Chapter 153: 143. Jay and Kleo, Rank 3

Jay’s visions and memories jumbled around as he woke up, finding himself falling gradually through the air, his arms flailing above him like a rag doll. With every blink, he would switch around views and memories. With one blink, he would see a canvas of giant blue water rolling underneath him. With another blink, he would experience getting thrashed around by a laughing old man in some dark deep place nobody sane or of low power should be able to reach.

The first view took further precedence than the other since the ocean water below was real. He could vaguely remember what he’d done to get beat around by a laughing old man in a deep dark place, but it was fading fast into blurry figments.

Now he had to contend with the endless blue canvas underneath him. It was a massive body of ocean water. He’d been falling slowly for a solid while now, his body emitting purple gravity light without him trying. He was high up, too. High enough to see the curvature of the world. And the more he woke up, the more he could perceive various forces that were large, small, conceptual, magical, and/or physical. It was almost too much at first until he adjusted to his new parameters of power. It took him some time to realize that he could handle these new and intense details way better than before. Way, way better.

Jay was incredibly more powerful now.

And transformed.

“Kleo,” Jay called before jolting back at the sound of his own voice.

His call sounded far deeper and smoother than before. It had an engrossing and rumbling purr to it. With just a touch of a bestial grouch. Like he was secretly some great and primal creature who was scarily good at presenting himself as a civilized and thoughtful person.

Jay liked it. Though it might throw off his little guy theme. Jay experimented with his voice and realized it could scale back to his original without too much difficulty. The deeper primal voice would definitely add more to his gravitas.

“Hey, Kleo, I could be the shortest Darth Vader ever with my new voice,” Jay said with a laugh, looking down at his chest.

He was wearing a Basic white t-shirt with a pair of black joggers, socks, and crocs. A relaxed and comfortable outfit. The shirt became almost see-through when Kleo’s form pulsated with dark purple gravity light from within Jay’s chest. It felt like Kleo had changed her home once again. Jay had a feeling that it was more spacious now. And it came with a new feature or two. He could tell through [Faerie Master] that Kleo was still getting familiarized with the changes and would be out shortly.

“Alright, I’ll be here,” Jay said. “Wherever here is.”

Jay pulled out his phone and checked the GPS. Thankfully, all key personnel of the Protectorates had international phone plans. While it would be funny to play out the common trope of the lost hero, Jay was both a hero of comedy and a teen of practicality. Or at least he tried to be.

“We’re three hundred miles east from the coast of Taiwan,” Jay said aloud, shocked. It was hard to believe they had floated long enough for the Earth to rotate right from under them. Now they were on the other side of the world. Jay figured he could see for himself if the GPS was accurate. He turned toward Taiwan and peered across hundreds of miles, spotting an island.

Even at his altitude, it shouldn’t be possible. The curvature of the world, air pollutants, clouds, and many other things should hinder Jay’s sight. And it truly did. But Jay cheated by using his updated 4D Headspace plus his vision. It was as if he was seeing with his own eyes from the future. But it was more of a future possibility that got hazier and mentally taxing the longer he looked. Jay shook off the vision.

He tried to look purely with his regular vision and noticed another trick. There was enough cloud and pollutant in the air to block his vision, hazing where he wanted to look without 4D headspace. But the curvature of the world stopped being a hindrance. Mike had told him once that the most excellent Systemless vision could see a candlelight in the dark from 25 miles away if unobstructed. Jay could see over a dozen times beyond that even while it was daytime, and he had obstructions in the way.

Either his vision forced reality to straighten itself for him to see. Or his vision bent with the curvature of Earth to continue seeing in the direction he wanted to gaze at.

It was more likely that his Perception and Intellect were absorbing light waves bent by gravity. By doing it this way, his Perception and Intellect and gravity powers could constantly update the visual image implanted in his head. It seemed like his eyes were ignoring the curvature of Earth, but they probably weren’t. It was just more gravity shenanigans. This was magic science at its whackiest.

Even more impressive was how Jay could think through all of that and come to some reasonable conclusions. His mind worked faster now. He could remember and understand a lot of the brainy conversations Mike and Lilith had held around him. This was because of a rise in his Intellect, which wasn’t even his preferred Attribute. His Perception was his best one, which was taking full advantage of its increased range.

