Nightmare Realm Summoner

Alex's eyes opened. He stood on a flat black lake, the basin of his Mind Palace waiting for him in its center. Brilliant blue mist swirled above the basin like a miniature world. He approached it, resting his hands on the edge of the basin as he looked down into the hazy reflection in the water below.

Designs rippled on the surface of the basin's mantle in the water that weren't present on the actual marble. He couldn't make out what they were, but it was about time to find out. Alex wasn't about to start skimping on his Mind Palace's progress after it had helped him get so much stronger.

He let his eyes drift shut. His senses extended to the large ball of glistening mist and he set about condensing it. Time slipped by as brilliant blue droplets dropped from the sky, splashing into the basin before him.

Alex wasn't sure how long it took, but his eyes eventually drifted back open when no more mist remained. His basin was nearly completely full of brilliant blue water waiting for him to use it — and he obliged.

He lowered his head to the water. Ice burned against his lips and he drank. Worms of freezing cold wound down his throat and twisted through his chest. Alex nearly choked and spat the energy up, but he didn't let a single drop slip free. He drank until just about half of the water remained.

A headache slammed in his head as he felt himself connect to the power he'd just absorbed into his body. Rivers of silver poured from his palms and trickled down the sides of the basin, sinking into the black lake below.

Designs traced themselves into the plain mantle. Its simple form expanded and changed. The shape of the marble went from a plain edge to a flowing wave as it transformed into what could have doubled as the back of a throne. The gemstones at its center grew as well, nearly doubling in size.

The basin wasn't one to be left behind. Its walls rose and the bowl itself expanded until it rose higher than Alex's head. Plain white stairs emerged from beneath the lake and ran up to its lip.

His Mind Palace finally stilled. Alex looked into the water, swallowing heavily. A chill prickled at the back of his spine. Where there had only been darkness before, there was now a reflection of a towering white pillar at the far edge of the lake. It had yet to emerge and he couldn't make out any details, but it reminded him of a column that may have been present in an ancient roman colosseum.

I'm starting to think that the term 'Mind Palace' may actually be a whole lot more literal than I originally thought it was.

Alex was tempted to push even more power into his soul to see what it would do, but he couldn't pass up on getting another ability. Every upgrade he'd gotten so far was just too useful. With the second phase of Initialization coming up sometime soon, he needed every potential advantage he could get.

Getting to the top of this initial leaderboard is at the absolute top of my priority list.

Alex climbed the stairs leading up to his basin. He braced his hands against the large white bowl and peered down into its depths. Brilliant blue energy swirled at its bottom, now only filling a little more than thirty or forty percent of it. The amount of energy hadn't changed. It had just gotten bigger.

He reached down toward the water. Before his hand could get close, a sparkling blue river twisted up like a snake rising from its depths and twisted up to meet him. It coiled around his hand before sinking into his palm.

Alex's back stiffened. Power poured into him and words carved across the marble.

Your Stage has advanced to Novice 6.

Your Stage has advanced to Novice 7.

You have amassed 2 units of soul energy.

Please select an Auxiliary Skill to upgrade.

Whoa. Two levels? That's what I'm talking about.

As they had before, the three smaller blue gems on the on the mantle of his basin glistened with energy. The words on the mantle faded away like marks on a whiteboard before new ones replaced them.

[Requiem to the King] (Novice 1)

[Monster Medley] (Novice 2)

[Riftwalk] (Novice 2)

Alex paused for a moment to consider his options. Every single one of his skills felt equally as exciting of an option to upgrade, so he was going to have to narrow down which one would actually be the smartest to go with first. What he needed most for this upcoming fight was going to be immediate firepower.

When he'd last upgraded Riftwalk, there had been potential options for combat abilities as well as utility ones. The same was true for Monster Medley. He hadn't had a chance to upgrade Requiem to the King yet, but it would probably be similar.

"Let's see," Alex said to himself, drumming his fingers against the cold surface of the basin. "I got two levels after using half a basin of energy to advance my Mind Palace. It's definitely using more energy the higher in level I get — but either way, it leaves me with two Units to distribute among my abilities. I think I should probably start with one that I've already advanced… it's better to get one really strong skill than a few weaker ones."

Beyond that, he had a glaring weakness at the moment. Until one of his monsters died, Alex was borderline useless. He needed a way to do something before then.

Requiem to the King is a really tempting option… but at least from what I've seen so far, it won't give me a way to do anything before Glint or Spark die.

I'm coming up on a monster horde that lasts a whole damn day. That means a ton of enemies that I'll have to fight. If Glint or Spark go down early, I lose a lot of momentum. I don't want to have to solo fight every single random monster. Requiem to the King's is incredible for massive single-target fights, but for an extended fight like the one coming up, I need an ability that will let me keep myself and my monsters alive for as long as possible.

That left Riftwalk and Monster Medley. Both were great options. He'd just gotten a whole new monster that he had to limit test, but no matter how things turned out, it was a huge boost to his power. Any upgrades to Monster Medley would be magnified as a result of that.

