Velik sat in the woods under a night sky full of stars and fed sticks into a crackling campfire ringed by stones. It was… strangely relaxing. He scowled down at the flames, annoyed for some reason he couldn’t quite understand.

It came to him eventually that he’d never done anything like this in his life. The night was his time, when he was out, stalking through the dark while others huddled by their fires and worked to push back the darkness. So why am I… ah.

A woodsman walked out of the darkness and sat down across from Velik. If he hadn’t already been sure he was trapped in some sort of mental illusion, that detail would have sealed it. That man hadn’t existed until he’d stepped into the light.

“Not a trap,” the woodsman said. “Just a dream.”

“Who are you?” Velik asked.

“You don’t recognize me?”

“I do, but my father died a long time ago. You’re wearing a stolen face.”

The woodsman let out a great sigh, and his features melted away to be replaced by someone unfamiliar. “I thought you’d appreciate a bit of comfort, but I can see now that was a mistake. You would know me as Morgus.”

“God of Nature and the Hunt? I don’t think so.”

The woodsman’s brows furrowed. “You really are an unpleasant person, Velik, and the fact that you take that as a compliment is part of the problem.”

“People are exhausting. It’s easier when they leave me alone. This way, no one bothers me unless it’s something important.”

“Very well. Consider this important enough that a god is taking the time to bother you,” the woodsman said. “You’re about to pass beyond the boundary in pursuit of a quest I issued. You need to understand what will happen to you if you do so.”

“What boundary? Are you talking about that garden thing the divine beast mentioned?”

“Exactly that,” Morgus told him. “Skipping over a lot of detail that would bore you, the gods agreed to partition the world. You were born and raised in the system, on the west side of the borderlands. The east side, where the divine beasts live, has no system. If you step beyond the boundary, you’ll no longer be safe from the predations of the other side.”

“Didn’t seem all that safe inside it,” Velik said, but even as he voiced that thought, he recalled the look on Tesir’s face.

“Yes, exactly,” Morgus said, like he’d read Velik’s mind. “Tesir fucked up. He’s not allowed to kill anything attached to the system. When he broke the rules, that entitled me to take steps to balance the scales, or did you think you just spontaneously developed an infinite well of mana?”

“Didn’t do me much good, did it?”

“You’re still breathing, so I’d say a little gratitude is in order. If I hadn’t intervened when I did, we wouldn’t be talking like this.” Morgus held up a finger to forestall Velik from interrupting him again. “However, the scales still aren’t balanced. Torwin is dead, and Tesir lives.”

“For now,” Velik muttered darkly.

Ignoring him, Morgus added, “When I assigned that quest to my new druid-in-training, I did not realize I was pitting her against divine beasts. The quest is impossible to complete, since it involves leaving the system. I already told you that you lose the system’s protection as soon as you wander past the boundary, but if you manage to reach the far side of the borderlands, you’ll lose access to the system itself. No levels, no stats, no skills. The magic on your weapons and armor will cease to function.”

Velik’s face paled. If that was true, there was no way he could ever kill Tesir unless the divine beast returned to the system lands. There was no guarantee that would ever happen, but it wasn’t necessarily a baseless assumption. Tesir had already shown up once to poke at Velik. He could come back if Velik didn’t jump the way he’d been hoping.

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“A valid idea,” Morgus said, nodding along as though Velik had spoken his thoughts out loud. “There is a problem with that, of course. There are six divine beasts, and only two of them dare not set foot in what you’d think of as human civilization now. One had her own issues half a millennium ago, but the gods of humanity and the monstrous deities reached a compromise where she wouldn’t be hunted down as long as she never returned.

“Tesir, of course, has no such protection. We are free to seek our vengeance, as much as gods are ever free to meddle with mortal affairs. But he will not return, certainly not so soon. If someone else comes to ‘poke at you,’ it won’t be him. The only way to kill him is to go after him.”

“Then this conversation is pointless!” Velik said, throwing up his hands. The fire between them leaped up to mirror his actions, briefly surprising him. “I can’t kill him now. How am I supposed to touch him if I’m the equivalent of a level 1 with no skills and single-digit stats?”