Everything felt more lively now, too. More vivid. The colors looked brighter if he opened his Perception more to receiving light. The wind felt greater if he opened up his sense of touch. He could differentiate the taste of things from a distance with a lick of the air. He mostly tasted ocean water and salt right now, but it was more distinctive. And his hearing was ridiculously sharp. Just the wind blowing by would sound like a roaring storm if he didn’t dial down his senses carefully.

The great thing with having more heightened senses was the control aspect. He could fine-tune it easier instinctually and consciously.

Jay flicked his tail around in excitement, thrilled by Perceptions’ growing greatness.

While every Attribute had its benefits when chosen as the preferred, Jay was glad he’d lean into Perception the most. If he’d gone with Agility, which would’ve made sense to the Jay of the past, he wouldn’t fully capitalize on his great host of gravity sensory powers. Intellect could’ve been a decent choice, but that wouldn’t have been suitable to the Jay of the past. Now Intellect was a very welcomed secondary stat that helped Jay’s Perception, and Intellect knew it.

Floating above the Pacific ocean while three hundred miles away from Taiwan was putting Jay in a nice and cozy introspective mood. And he was bobbing around casually, up and down, not paying much mind to his System notifications as his new Skills leveled up.

“We should probably start looking at our System profile, Master,” Kleo said from within Jay’s chest.

Her voice was even louder, more guttural, and slightly warped like some creature speaking from within a dark and menacing tunnel. It was as shocking as it was amazing to hear for Jay. He placed his hand over his chest, right where Kleo wriggled around. Her home glowed with a pulsating dark purple light.

“Do you feel more comfortable staying inside of me?” Jay asked.

“I can come out,” Kleo said, fading back to her original voice just like Jay. “But my home has grown wider and greater here. And it has storage.”

“Really?”

“Pass me your phone.”

Jay slipped the device into his chest. It phrased through with a dark purple flash. He could feel a jostling movement inside before things settled down.

“It’s not a big space, but we can fit weapons and gear inside of you,” Kleo admitted. “Too bad you can’t fit storage magic in storage magic.”

“For now, you can’t,” Jay said.

Spatial bags and containers got weird when stored in other spatial bags and containers. It was not impossible. Special items such as canteens that could store more water than they looked could be stored in a spatial bag. But the canteen had a specific function while mostly anything else with spatial magic was made to fit more general stuff.

It could be guesswork sometimes. If a spatial item couldn’t fit inside another spatial item, it would get spat out. Maybe higher quality spatial items wouldn’t have that issue. And Jay was sure that Safe Zone Treasure Chests would probably ignore that. Spatially spacious rooms such as the cargo of his ships didn’t have issues with spatial storage items, so there was that, too.

“Let’s reconsider my storage capabilities another time since I might be an exception,” Jay said, licking around the inside of his mouth.

He was still missing a molar in the back from when Tim punched him. Jay also noticed his incisors were longer and almost beast-like. Letting go of his train of thoughts, he tongued the tip of his pointy k9s while flicking his tail back and forth rhythmically.

It took a while before Jay paid his tail more attention. It had fine black hair with a slight tuft at the end. It was straight and prehensile, and it responded to his whims, too. Jay maneuvered his tail effortlessly and gave himself a tail high-five. The thing was longer than his body, so it could reach further than his own arms.

“Huh, cool,” Jay said, using the round tip of his tail to scratch the corner of his jaw. He was now wondering how people could go without tails. They were awesome.

With further exploration, Jay found his nails came out naturally dark now. Almost hipster goth-like. Not really something he was into, but he could make it work.

At least the extra eye in the middle of his forehead was more functional, which didn’t get noticed until Jay’s gravity and divinity eyes looked one way while his third eye looked in the other direction. That was a trippy moment that messed with his Perception but brought attention to the new eye.

Using the front camera on his phone, he examined his new facial addition. It wasn’t like a normal eye. It was vertical, narrow, and shaped like a thin diamond. It had its own weirdo magic going on, too. When Jay concentrated on his third eye, he noticed it glowed with a black and dense light tinged with the darkest of purple.

“Nice,” Jay said. “A tail. A third eye. Some other cosmetic changes. I’m feeling mystical.”

Kleo exited through his back, phasing out of the shirt. She used her sharp little claws to climb up to his shoulder, taking a seat.

