[Adrian's POV!]
The entire area turned black as I used my skill on that artifact. At first I thought that it might not work given the grade of that artifact, but seeing how all my senses are blinded right now, I guess it is working?
'I can think fine but that's all I could do, huh?' I thought as I tried looking around. Though I couldn't tell that either. Given how my sense of touch was gone, I could barely even feel anything.
"??" And then after a few seconds passed, I felt the movements of my chest, more specifically of this beating heart of mine. It pumped blood in all directions of my body, reaching the very corners of my body. The heating sensation returned first, as I felt my body heating before a cold swept all around my body, calming down the rising temperature.
And as the cold increased, the sensation of my body returned, as I could feel myself floating. Floating in the air? Or was it water? My senses weren't strong enough to tell really. Even the map was showing blank as I tried looking at it.
With the sense of touch returning, the next was the sense of vision. My eyes slowly adjusted to the light around my area. It wasn't really bright, as I could barely see the light coming from above. But given the surroundings that I could make out, I finally understood where I was.
It was in deep water.
[Kinetic Mastery!]
My body readjusted itself, as I began floating up slowly. Looking around, I held my breath, and using the [The one], I focused on the conversion of the Energy into oxygen to breathe while I reached the surface slowly.
-Splash!
And then coming out of the water, I spat the water out of my mouth. Slowly using the [Kinetic Mastery!], I stepped out of the water body and stood on it. Looking around the area, I saw as far as I could.
[Mapping!]
As my powers returned, I mapped everything around before using [Spatial Mastery!] to check everything around me.
A blue sky above me, while a green forest around the lake that I was standing on. Not far from here, there was a huge city that seemed to be rather lively. And then before I could even take a step, I felt someone's presence a bit far behind me.
Someone was watching me from a distance opposite to where the city was. On the map, it showed a small house that was made up of wood and stones. Though it looked rather lavish for the materials it was built with.
Even though I didn't know who was there, I felt like I would find my answers there instead of the city. And hence, I moved towards that place as fast as I could. One step at a time, rushing through the forest, I reached there as I crossed the dense forest and found myself standing in front of that hut.
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I looked through the [Map] and also through the [Spatial Sense] that I had. And all I found was that the hut was rather normal with a single person sitting inside there, reading a book while enjoying a cup of tea.
Though things seemed simple, there were two things that put my guard up.
One was that the color on the map, of that guy inside the hut, was white. Similar to what I have, just like the two that I have seen before in the forest when I was with Mark. And the other was
[You do not have enough Authority to look into this person's status. Increase your Authority if you want to see the information about this individual!]
I first wondered if I should just give up since the danger would be too much, but then thinking about the new skill that I had, I decided to give it a try.
'All right. Here goes nothing,' I braced myself as I opened the door. Though what I found inside the hut was something that I never expected to see at all.
"Hmmm?" That guy turned towards me with eyes observing me from top to bottom, and as if his eyes could see through my entirety, he widened for a bit. I wanted to run but before I could do so, he spoke,
"That bastard… I asked him not to disturb you…. "
He gritted his teeth as he then sighed before observing me carefully as he asked," you seem to have a lot of questions. I am afraid I can't answer all of them though… the less you know the better."
His eyes were angry but they weren't directed to me. Perhaps the guy who gave me the artifact? Or perhaps someone else? Though… It was true. I had so many questions that I wanted to ask. Starting from the very fact…
"Why do you look like… me? Are you me?" I asked. It sounded stupid, yet it sounded the most important question to ask right now.
"Maybe? We have the same start…. Though given the path you have taken, I doubt you are going to meet the same end as me," he answered as he looked at me with a smile. He seemed to be satisfied for some reason.
"An alternate timeline? Or the future?" I asked the next question. Somehow… I never once doubted all this to be an illusion. Somehow, my instincts told me that the person in front of me was me… and somehow… There was something entirely different about him.
"An alternate reality to be precise," he answered again as he then began thinking about something and then asked," would you like to have a walk with me? I was just finishing this book's last pages."
He showed me a book named [At the Edge of Pathmaker's Life], before he put it down and continued," now I want to witness the end myself."
"The end?" I questioned as he then began walking towards me, and then passing me as he moved outside the hut, he then stopped.
"What are you waiting for? Let's go. We don't have much time left," he urged me to hurry up, as he then continued walking, while I started following him.
"Well. You must be in the Tower right now. It's good. Even though you aren't supposed to see me… I guess not entirely everything is wrong with this situation. While I cannot tell you everything for your own safety, there are at least a few things I can guide you with," he began speaking as he then created a [Map], similar to the one that I had… just a bit more advanced… far more precise than mine.
"We are going to go there," he pointed at a place about a mile away from here, before he closed the map and continued,
"Let's start with a warning and an advice. The warning is simple, don't get out of the tower from any other exit other than the one at 100th Floor. The reason is simple, if you can reach the 100th floor, your strength should be good enough to handle the problems outside the tower as well. If you try any other way before that, you will set your destiny at a wrong path."
I have more questions now. Though I kept quiet. As we walked, I kept listening to him.
"The advice is… the people you meet in the tower. Can you save everyone? The more people you have with you in the end, the more you can save at the last point. It might be confusing, but I was too rash with my goals. So, try to keep the kill count to minimum. And yeah, I am not just talking about the players, but the NPCs, the Admins, the Gods, everyone that is present there."
I looked at him with my eyes narrowed. He seemed to be sad. And the more I looked at him, the more questions I had for him. Maybe I will ask the question when we reach the spot. It's not that far anyway.
And as we reached our destination he slowed down a little and turned towards me.
"Adrian. You are not 'a' Game Master but 'The' Game Master. Use your powers properly… there is nothing that is out of reach for you. And most importantly… preserve what you have," he spoke before he looked at the two girls that were moving towards us.
"Master Adrian. I thought you were going to disappear again," one of the girls spoke, while Adrian looked in the sky, far far away, as if his gaze was piercing through the sky. His eyes saddened as he spoke,
"Anna. Leena. It's over… seems like it's really the end."
The faces of Anna and Leena, the two girls, crumbled as a couple of tears escaped their eyes. Though they still smiled as they spoke,"I guess, this is the end then."
Both the girls held each other's hand, while my eyes widened at the phenomenon that I saw in front of my eyes. I saw the sky breaking, and the distant land was crumbling. Everything around was turning into ashes and then disappearing.
"Also… Looking at your status… I guess, I can at least point this out," Adrian spoke to me, with a slight chuckle as half of his entire body was breaking. He continued with the same smile,"you are a Game master. You don't need to follow the rules, you know? Nobody said that you can have only one Gift."
And then he vanished as I kept looking at the area where his body was. Before it crumbled into nothingness. Searᴄh the Novelƒire(.)ne*t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.
Everything turned black for a moment as I found myself in an empty space again… before my eyes opened and I was standing at the same place before I came to that crumbling world. I was back in the Tutorial.
This time, with more questions than before.