She was a handful, that Daughter. Dasha departed imdiately and gestured at Xavier, who was waiting outside, to follow. "The Silent Forest. Tell everything you know," Dasha ordered.
Xavier lowered his hat. "It has been a while since I’ve heard that na. Almost eight years now since the Golden Generation."
"Daughter implied you yourself ventured through the forest."
"I did. It was before I joined the Whispers. At the ti, I was in a four-man party. I wandered for a month before I was allowed out."
They walked through the corridor. "A month?"
"It seems to be a mix of a scenario and a raid. All players are within one designated space and cannot leave until either the main objective is complete or the ti runs out. So say it is the sa Gate 13 every ti. A rumour went around during its previous appearance that a corpse of a young prodigy samurai was there."
"What makes it so difficult?" Dasha asked. "Inexperienced players cannot be everything."
"Many things. It is eerie quiet, to the point that you can hear your own heartbeat. You cannot see, for there is a fog that blurs your vision as well as your mana sensing capabilities. It is plain confusing and mysterious and that it what makes it terrifying. It always feels like you are alone, even if you are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with another. No information is given either. Not even a hint."
They made a sharp turn and down the stairs they went. They went through the front door. They ignored the ghosts and converged into the roads of the Dark Sector. Dasha planned to et up with Li Ch’ang-yu.
"Mana sensing..." Dasha repeated. "...does that include Qi Sense?"
"Indeed."
"Why? The principles of Qi Sensing and Mana Sensitivity are fundantally different. Qi Sensing is a radar created by pulses of Qi. Mana Sensitivity is the body’s sensitivity to magic akin to sensing temperature. One can be honed through training. The other is largely innate."
"I couldn’t say," said Xaxier. "I possess neither skill and relied solely on my five senses. All I know is that the mist functions as a mana disruptor on all levels."
"Noted then. The fog is of a magical quality that disturbs magical sensing of all kinds and sight. I presu hearing is spared?"
"Yes. Screams can be heard regularly through the fog. It is the one sense that is reliable."
"What monsters roam it?"
"Just the will-o’-the-wisps and Witte Wieven. Both are dangerous in their own right. The wisps are fire creatures that chase violently and are attracted to prayer. The more they hear of it, the stronger they get. As for the Witte Wieven, they are Dutch spirits that play pranks on the wanderers. Won said to be elves or the manifestation of dead wise won. Ghosts, so to speak. They rarely fight and if they do...death is very common. I ca upon one myself but managed to sneak past it."
"Do you recall their levels?"
"Apologies. I cannot. It was long ago now. However, I doubt they are higher than Level 30. It is their quantity and wandering nature that captures the souls of players,"
"Level 30 or 40, it hardly matters. I doubt they will trouble in battle. However, overstaying my visit will be an issue. I cannot let myself get trapped."
Dasha alone was running the Dream th production. Until demand kicked off to the point of self-sufficient profit and Daughter was convinced of its future, he could not let himself be dragged from his lab for too long. All the power in the world wouldn’t matter if he couldn’t solve this gate effectively.
"You obsess over a perfect run," Xavier pointed out. "There is nothing wrong with mistakes."
"For you, perhaps, but not for ."
Dasha gravitated toward cultivation for a reason. He sought perfection. He sought goals beyond the limitations of humanity. If he did not seek perfection in all things, then what was he? Just another human. Just ordinary. There was not a day in his life that he ever considered himself ordinary. These people couldn’t possibly understand what it ant to be him. To turn around and see nothing but flaws when they could be so much more. Under his will, they could be. Under Dasha’s gaze, all would be right.
It was not arrogance, it was fact. He was better. Smarter. In every relevant capacity, he was superior. Because he was superior, he needed to complete this gate. He needed to do that which no one else in the history of the Heavenly Gas had. The overhead lamps of the Dark Sector cast a shadow on his mask. Then, as soone walked by, he montarily disappeared and reappeared.
Xavier continued to walk beside him. His five senses must have been honed to the level of the legendary elves to be matching his pace. His invisibility cloak seed to an nothing to him.
Dasha was superior—but he did not stand as the most superior. On Earth, it was the sa. Presidents, generals, senators, all fools that possessed power unworthy to them. All not understanding what they possessed. He had been scheming all his life to take over and rule the Aricas. By the ti he was a teenager, he was already amongst the hundred richest n in the world. He established an alternate to fracking and pushed Singapore to being the oil hub in not only Asia but the whole world. His father had the tiniest opening in that industry as an ordinary, naless worker. Dasha took that opening, kicked the door wide open and constructed a castle on top of it.
As a professor at an elite university, he then set-up political connections and servitude. At the age of twenty-two, the foundations were laid and he planned to publicly exert his influence; and died before he could do so. In this world, that would not happen. n looked to gods while the gods looked down on n. This world, this abyss, everything was created from the rging of this dynamic. Dasha would trample upon the heads of gods and n alike and force them to their knees.
Dasha arrived at the Moon Club and opened the door. Yes, in a year, everything in the Dark Sector would beco his.
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