He examined her with all three eyes, and she examined him with her three eyes as well. But her third eye would only form when she entwined the new black and wiry antennas poking out from her forehead. The tips of her antennas would shape into a hanging diamond in front of her little forehead. Then the dense black light and abyssal purple would fill out the gap of the antenna diamond. The third eye of Kleo stared like a spooky cat’s eye.

She also had a new set of arms ending with little claws plucking and stringing around random bits of magic, and she had six gravity wings that would come out like purple thrusters from her back when activated. She zipped off Jay’s shoulder, flying faster than an arrow to cross a hundred feet, before zipping back to him and landing perfectly on his shoulder. Kleo grinned, her purple lips parting to show a full set of little shark-like chompers. Her little mouth didn’t speak of the size of her appetite now. Jay could feel that Kleo was hungry. Very hungry.

“I can’t remember what we did, Master,” Kleo said. “We’re more changed than I’ve predicted.”

Jay stroked his chin with his tail. “Maybe we went on a journey and… I don’t know. All I know is that it almost felt like being in the fourth dimension. But far, far away. And far, far deep.”

“Let’s look, Master, let’s look!” Kleo demanded, lunging at his neck with all her thirty fingers and toes. Her mouth absentmindedly chewed on him without drawing blood. It was a little scary having a monstrous familiar getting antsy with your neck. So, Jay quickly obliged to grant Kleo’s request.

With a flex of his willpower, Jay pulled up the System notifications, rearranged it to his preferences, and read with Kleo as they casually flew toward Taiwan.

Congrats! You’ve evolved Lesser Freak (You) to Rank 3! You’ve become a F-f-

You’ve become an Exceptional Freak!

[Exceptional Freak]: Throw aside safety, gamble away your humanity, and become one with your affinity. You may hope to come out more man than monster. But the power that’ll fill your veins will be yours to master regardless of your new *MONSTROUS* inhumanity. Damn the consequences and dance outside of the lines with your insanity. Every Class Level Up delivers *+10* Free Attribute Points for being exceptional.

Jay burst into laughter. Kleo giggled. They hadn’t gone two lines without the System messing up. Jay had exceeded even further than a Rank 3 should with his Class. The other Champions only received +9 AP a level up at Rank 3. Three of their Attribute Points were designated to preferential Attributes while the last six points were Free AP.

Jay’s push against his boundaries had earned him a little extra. That one extra AP was huge for his growth going forward. This added up quickly. He figured giving away his dungeon-earned Free AP wasn’t much of a sacrifice, especially if he could outpace most of his Champions naturally. He would have to work a little harder to ensure they could keep up with him, even if only halfway.

Oh, boy.

Your experiences from the prior ranks shape your rank-up gains! You’ve acquired +6 Resilience, +6 Poise, +6 Strength, +6 Agility, +6 Perception, +6 Intellect, +6 Conviction, +6 Discovery.

He was already off to a strong start, but now he was just overlapping everyone. This part of the evolution gave a flat raise to all the Attributes. The rank up from Rank 1 to Rank 2 had given Jay and mostly everyone in the Protectorates a raise of +2 to all Attributes. All the Champions and a few Soldiers and Agents had received +4 to all Attributes when they’d evolved to Rank 3, which seemed to be the limit until Jay broke that just now.

Again, it didn’t seem like much, but his Champions were already hard chargers. Others outside of the pantheon would probably gain a flat raise of +1 to +3 at most if they didn’t train and fight as hard as Jay’s Champions. The average on Earth right now (and around the Multiverse) would be a flat raise of +2 AP to all Attributes, or +16 AP in total, for anyone who reached Rank 3. His Champions earned +32 AP for their Rank 3 evolution because of their hard work. Jay earned +48 AP for his Rank 3 evolution for going above and beyond for such a long time. And that didn’t include Kleo’s rank up evolution gains.

Congrats! You’ve evolved Teeny Faerie (Creepy Kleo) to Rank 3! Kleo has become…

Kleo has become a Laevateinn Faerie!

…

Kleo’s experiences from the prior ranks shape your rank-up gains! You’ve acquired +3 Resilience, +6 Poise, +3 Strength, +6 Agility, +6 Perception, +3 Intellect, +3 Conviction, +6 Discovery.

This was escalating quickly. And this was just the start of Jay and Kleo’s changes. Without even looking at the level ups they’d earned, they already amassed +84 AP together. It could only go up from there.

