Part 1 – Nether Fortress

  Getting close to it now I realise how big it was. It wasn't some small fort but something that could live up to its name as a fortress. One main buildings with countless other side attachments made to enchant the entire building in whole. And every inch of it was made of this black material that seems like brick at least but was harder and stronger than normal stuff you could get.

  Due to possibly the extra buildings that were added after it was first made, the fortress itself seem to be unbalanced with it being more like a rectangular shaped fortress instead of the usual square or even circle style ones. However this place was really sturdy, I couldn't even make a decent dent into the walls even though I was using Earth Magic that was being boosted by this place to destroy the walls.

  “Earth Destruction! Earth Destruction!”

  It took a few minutes and possibly hundreds of casting the same spell over and over again in which a hole big enough for me to get into was created. In the actual fortress itself, it was actually quite empty even though there were possibly hundreds of creatures in here at a time.

  It was either because the monsters in this fortress gather at certain places more than others, there are places you can't get to normally or its just that this place is too big.

  “Hmm...I wonder where I can go from here now.”

  According to the information given by the game, there should be some sort of portal back....considering that I fell into this place in the first place, there should be more than one portal at least. But I don't know where any of the other ones could be. But I'm pretty sure that there's at least one portal here though may be inactive in this place however.

  Plop~ Plop~

  Hmm....? An enemy?

  I expanded my range of soul scan and sort of saw some weird shaped being. I walked to it and my eyes confirmed that thought as well. It was a large creature that was in the shape of a cube and it was around 3 metres in perfect diameter as a cube. It was red and black with large yellow eyes at the front and it was....hopping around....

  “What the hell is this thing?” I asked to no one in particular.

  With those words it seems like this strange creature saw me and hopped on me while I was still stunned by its appearance and movements.

  Smack~

  “Ow!”

  That actually hurt! Damn this thing and every other damn thing in this damn dimension!

  I took my Divine Sword and stabbed into the creature several times until it died. Then....it split into 4 smaller creatures that looked exactly the same but it was just smaller.....around 1 metres in diameter now.

  The 4 red and black cube things that resembles slimes hopped around without care attacking me....doing no damage at all....why do I feel pity to this creature?

  Taking my sword more in an emotion I don't understand rather than rage, I killed these 4 creatures in front of me. And....another 4 appeared from the corpse of each of them making 16 of them in total.

  “....”

  What was going on here? I killed them all as well and they dropped some interesting items. It looked like some sort of ball but was sort of like dust or slime in content. It was also in the colour of its eyes as well.

  “I better keep these....they may come in handy soon after.”

  Pocketing those items that dropped in large quantity, I continued walking in the fortress. Another thing I noticed about this place was there were often fences around this place. I mean in the gaps between the walls were fences that were placed there for no reason. What was the purpose of such a thing? Was it only to be it look better in design or was there another reason....

  Rackle Rackle...

  Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuush!

  Dodging whatever attack as that I looked and saw a skeleton. A grey skeleton with a bow in its hand. It was the first time I seen something in this place use a bow. Of course creatures that used bow or magic or any kind of range attack was rarer than the other types for some reason....well it was more like they didn't have the materials or skills or intelligence to do so. You don't see an Orc use a bow...well what would happen if they had a bow that could withstand their strength and they could aim.....instant death cannon....

  Well onto topics other than instant death machines.....I noticed another thing. Everything was strangely......block like. I mean the fortress itself was designed in such a way that everything was a block. There was no spiral stairways or even circles in this place.

  Walking up the stairs there were also some weird looking plants on the side on some of the unique dirt only found in this place....well it was literally everywhere in this dimension but I never seen it anywhere else besides in this dimension.

  Picking some up I placed them in my inventory as well before heading a level higher. The fortress was really tall so I expect there would be several levels in it and perhaps a basement or underground level as well but I haven't seen any stairs leading that down yet.