But, as things stood now, Alex was wanting in any ranged or control abilities. He could teleport to a location he'd been previously with Spark and attack something nearby with Glint's shards, but he didn't have any way to deal with something that outranged him or could get past his monsters while they were still alive.

Getting some more utility or some form of magic I can use when both Glint and Spark are alive would be incredible… and almost mandatory. Right now, I'm really limited until my monsters die, and I'd really rather them both live for as long as possible. I don't want to rely on Glint or Spark kicking the bucket before I can fight back.

That narrowed his options down to Riftwalk quite neatly. It had the highest chance of meeting his needs and giving him something useful. Monster Medley was an incredible skill, but its whole purpose was empowering his monsters.

There was also the chance that Monster Medley would offer him an ability that let his monsters scale better. If that happened, it would be stupid not to take it — but it would give him nothing for the upcoming fight.

Better to save it for later. It's not like I lose access to the ability by upgrading it second. I'll take Riftwalk now, and then maybe grab Requiem to the King just to see what it offers me afterward. Don't want to leave it behind considering how useful it's been so far.

As soon as Alex made his decision, black lines poured down from the blue gem at the right side of the mantle. They carved out at sharp angles and three boxes formed at their ends, skill information forming within each of them.

(2 Units) Riftslip: Reduce the intensity of the ripples your arrivals and departures in the Mirrorlands cause.

(2 Units) Plane Slip: Destabilize your body with Rift energy, removing all aspects of your form other than a mirage of your image from the plane in which you currently reside. Other forms of energy cannot be channeled during this effect. You may only return to your previous plane in an unoccupied area.

(2 Units) Funhouse: Draw latent energy from the Mirrorlands into a small area, causing anything passing through it to warp and change direction. The extent of the warping effect increases with the amount of energy drawn.

The moment Alex saw the options, he immediately knew he'd made the right choice. A grin pulled across his lips.

Hah! This is exactly what I was as hoping for. These are awesome! Especially Plane Slip and Funhouse. They both sound ridiculously strong.

Alex couldn't help but notice one other thing. The cost of his upgrades had changed. Every single option was 2 Units instead of 1. He supposed that made a degree of sense. The ability was stronger than it had been the last time he'd upgraded it.

I wonder if it's a linear 1 Unit increase at every level or if there's something else that governs it. I suppose I'll find that out pretty soon. I'm more concerned which which of these upgrades I'm going with.

He took a few seconds to read over everything before him. The top ability had its uses, but he crossed it off immediately. Riftwarped Monsters were incredibly dangerous, and there would definitely be a day when he didn't want to get attacked by them every single time he entered and left the Mirorrlands — but that time wasn't now.

Danger was challenge. Challenge was power. He wasn't about to cut off a way to get access to even more powerful opponents. The ability also lacked a way to properly scale. Some of the other offers Alex had seen before had been quite clear that they could continue to be useful in the future.

He was pretty sure that, as he grew stronger, he'd get better control over the Rift Energy. Being better at controlling the amount of noise he made when going anywhere would be a natural consequence of that.

With that decision made, he was left with two options. Plane Slip and Funhouse — and he couldn't have been more happy about it. Both of them leaned a little more toward utility than offense. If Alex understood it right, Plane Slip was a straight up 'get out of jail free' card.

It let him functionally drop out of the mortal plane for a brief moment. He could see a variety of different ways it would be useful. Dodging a punch. Repositioning. Getting out of the way of someone's magic or an arrow.

The only drawback was that he would still be visible while he was using the ability. He could dodge, but it wouldn't let him escape — and Alex was willing to bet he couldn't do anything to affect the mortal world while the ability was active. It was a powerful option, potentially the strongest of the lot, but it came with equally restrictive limits.

And then there was Funhouse. Alex was mildly concerned that the System was referencing funhouse mirrors with the skill name. It either meant that carnival mirrors existed in other realities, or the System had read up on Earth and customized the skill name specifically for people that would understand it. He wasn't sure which of the options was weirder.

But regardless of weird, the ability was more than just promising. It sounded hilarious. Changing the path of everything that passed through it was certainly going to come out of left field for just about everyone. Nothing in the ability said it was limited to attacks, so unless Alex had misunderstood, it could redirect people as well.

It was basically a random number generator. If someone shot an arrow at him and he used Funhouse on the area it was passing through, there was a chance the arrow would spit out in another direction and get shucked harmlessly into the ground.

There was also a chance it would get redirected straight into his heart.

But if Alex was right and the skill really was a random number generator, then his interest in it went up even more.

There was a funny thing about random number generators.

They weren't actually random.

If he could actually control Funhouse, even if it was difficult, the skill's potential was enormous. It was pure disorientation, came with a high potential skill ceiling, and was easily the most versatile of all the options.

Alex's nose scrunched. His fingers drummed faster against the basin. He could picture himself taking either Funhouse or Plane Slip. They were both incredibly useful in their own ways. One gave him a guaranteed chance to completely avoid death. The other gave him a way to control the battlefield — or, at the very least, remove other people's control of it.

Well, shit. Two great choices, and both of them would be useful. So which one do I take?