“We haven’t even gotten to the meat and potatoes,” Jay said, “and this is already a lot to take in.”

“Don’t stop now, master.” Kleo crawled a circuit around Jay’s neck. The [Faerie] was filled with excitement. “We’re just getting to the good part. Start with my Type, then let’s look at your new Race!”

Jay pulled it up. The changes to Kleo’s Type came along with some heavy unforeseen sacrifices. Apparently, Skills weren’t the only things that could be combined to make new powers. Talents and Titles could do the same!

Your [Appetite For Divinity (Familiar)] Talent has been consumed!

Your [Faerie Devilry (Familiar)] Talent has been consumed!

Your [Punisher of the Divine (Familiar)] Talent has been consumed!

[Laevateinn Faerie]: Your great and impressive wings can carry you and your passenger across the largest of boundaries. Such barriers and gaps are the stuff most if not all mortals and immortals alike would find impassable. Apocalyptic catastrophes, powerful arcane magic, divine powers, devilish curses, ancient lore, secrets-riddled with prominence and calamity, entities that believe themselves to be untouchable or above you– these are all things you can seek, influence, and/or consume for extra power if you can overcome such. For you are a little behemoth, one who could pull apart the fabric of reality, weave yourself a far-reaching cloak of mysticism, and bring fortune to those you favor and doom to those you despise. Feast and play and let the weight of your existence put the fear of the Laevateinn– the lurker of the deep– into all but those you cherish and adore, such as the one who serves as your master and home. Every Type Level Up delivers +1 Poise, +1 Agility, +1 Perception, and +1 Discovery to your Master.

“Geez, Kleo, you really had to lay it on thick how scary you are, huh?” Jay asked.

“The fun part is when our enemies don’t see me coming until it’s too late,” Kleo said, her stomach groaning loudly. It made the air waver with purple gravity distortions and magical ripples.

“How hungry are you?” Jay asked, worried.

“Starving,” Kleo said. “But I think this is going to be a permanent thing now. I feel like I can keep eating and eating and eating if I’m allowed.”

Jay looked over Kleo’s Type description again. He imagined bullet-points for the most important bits:

[1] Kleo could cross seemingly impassable boundaries and gaps with a passenger.

[2] She could feast on many weird things for more magic power and Mana, perhaps.

[3] She could play with reality and magic to help friends and screw over their enemies.

[4] And being part Laevateinn was making her extra scary.

Jay wondered what the third point would lead to. To be fair, they hadn’t truly pushed Kleo’s abilities to the limit. She had served as mainly support for Jay during most battles. It would be good to explore more of Kleo’s whimsical and devilish side just to see the variety of tools they had at their disposal.

“We’re going to put some focus on you, Kleo, the next time we get to play around and practice,” Jay said. “I don’t think I’ve used you as well as I could have.”

Kleo flipped into the air and hovered in front of his face. Her three eyes regarded Jay’s face with an encouraging smile. “I’m okay with supporting. But if you want to see more of my powers, that’ll be fun, too.”

“Don’t stop being awesome,” Jay said, poking her belly.

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“I won’t!” Kleo said with a giggle. “Let’s look at your Race now.”

Jay gave Kleo’s Type description another glance. His attention refocused on the level up gains. Instead of getting +2 AP every time Kleo leveled up, Jay would now get +4 AP, which involved a majority of his favorite Attributes: Poise, Agility, Perception, and Discovery. With that now in mind, Jay moved on to his own race change.

Your [Monkey Boon] Talent has been consumed!

Your [Annihilation Resistance] Talent has been consumed!

Your [Challenger of the Divine] Title has been consumed!

You’ve evolved into a new Race!

Eldritch Monkey Scion: The Eldritch Monkeys are a long forgotten race of grand wizard warriors and daringly bold explorers. They once reigned supreme during a time when the Multiverse was still in its infancy and the rules of the System were close to nonexistence. This was the first era, the wildest and harshest of times until the Primordial legacy of the Eldritch Monkeys came to a violent end. Now there seems to be only you, a Scion to a supposedly dead race, a change borne from your freakish powers, your boundary-pushing feats, and your emptiness. Having such a race makes you naturally stronger in all areas compared to a human, granting you an additive bonus of 30% to all Attributes. You will receive highly extreme boosts in Resilience, Poise, Agility, and Discovery when faced with fun and/or challenging obstacles of a highly powerful nature. You will greatly resist outright annihilation from forces far above you. You are better at setting events to harm and/or kill a divine challenger. You gain +1 Perception with every Exceptional Freak Level Up.