  “Ruuuuurhuuuuuuuuuuuur”

  What was that noise....? I started to head to my way further up in this fortress making sure to avoid the pigmen creatures and fighting the variety of skeletons I see since they give good experience to me.

  When I reached the top of the fortress was....fire elementals? No these guys were different from the fire elementals that didn't have a physical body. These guys did. With poles as their body and being bind together by flames, they floated in the air in which moved around slowly. There were 5 of them....

  I tried to sneak away since I rather not fight them yet...

  Creeeeeeeakkkkk!

  “....”

  Not again....why does this always happen at the worst possible timing?

  “Ruuuuurhuuuuuuuuuuuur”

  Pin Pin Pin

  The strange fire creatures fired fireballs at me in the form of what seems to be literally some sort of ball with flames around it.

  “Mana Shield!”

  Casting a mana shield to protect myself from the attack, I started my counter attack.

  Wind Formation ? Blade Form ? Wind Blade

  “Wind Blade!”

  I gathered wind in my hand and threw it at one of those fire creatures. It narrowly hit it and it made a mechanical sound as it was hurt my the attack. One of those rods things were damaged by my attack. Was that their weakness.

  I continued to gather wind blades and fired them at the fire creatures at mass. Eventually their numbers whittled down to only 2. However my mana shield was sort of half melted now and one of their attacks broke through to hit me.

  Instantly my body was covered in flames as the ball covered in flames broke.

  Was there some sort of flammable liquid in them which allowed the flames to spread to my body? Damn I can't even use water to get it off. I rolled on the ground while still being fired by those attacks and got to cover where I rolled in the dirt until the flames went away.

  A bit pissed now I used Earth magic against these things.

  Earth Formation ? Spike Form ? Earth Spikes

  “Earth Spikes!” I shouted slamming my hand to the ground.

  The ground under the fire creatures shook and dirt and other material gathered through the floor and hit the fire creatures several times.

  Wind Formation ? Blade Form ? Wind Blade

  “Wind Blade!”

  Taking this chance I killed the rest of the two with Wind blades which ended the battle.

  Part 2 – An update on things happening

  Back out of the game, it had been around 6 or so months in the game since I ended up in that place and that means 6 months in with the training. And that means a quarter of the time in which we have to prepare.

  In that time period I had gained around 17 levels at most leaving me at a level of around 368. At this rate I would be a bit short when the time comes after 2 years end.

  “How many times have you guys levelled up?” I asked the two. Every month or so we gathered out of the game in this virtual space to talk about what to do and what progress we made over the month.

  “This month we gained only 4 levels since we had to go to the central continent and stop the nobles on the border from invading the place. There had to be a line of church troops to stop their march. Really saddening when an army had to be made to stop an army” said Alexandra sighing. Viv continued with his words.

  “While I was with Al, I encounter a number of dead spirits that wanted help and I couldn't deny as well. Although some certain skills increased, it wasn't related to the ones I need to fight with. Though I could just summon and command a ghost army when the time comes.”

  “Are you trying to make a horror film or something? Nothing too flashy that will make other people notice us. I went through the videos that other people took a while back....” I said denying Viv from creating a possibly powerful army but at the same time a attention drawing one as well.

  Some of those videos were really exciting for most parts but most of them were really just we slaughtering a large number of things by ourselves whether it was monster, NPCS or other players. There were lots of talks of whether we were actually event creatures or not since we never seem to give the impression of being players....

  “What about you Eden?” asked Viv.

  “Ah, finally got to that black fortress the game was talking about. Maybe I'll be able to find a way out soon....sigh....this would never happen if I could find the portal I fell through of to begin with.....”

  Alexandra waved her hand casually dismissing my words and said, “With your luck, I'm surprise you really didn't end up in the real hell.”

  That's true. When I got there I really expected it to be hell with all the heat and lava and strong powerful monsters as well...

  “Also didn't you say that the place increased your skills with fire and earth magic as well? Something like your body remembering the feeling of the power over those spells and such increasing your skill levels in those types of magicks?” she continued.