“That’s why we’re having this conversation, Velik. Try to keep up.”

“Oh, sorry,” Velik said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “I’m usually on top of these divine revelations that come at me in lucid dreams. I guess I’m just a little off right now.”

Morgus narrowed his eyes, and at the same time, heavy flakes of snow started to fall. An unnatural stillness descended on the camp as spring-time buds melted away to be replaced by skeletal, grasping branches and cold darkness. The campfire hissed and sputtered against the sudden cold and snow.

“You would do well to remember that you are in the presence of a god,” Morgus said softly, “one who has come to help you exact your revenge. Now, shut your damn mouth and let me explain what’s going to happen.”

Velik wasn’t sure what he would have said, but it didn’t matter. In the way of dreams, the stillness of cold winter at midnight a thousand miles from the nearest beacon of civilization lay heavy on him. It silenced not just his voice, but every other sound he could conceivably make.

“In a few days, Sildra will reach the city. She’s coming as my ambassador so that there’s no doubt in your tiny little brain that this wasn’t just a particularly vivid dream or some sort of mind magic game. Use the time to keep working on your mana sensory skills. You’re going to need [Mana Sense] and [Mana Control] where you’re going,” Morgus said. “Now, as to what I’m allowed to do to finish balancing the scales…

“It’s important that you understand the true nature of the world. The system is artificial. What it does is take the essence of every living thing and absorb it. Think of essence as a sort of life energy. Some people incorrectly consider it to be a person’s soul, but that’s something different. Anyway, in the system, when you kill something, its essence is divided. Part of it goes to you, part of it comes to the gods, and the majority of it goes to the system itself.

“At low levels, you get more essence from the system than you contribute. You’re operating at a deficit until about level 18 or so, depending on your skills. The higher your level gets, the greater the shift in essence distribution. That’s a large part of why your leveling speed slows down significantly past level 40, and even more so at level 60.”

Morgus paused to think for a second, then said, “I think I’ve gotten off track here. The point is that the system regulates essence, and the obvious conclusion here is that the other side, the natural half of the world, does not. You have to learn to do it manually. There’s no helper in the back of your mind organizing your essence flow to boost your strength and speed or channel mana into your skills for you. It’s all on you.

“That’s the world Tesir is from.”

Which means I’m even further behind than I thought. I don’t even know what he’s talking about, let alone how to work with essence.

“You’d probably do better than you’re thinking. Whatever experiment the divine beasts are doing that resulted in turning you into one means you’re in an excellent position to grow stronger at an accelerated rate. However… Catching up to someone with a thousand-year lead is a tall order.”

Morgus leaned forward and grinned. “So we’re going to cheat. I’m going to alter your quest. As soon as you pass through the boundary, you’re going to switch over from the normal system you were born into to a limited personal system. This will keep your stats and skills intact, though you won’t be able to bring your gear with you as anything other than ordinary items.”

Velik was still screwed then. It was still a weakening of his abilities, and he was already too far behind. He’d need to find some way to push his level even higher in the system lands before he left.

“No,” Morgus said. “By my own hairy balls, you’re annoying to talk to, you know that? Even with your mouth sealed shut, you still keep finding a way to interrupt me. Now, if I can please finish? Yeah? Great. Like I was saying, the system takes a lot of the essence from your kills. In the grand scheme of things, if all the essence you could have harvested was given back to you, I estimate you’d shoot up at least another thirty levels or so.

“So that’s what I’ll be doing. And when you do get to the other side, you can hunt monsters there to collect more essence even faster. You’ll find plenty of prey there to feed on.” Morgus held up a finger. “But heed my words. This is the most important thing I’m going to tell you. You must learn to control raw essence. The only thing stopping you from having the functional equivalent to every skill the system has catalogued is a lack of knowledge and the ability to apply what you’ve learned.

“If you fail to master essence control, you’ll never be able to compete with a divine beast. Now, get out of here. My emissary will arrive soon. Wait for her.”

With a startled gasp, Velik’s eyes snapped open.