“Huh, I’m a little sad that I don’t get Monkey Boon II,” Jay said, allowing himself to mourn a teensy bit.

Then he hooped aloud, flipping backward multiple times. There was no other way to respond to this momentous change other than with a cheer. Kleo cheered with him, too, celebrating themselves for leaving behind their former shells of existence. Especially at Rank 3. Maybe such drastic changes could’ve happened at the later ranks, but Jay felt all the effort into making this rank-up count would compound with interest in the future.

Becoming an Eldritch Monkey Scion made him better than a human. It ensured he could handle the greater challenges that were to come. The additional +1 Perception was pivotal, too. He hadn’t been feeding his preferred Attribute as much AP as he should’ve, unlike Brit who constantly dumped a majority of her AP into Conviction. That tactic nabbed her [Conviction Crusader II] at 300 AP.

Thinking of Brit filled Jay with rose-tinted joy. He felt their time together factored in on his evolution. He became something super awesome instead of super fiendish because of her love. But Jay also felt nervous, but he didn’t know why. He brushed aside the nervous feeling and moved onto the next fun thing.

Old Talent replaced! [Status Channels] → [Status Meditation]: You will passively see your Health, Stamina, and Mana recover significantly faster while outside of strenuous activities. By performing meditation, you can choose one of these three Statuses to boost the recovery even more. Using this Talent boosts Conviction considerably. Ranking up improves the Talent.

Old Talent replaced! [Mana Power Cycle (Familiar)] → [Mana Power Dominance (Familiar)]: When outside of your body, Kleo can charge up an ability for a dominating effect that could render the magic of your enemies and strip away Mana. A successful hit may allow Kleo to follow up with a repeat of the same charged-up ability using the Mana of the initial victim. Using this Talent boosts Intellect greatly. Ranking up improves the Talent.

New Talent Acquired! [Ranker 60]: You’ve pushed yourself to the absolute zenith in your prior ranks. Your Attributes are naturally 30% stronger with this Talent, which is additive. With extra willpower, you can exude 60% more of power from your Attributes with this Talent, which is still additive. Continue improving yourself to grow this Talent as you rank up.

New Talent Acquired! [Familiar 30]: Kleo has accomplished more than most familiars across the Multiverse. Your Attributes are naturally 15% stronger with this Talent when Kleo is near, which is additive. With extra willpower from Kleo, this Talent can exude 30% more power, which is still additive. Kleo can use this Talent for herself when she’s not near you. Kleo’s progress can grow this Talent as she ranks up.

“Okay, let me just pause here for a bit,” Jay said. “Getting [Status Meditation] and [Mana Power Dominance] is already amazing. But are you telling me the two of us combined can boost my Attributes to 120% when we’re going all out?”

“And that’s not including the boosts from all the other powers on our profile,” Kleo said. “The percentiles all add up together before applying the other boosts directly. For every additional thing we do or face that triggers a soft boost of ours, the System factors everything for us instantly.”

It was times like these that having a System was more than necessary. Still, Jay was a little sad that there might’ve been a missed opportunity for his Champions.

“If I knew familiars can get something similar to the Ranker Percentile, I would’ve pushed that angle with Gatanna and Fuzzy.”

Kleo shook her head. “I don’t think it would be that easy. I stepped in to fulfill a role nobody else can. Acting Pantheon Leader is beyond Gatanna and Fuzzy’s capabilities even if they’re pretty good familiars already.”

Jay stroked his chin with the tip of his tail. He really enjoyed doing that now. “Yeah, you’re right. You’re the cream of the crop, Kleo.”

“Of course,” she said. “Ready for the next five powers?”

“One monstrous Talent and four stupidly powerful Skills,” Jay said reverently. “This is the point where I can’t even pretend to be a little guy anymore.”

His height hadn’t changed, but his powers were immense!

“Maybe you still can. It’ll make the reveals even more fun!” Kleo cheered.

“Okay, okay. With just a glance I can tell this is some overpowered cheese,” Jay said. “Let’s save the uber overpowered Talent for last. Let’s look over our new Skills.”