  What Alexandra was talking about was some messages saying that the speed that my skills with Fire and earth increased faster than normal in that place. Its whole effects on me wasn't completely known but I had a feeling that my skills with those types of magicks increased faster than other elements in that place.

  “The only problem is that I never heard of the place called 'The Nether' before on the forums at all” I sighed. There was literally no information about the place besides the things I had to learn about it.

  [I can explain that]

  “Eh?”

  There was some sort of robot body next to meeeeeeeee!

  “Ah!” I screamed of the sudden appearance of the thing sitting next to me. Calming down and shouted, “Don't do that!”

  [In that case I will change the way I will appear in this virtual realm in the future. Next time may be as a tentacle monster in the bath]

  “....”

  What is this horrible sense of humour.

  [To answer your question, that place called the Nether is a leftover piece of code from simulations that I had done of other games integrating their game mechanics with virtual reality as a test run before this game was finalised. My creator wanted some Easter Eggs about those games since it helped him create this game in Royal Road after we weren't suppose to change things and as such it inadvertently caused a ripple effect in which some features of other games appearing in this game. The reason why those other world people appeared for no reason was due to this]

  “Hmm? In that case why was some lore changed to integrate them in?”

  [That is because there was already coding in which their history was written. All the system did was collect that data and made some adjustments to the history of the game. The tower that appeared in this game already existed once as data in storage so it could be recreated in game easily]

  “In that case llyfr, Warlic and Crysero once existed in the game?”

  [Not exactly. Only the model of the tower existed, every other entity did not even though it was a simulation. All the simulations were of the beginning and game mechanics of other games, what occurred in those simulations differed from what exactly happened in their game as well as individuals and their personalties. When that Tower first appeared, it was truly like something from another dimension appearing in the game itself. The possibility of such a thing happening existed but it only occurred to such a scale with the appearance of the tower]

  “Okay....I don't remember llyfr being something that was in a game with Warlic and Crysero.”

  [That is because of the parallel entity of both what you know and what actually happened in another alternate-]

  “Okay stop explaining! So how did llyfr first appear then? Why did some creatures from Royal Road know him?”

  [Perhaps during the simulations in which multiple games were being simulated at the same time to test the strain in which the servers could hold at the same time, llyfr a character that had no relation to Warlic and Crysero mixed into their world in the simulation or llyfr was a glitch of multiple factors in which also ended up in another game world simulation. There are many possibilities but the data in which those events happened were deleted and only the structural data were stored. What they are are the leftover code in which the simulation continues. As such only the buildings and other items from other game words could be easily placed in the game without much effects. However some items when still previously recorded are too powerful to be balanced in Royal Road such as the mana fragments as they are called now which have a negative effect on Royal Road's game world. The reason in which other creatures know of the one called llyfr was that his data was and is continuously scanned and the world is slowly adjusting to his personal history and power. Bit by bit he is being integrated into the game so he would not affect the system and the system would be able to affect him. This is so he can not do damage to the system itself and to protect the safety of other players]

  “Okay then....what about me then? My class and race. What about them? And my skills and powers?”

  [Your current class and race did not exist in the game previously. It is as a result of the scanning of llyfr that such a thing could be in the game in the first place as the system recognises the race and class to exist in the game itself. The skills you currently posses besides the ones that were already in the game before the tower event occurred was also due to the scanning of the unknown entities as well. As such the system was able to create something similar to what did not exist in the game and gave it a connection to what already existed in the data. Your powers from what the data suggest comes from the race you have and the class you possess only adds to that. It is the same as I previously stated. The data of the game was just updated live to make sure nothing dangerous happens]

  “....Damn I thought I met inter-dimensional aliens...”

  [It is correct to think that. I do not have a way to analyse whether what I had said previously was true or not. They might actually be truly inter-dimensional aliens that came to the Royal road game world by accident and not the byproduct of the simulations I had done before. There are actually theories that we are also in fact fictional beings as well and that this universe is in fact a dream or story if you may say. As long as you don't think about it too hard, it won't affect you]

  “Hmm...that make sense. But what is the Nether anyway? I thought that place's data was stored and wasn't in the game.”

