half feet long... 'I'll have to measure my new body later.'

  Using the OF skill, the ingots are rapidly cooled and become solid once again. As soon as they start lowering to the ground, Xyke jumps up and grabs one. I give him an odd look as he just dangles from the floating ingot. I let the one he's holding go and he falls back down slowly due to the low gravity. Xyke is looking at the ingot like it's the most precious thing he's ever held, like a newborn.

  I choose to ignore him while putting the other ingots into a neat pile.

  "Okay, well I'm going to go Dungeon diving. Gill knows where you can watch the feed. Which will be the tv in the recreational room." I start a call between me and my own ship, using my strange system interface to link the call to said tv.

  I don't wait for a response and teleport with a gate back to the surface. I'm met with a giant hole in the ground, right where the mountain used to be.

  I fly around, looking for a Dungeon. I keep the monster killing to a minimum. I don't want to reach a milestone too soon for Jerald to fix his connection. Despite his odd behavior toward me, I had grown attached to the weird blue box.

  It doesn't take long to find a Dungeon and I am once again thankful to my absolutely busted ass Luck. Which got me thinking about my green stats. 'Will I lose those stats if Jerald regains control?'

  Did I actually want that to happen? Did I really care about Jerald or was he manipulating my mind?

  I stopped caring. Why should it matter? He was fun to bully when I broke something. He get's to stick around.

  "Here we go, a classic Dungeon." I say while landing in front of the entrance.

  It looked like a cave. Nothing special about it at all. It looks quite well hidden, but I had found it because I'm a bullshit character with bullshit stats.

  "We're watching now, nice ship by the way. Very classy." Fraya's voice came from the headset built into the helmet. She sounded calmer now.

  "Thanks. Oh, wow. This is a high level Dungeon. Level 806." I put my hand on the gate and say the level so they know what it is.

  "Shouldn't you find a smaller one? Maybe they have one with a ball pit~." Gill teased me over the line, and I was too focused on how he knew what a ball pit was to care.

  I rolled my eyes, though they couldn't see it and strode into the Dungeon Gate. The other side was a cave. Of course it was.

  "You really can enter Dungeons?" Christinia chimed in, her voice pondering.

  "Hm hmm. I take it you can see?" I walked deeper in.

  "Not really, it's super dark. You can see in this?" Fraya spoke up.

  "Ah, I guess not everyone has super good night vision." I turned my helmet lights on, and 2 beams of white light from both sides of my head shown down into the darkness.

  I couldn't see any difference but from the sounds the others were making, it seemed like they could. Despite it being a cave, there wasn't any rubble or loose rock anywhere.

  "Have you done many Dungeons?" Christinia asked while I walked down the path.

  "At least 50 by now. It's how I could afford the drones and the ship. Speaking of which, I think you're going to enjoy the Treasure room." I smirked, remembering how the rewards will be multiplied by... 'the Level difference...!'

  "What? Why? We've all seen Treasure rooms before... Why'd you stop?" Gill spoke as I froze up.

  '806-5 is 801. So what ever the Treasure would be, it'll be multiplied by 801?!' I was still gawking at the number, and while I wanted to keep it a secret as a surprise, I decided to spill the beans.

  "So, the thing is... I have a skill that let's me ignore Dungeon restrictions, as you saw. However, it also multiplies the Treasure rewarded at the end." I spoke softly as I kept walking.

  "Oh really? By how much?" Gill sounded greedy.

  "Oh, you know. The Level difference." I replied nonchalantly.

  "Ah, ok so..." The line went deathly silent.

  "801..." Fraya whispered almost too quietly to be heard.

  "Yup." I smugly replied.

  The first monster showed up, and I didn't really want to fight nor get XP right now. So I crippled it. Well I tried to anyway. I severed the bonds in it's spine and it fell limply. My goal was to just paralyze the weird looking orange ape thing, but it just died. I sighed as I floated over it's massive dead form.

  "What did you do this time?" Gill asked, sounding curious.

  "Tried to paralyze it. Ended up killing it by accident. Severed it's spine around the base of it's neck." I said flatly.

  "Ah... Why?" Gill replied, sounding weirded out.