“I’m game.” Kleo was so happy, her hunger was subdued. She tucked herself into the neck of her master’s shirt, wriggling around while filled with thrill.

Jay didn’t blame her for being crazy excited. Their profile combined a bunch of Skills and came out with some ridiculously multifaceted powers. And they would get to grow them again all the way from Level 1, which wasn’t as off-putting as it sounded. Part of the pleasure of using Skills was seeing them progress from okayish to breathtakingly amazing.

“Let’s start with the Skills that got us to the dance floor in the first place,” Jay said.

Two Skills have been replaced! [Moonwalker] and [Dance Floor Relativity] → [Relativity Sovereignty, Level 1]: This Skill has three notable perks. The Mana costs will vary depending on physical properties, magical defenses, resistances, successes, and complexities. Raising this Skill level will improve Perception scaling greatly, overall magic power, depth of control, and additional range.

[1] You can passively or actively lower and reorientate gravity’s effect on you and/or your allies.

[2] You can actively extend magic fields to catch and manipulate the gravity of multiple neutral parties, enemies, and items. Touching your targets will enhance your power over them.

[3] You can set domains that fuse with reality and magic, establishing simple gravity-based rules, benefits, and consequences within the boundaries of your domains. These rules will affect allies, enemies, and neutral parties the same. The person who establishes a domain cannot use this Skill while their domain is active. And once the domain becomes inactive, the one who sets it cannot use this Skill for a long duration.

“Uh,” Jay said.

“Huh. Wow. That’s way better than the replaced ones,” Kleo said.

“We can do domains now?” Jay said, mouth hanging open.

“I wouldn’t get too excited. That’s going to be costly for us. And there are so many factors.”

“Kleo, the wording makes it sound like we can establish two domains at the same time.” Jay grabbed his Intellect and pushed it for all it got. “We could have them overlap or lay them on top of each other and just screw with people.”

“If we do that, we’ll both be on cooldown for our main Skill and have to follow the rules of our own making,” Kleo pointed out. “And what rules would we make?”

“The sky’s the floor is one,” Jay said.

“Huh. That was actually simpler than I thought.” Kleo lifted halfway out of his shirt and rubbed together two out of her four hands. “This keeps getting better and better.”

Two Skills have been replaced! [Orbital Mastery (Familiar)] and [Gravity Mastery (Familiar)] → [Gravital Supremacy, Level 1]: You and Kleo naturally improve the efficiency, power, range, cost, and scaling of your gravity powers separately. These improvements are heightened further when together. Gravity powers used against you can be weakened. Gravity powers used by your allies can be improved. You can also establish an orbit on someone or something you gravitate towards, reducing or increasing their Mana costs moderately either with yourself or with Kleo in orbit. Leveling up this Skill improves orbital control, overall gravity mastery, and adds tiny bonuses to the Mana reductions or increases to whoever or whatever you and Kleo can orbit.

“I like the wording on this one,” Jay said. “It takes out some limitations from prior and mixes them together in the best ways.”

“Way simpler, too,” Kleo said. “We make gravity better and magic less costly for us and our friends.”

“And it has some other tricks I have in mind.”

“Those are some crazy tricks. It even increases Mana costs on the enemies we gravitate toward.”

Jay chuckled darkly. He was going to troll the bad guys so hard. He moved on to the next.

This one was more complex.

Three Skills have been replaced! [One Heavy Step], [Weighted Touch], and [Graviton Wall (Familiar)] → [Graviton Monster, Level 1]: Turn Mana into Gravitons– mythical gravity particles– and use them for multiple perks. Mana costs vary from high to highly extreme depending on uses. Leveling up improves control and Perception scaling for all the listed effects:

[1] Absorb gravitons into your body to expand your physical properties, increasing your Resilience, Poise, and Strength based on your magic power. Consequently, your Agility will decrease drastically.

[2] Implant gravitons on targets or your abilities by direct touch and increase their weight, making gravity magic stronger and more effective on the affected.

[2] Conjure and manipulate voluminous and fast moving clusters of gravitons. Upon emission, these gravitons will increase the weight of those affected. It will also make gravity magic stronger and more effective on the affected.