  [Actually that place is an early prototype of a place called the Divine Realm where Gods lie in the game. The beings you know as Gods in the game are actually just NPCs that are given more administrative power over the game then other NPCs. The power they have is over the game is above what a GM has but a GM can use me to undo a change in the game if it has severe side effects to the players such as causing health problems as an example. One of those Gods were using the old data from the simulations as reference to create a Divine Realm but screwed up and scrapped it leaving it there in the game. There are actually no living NPCs there and it remains incomplete as the other data was just taken and edited over before being discarded so there may be some things that are misplaced in there. It was by pure luck that you fell into a portal that led you to that place]

  “.....”

  So something screwed up and didn't want to clean it up.

  [The system will clean that place off the game system after you make it back to the continent]

  “Why can't you teleport me out?”

  [Cheating is wrong and there is an actual way out of that place. Only in circumstances in which there wasn't a way out, then I would teleport you out of there]

  So....more months exploring the fortress to get out?

  “Then what happens if I take stuff from the place to the game?”

  [That would be fine since the data is in the system. It will disappear sooner or later when someone uses to make something and fails. It is designed to do that with the stuff you collected so far in the nether so just sell it for a high price to some NPC and they will buy it at a high price off you]

  “I see....”

  How much gold will I get now from this? I should spend more time then necessary in that place collect stuff then.

  A evil grin appeared on my face. But first there was another matter to settle with.

  “What are we going to do with our equipment now?” I asked.

  “What about them? They're fine right?” asked Alexandra confused on the topic.

  “Well most of our armour are...outdated for our level but we make do since it doesn't really matter to us against normal foes. But soon we may need better equipment and such if we want to face something that even we cannot beat. I mean, at our current state, we will completely lose if we went against them 3 to 5. Because of that we need to get better equipment though not know but for the future.....also we may want to buy it if possible.”

  “Hmm....” Viv thought about it and said, “What if we get the Goddess AI to tell us where the equipment we want is?”

  [No can do, that would be cheating. But I can hint to you where some equipments or items that will result in equipment being built are located though most of the stuff are too high level for you and some of them results in conditions that are difficult to achieve]

  “That's fine, how long do you think we would take to get them?” I asked.

  [Around a year I suppose, you lot did travel from the eastern continent to the northern continent on foot in around a few months while killing everything in sight. However I do recommend that you gain as many levels as you can before the first half of the time you have ends]

  “In that case we can just scrap most of our plans from before and leave it to the others I suppose. You two have to find really high level dungeons properly in the 500 or 600 range. Somewhere like the southern continent I suppose while I spend more time in that dimension I'm stuck in while finding a way out.”

  “Aren't you having trouble in that place?”

  “Well....yeah though that's only because my focus was to escape from it. Killing everything inside the place is a much easier thing to do.”

  “Then we'll met at the new base in 6 months time then. When you get out of that place, PM me so I can tell you the location” said Alexandra.

  “....”

  Why can't you tell me now...?

  Part 3 – The Journal of a Settler

  Another 6 months passed in game making that a full year with me fighting and killing everything I saw and that moved. Basically now that I know that the things in this place would be highly valued in the game outside this dimension, which means lots and lots of gold.

  Naturally someone without a purpose would not know what to do with all of that gold, so I will just store it in the form of investments, yes for the future or to fund the armies that will be needed soon enough against the 5 Shadow Dragon Kings. Another thing is that I explored most of this fortressed and looted everything it held that I could get my hands on. My natural gaming instincts were returning slowly....

  Due to the fact that half the time I would possibly be allowed to train had been consumed quite quickly against foes that are quite strong, I managed to gain quite a few levels in this place. OF the enemies I fought the most experience rewarding ones were definitely the undead pigmen that plagued this place like no other. Because when you attack one, several other know and therefore aggro on you as well, farming them was quite a easily task.