  "You wouldn't believe me even if I told you." I smirked, bait planted.

  "Wh-" Gill tried to ask but I cut him off.

  "Alright you convinced me. I have 2 systems fighting for control over me. One was once the great System, in charge of the entire universe and the other is a system corrupted by a being outside this universe. Something beyond the veil. Every time I hit a milestone, the corrupted system will likely gain more control. I think anyway. You catch that?" I ask, smugly.

  "... no. Not at all. Azurath, what you just said was..." Gill didn't have a single bit of smugness in it. It was pure concern.

  "Incomprehensible. It was just noise. Az, what the hell is happening?" Christinia sounded worried.

  "Wait, you didn't hear any of that?" That was weird.

  "None. We know it's not the connection, because we can hear the cave just fine. The words you spoke though... None of it was understandable. It... hurt. It actually hurt to listen to. We took psychic damage from that." Fraya was back to nervous whispering.

  "Hm. Odd. Ignore it then." So I couldn't speak of my 'secret'. It wasn't that important.

  "You really should stop telling everyone your secrets." Jerald spoke, sounding defeated.

  "You know I won't stop." I replied, smirking.

  "What?" Gill asked, probably frowning.

  "Sorry, I was talking to Jerald." I took down another monster, getting the paralysis correct this time.

  "Who..?" Fraya asked.

  "His system. He named it." Gill said while sighing. Though it sounded like he back to normal smug levels.

  I heard some giggles. I was hoping they were from Fraya. I felt pretty bad about freaking her out. She was one of the few who I actually interacted with. 'Maybe I'm lonely.'

  It didn't take long before I reached the boss room. There had only been apes so far, so there was likely an even bigger ape ahead. Though the monkey things were already pretty damn big.

  "Well, here's the boss room. Should be easy enough." I muttered and headed right in.

  My Guild pals or Guild mates, whatever the right term was, were silent as they watched. I was teleported to a large ravine, some kind of false sky above. Not sure how I knew it was fake, but I could tell. A gigantic monkey looked down at me from the top of the ravine. It was so large it couldn't fit inside the hole. I could only see it's shoulders and head.

  "Well aint you a big'n." I laughed as it roared fiercely.

  Stone cracked from the sound it released. If my body was normal, I wouldn't just be deaf. I'd be turned into paste from the pressure. Good thing I wasn't normal.

  I smirked up at the massive ape as it kept roaring. Then I saw some kind of light building up in it's throat. Fire maybe? That was intere-

  ...

  --------- Fraya ---------

  The Human had been cute.

  Childish and innocent.

  Or I had thought so.

  I was watching the Human go through a Dungeon many times his own.

  Many times mine.

  This child, barely a few hours after reaching level 5, was killing monsters without so much as looking at them.

  By his own admission, he wasn't even trying to.

  Now he was at the boss room, mocking the thing no one could possibly fight alone.

  Then the screen went white.

  Whatever audio there was, it was drowned out by the sheer noise from the roar. The camera was sturdy, so it should survive most things.

  That thing was not most things, but neither was the Human.

  We stared at the screen as the light faded.

  A white arm was holding a hand in front of the visor.

  The Human held it's hand up like it was blocking the suns rays, and the camera survived.

  The Human looked to be completely unscathed.

  I had to resist throwing up as the arm fell away, sliding off the visor. Exposing the ruined flesh and bone. The flames had eaten through the suit and partially through the Human.

  "Plasma, huh..." Azurath's voice came weakly, and wet.

  He looked down at himself, and we could see what had happened.

  The blast had knocked the Human down to his back, and... a charred hole was left where his legs and lower torso should be.

  Black, burned organs were laid on the ground. A tiny sliver of the suit the only thing holding him together.

  Flame still burned around the edges of the hole, the ribs exposed.

  "Welp, I'll have to pay you back for that." Azurath sounded nonplussed about his state. Like it was normal.

  No one spoke as he stood.

  He stood. Without a spine.

  It was impossible.

  A level 5 tanked something unimaginable, then stood without a spine.

  It made sense now. It truly did.

  "I'll just say that we don't like the word 'impossible.'"

  Azurath had said those words.

  Humans were impossible.

  Humans were scary.