Kleo reached out with one of four hands. She concentrated on the area in front of her and spawned a rotating ball of shifty gravitons. When she released her control of it, the ball burst and sent a wave of gravity everywhere. It shoved at Jay gently and coated him in little purple particles that faded away slowly. He felt a little heavier until the particles disappeared. But while he was coated in graviton, he also felt it was easier to manipulate his gravity, which was strange. It seemed to cost more to exude gravitons to enhance gravity magic than to use gravity magic directly.

Just like the previous Graviton Wall, [Graviton Monster] required testing.

“You think we can still do gravity dash pads?” Jay asked.

“I’m not sure. Probably not. We might have to think differently about how our powers work now,” Kleo said. “It’s interesting that it absorbed one of my Skills to make you a new one. And this one has lots and lots of uses.”

“All of our powers have lots of uses,” Jay noted. “We’re not basic. We’re playing with some hardcore stuff. And not all the limitations are gone. I still get the Agility penalty if I use [Graviton Monster] like a tank.”

“You can crush people with this one alone, Master,” Kleo said. “Giant Jay incoming?”

“Giant Jay who can now grapple on top of everything else.”

“Really? Giant gravity slams are a thing now?”

“Totally,” Jay said, patting his familiar’s head with his tail. “The last one is yours. And I can tell it’s going to be the best Skill yet.”

“You’re making me nervous!”

Jay laughed as he revealed the last new Skill. This one nearly blew everything else out of the water.

Four Skills have been replaced! [Manasinger (Familiar)], [Judging Finger That Cuts Divinity (Familiar)], [Faerie’s Voice (Faerie)], [Cloak of Freakish Relativity] → [Cosmic Showrunner (Familiar), Level 1]: You and Kleo are more than the main actors, you’re also directors, producers, and writers. You’re the guiding hands working behind the scenes. Leveling up gradually improves all the listed perks of this Skill:

[1] The sound of your voices can improve the magic power, Mana recovery, and the choreography of your favored story leads.

[2] Your voices can also manipulate enemies with penetrable Poise/magic defenses/mental resistances, especially if you see them as simple mooks with low Chance and narrative importance. At the very least, you can make enemies pay up more Mana for being on your stage and feed you a small percentage from each.

[3] And if you ever need to up the ante, designate a hero with a climactic power up. They will be empowered to judge and hurt divine foes or lesser, especially if it’s someone outside of you and Kleo. The designated hero gets a snazzy cosmic cape and a big change in style. Their power up will boost their Attributes depending on the difference between their power and yours plus the situation. The designated hero will have most attacks made against them bend and distort. And Chance will be forced to favor the designated hero if there isn’t a greater hero or something hugely obstructive in the scene. Only one hero can be designated, and doing so will put this entire Skill on a long cool down for both you and Kleo.

“The hero can be me, you, or anyone we favor, Master,” Kleo added as further context.

“And it doesn’t count as a Super Skill, or anything special, so we can use our voices separately or together,” Jay commented. “We just have to keep in mind that we’re both on cooldown if a designated hero is used. But other than that, this really takes the cake, Kleo.”

“If I’m a cake, I’ll wanna eat myself!” Kleo cheered, somersaulting through the air.

Jay laughed as he flipped through the air, taking full advantage of [Relativity Sovereignty].

Relativity Sovereignty leveled up from 1 to 4!

Gravital Supremacy leveled up from 1 to 5!

Graviton Monster leveled up from 1 to 3!

Jay and Kleo smiled at their Skill level up notifications. On YoAnna, it was nice seeing more of those again. And they would get to level them up all the way to Skill Level 60 now!

This was only possible because both Jay and Kleo had reached Level 31 and exceeded Level 45 in their Class and Type. Those were the levels where Skill replacements and gains were involved with Rank 3. The duo had stored up a lot of Experience from their individual efforts at Rank 2. The result of such would become more clear once they examined their level ups and total AP gains.

“Should we finish up?” Kleo asked.

“Nah, let’s save [Eyes of the Abyssal Monk] for after we get something to eat,” Jay said, looking down. “I’m hungry.”

They were right above Taiwan now. He wondered what the local cuisine was like. He and Kleo might have to struggle a bit to ask around, using Jay’s limited Chinese and the help of meta-g. Regardless of the difficulty, Jay was determined to find some good chow after so much groundbreaking change.

“Is Taiwanese tasty?” Kleo asked.

Jay narrowed his eyes, feeling suspicious of Kleo’s question.

The laevateinn menace tried to smile innocently. She showed too many pointy teeth for that to work.