  Step one was to get to a large area that wasn't that open. Step two was to make a pit trap in which they were fall into and step three was to attack the undead pigmen which leads to sometimes a hundred of them rushing at me at once. I must say that the scene of so many of those gross creatures trying to kill me with their gold swords was quite frightening. The final step was to naturally push them into the pit trap since they're not that stupid to fall into them themselves.

  After that was simple either me crushing them with the environment or training my magic skills and other range abilities on them until they all died. Afterwards I would collect the loot which often involved small quantities of gold which is a nice bonus though sometimes I get their flesh as well. They gave only a moderate amount of experience and the strength of a common level 500 but they were often in large groups which made farming them easier and the most efficient method. The main problem was when I was forced into close combat with a group of them which usually do no end well for me.

  The next most commonly met creature in this fortress was unfortunately the skeletons, both the black and grey variant though the grey ones appears more often. For some odd reason, the grey skeletons are unable to shoot in any direction than straight so I can just put a wall that doesn't cover the bottom half and they won't even try to shoot me from there though sometimes they get a bit smart and try to crawl under which makes them great targets for my magic. Not much experience compared to the undead pigmen but they do drop lots of bones when they die

  The black skeletons with the powerful swords are another matter. Using the same strategy works to a certain extent but they would run away into other monsters in the fortress when I do. However for some odd reason when I attack them using sword skills alone in close combat, they do not retreat at all even if it means their deaths. While more difficult to handle, out of all the monsters I've seen in this place, they gave the most experience. They were most likely around level 600 but the majority of their strength comes from that wither effect they deal with the sword. Thankfully that debuff does not affect me so they were more like high experience level 400 mobs which I can handle on my own thankfully.

  The next enemy, the flying flame creature is one of the more difficult ones to handle in which I try to avoid facing against them if possible. Because of the power to easily set me ablaze, I would often have to fight behind cover while they were free in the air attacking me from all directions. While both balls of flames that spread fire quickly are dangerous, I found that they cannot penetrate the thick black walls of this place or even a simple dirt wall in fact. The trouble is that they can fly though very slowly which is a big problem indeed. Making sure they are of the same level or lower seems to be the key strategy in facing them. I estimate their level to be around the 650 mark, one of the highest in this place alone.

  The last enemy that existed in this fortress....no to be more precise circling this fortress was something I rather no face. It lets out a great cry whenever it fires one of its attacks which is similar to the ones the flying flame creatures uses but it has a much higher amount of damage and can destroy parts of the fortress itself. It was some sort of white thing in the air which I cannot describe properly since it was too far away to see since it was just sniping me from afar. Sometimes I think there are a few of them at once which makes things worse. I don't know what they are, I don't want to know and it will properly kill me if I do find out.

  “This is the last place....” The room that I am about to enter was guarded by the thickest amount of those black skeletons I have ever seen. There were literally 20 or so of them in a group which surprised more than anything since usually for every black skeleton I see, I usually find a hundred of any other mobs in the area first.

  But first I still need to get rid of those black skeletons.

  Due to the mass amount of grinding I've done which was part boring and part fun in some way, I have gained levels to go over 400 which was very surprising in many ways....well not really. All I did was farm and continue to farm monster in this place.

  Earth Formation ? Wall Form ? Earth Wall

  “Earth Wall.”

  I cut the group of 20 black skeletons into two groups so I won't die as fast. Then I Continued to cast Earth Walls every time I have the chance to split them up even more. Due to this, I managed to separate them into groups of 2 or 3 at most in boxes that I could open and face them.

  “Crystal Palace of Reflection.”

  During my trip through the Nether and through this fortress I relied on this particular skill to make sure that I don't get ambushed or something like that and die. It was an interesting skill in which the mirrors that are floating around can only take 3 hits before being destroyed. The nice thing is that it can take any attack no matter how strong it is.

  Because of this, the strong hitters are much easier to handle but this skill doesn't work as well with the continuous hitters or the speed types. Although this skill is in the intermediate level now thanks to certain perks that increase the levelling speed of skills, and I could make more mirrors than right now, I set it to the lowest which I was comfortable with which was 10.

  This was due to the fact that this skill drained mana from me every time a mirror is created. If I'm not careful, the skill would drain tons of mana from me to create perhaps 20 or so mirrors at once to only let them be destroyed again and the cycle of me losing mana continues.

  When all 10 mirrors were formed and I was ready to face the first one, I prepared a spell to only partly take down a wall in front of me.

  Earth Formation ? Earth Destruction

  “Earth Destruction” I said taking down part of one of the walls allowing one black skeleton to let loose.

  Rackle Rackle

  Suuuuuuuuuush

  Immediately seeing me, the black skeleton charged right at me striking me with it's sword.

  Bang!

  Also immediately, one of the mirrors moved in to block the attack perfectly deflecting back the physical blow to the sword and to the black skeleton. Stunned for a brief few seconds, I moved in to slice at the black skeleton while I had the chance. I think I took about maybe 5% of its health from this.

  The cycle of me using the mirrors as cover as I attack the black skeleton continued and I didn't even need to use Dragonic Release or Dragonic Overload as well. I found that to grind up skills, it would be better to have longer more difficult battles than easy quick ones. As such I saved those skills only in situations where I could've been killed. I don't want to die and my progress to disappear after all.

  After another few hours of killing these black skeletons, sometimes with great difficulties or sometimes with ease, I managed to gain another level off them brining my total level up to 403. From what I know, I am now in the top tier players in terms of pure level alone as there were only a few hundred players at this point that are over level 400.

  During the time period of a year, I spent a lot of time training my skills so they would level up. In particular there were a few skills that increased the most since I trained them the most. Mainly they were skills that went from the intermediate levels to the advance levels or from the beginner levels to the intermediate levels.

  My skills were of followed right now.

  (Now you all know why I switched to the other format of showing skills, this list is 8.5 pages long!)

  Anyway I opened the steel door that they gathered at my pulling a level on the wall which opened the door. Inside was what I wanted....or at least part of it.

  There was a strange rectangular object standing upwards and with a large hole in it for at least two people to fit in. From the magical feeling that comes from it, I suppose its the portal but its not working right now....

  “Did I come here for nothing?”

  That would be bad even though I managed to gain so many levels in this place. I looked around some more and found that there was a body....well a corpse....well bones of a corpse to be more precise.

  It was strangely shaped as well. Instead of being...well round at places, it was square like instead. The skull in particular was just like a cube with holes in them. This is due to the fact that this dimension was mostly made from stuff from other games?

  I looted the body and found two things. A diary journal of some sort and a pickaxe. I looked at the pickaxe first since it was strangely identified beforehand....

  Jackpot! Well...besides the fact that I don't have the luck stat at all....maybe I can give it to Alexandra or Viv or something to mine for me....well the Goddess AI did say that we may need to find the material to make better gear as well.

  Next thing I looked at was the diary journal this guy had. It was really old and looks a bit burnt so I tried to be careful reading it.....the handwriting is horrible as well....

  The journal ended there and besides the fact that this was interesting stuff, I now know how to activate the portal.

  Fire.

  I left the journal here since it had no more use to me but took the pickaxe and lit the portal. A purple magical glow came from the middle of the portal and when I stood in it, I felt like I was being teleported.

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  Author's Notes

  - Word Count: 10000~

  - Well this went a bit off for this chapter. It was meant to be first half escape then second half, Trio sparring with each other + journey to get equipment and materials for equipment for end game

  - Lots and lots of random crap that was spawned when writing this. Well at least Eden now has a pickaxe he can use to mine stuff.....though I was tempted to make him generate the luck stat....for it to be -10000....so tempted