Chapter 286: Green Baptism

After we left the Seed Bed dungeon, we saw a pillar of green light rising from the location of the dungeon’s portal, causing the storm clouds above to take on a greenish tint that began to spread across the horizon. Even the descending rain had turned green, which led to me reinforcing the barrier I was using as an umbrella. Something about glowing green rain just felt inherently dangerous.

I looked at the other two for a moment, both of whom seemed quite pleased with the rewards from this series of dungeons. “I’m going to take a look at a few landmarks before we head back, just to see if there’s anything worth reporting to Diane’s Player.”

Seeing the two agree, I closed my eyes and focused, activating Beyond Horizons. At the north pole, there was nothing unusual. The pit was still there, though the spread of green clouds was gradually approaching it. At the Sand Castle location, the Black King still sat upon his throne.

Since it was night time, I checked the Stilled Shadows dungeon, finding no significant change to the facility from the exterior. I would have checked the water recycling plant dungeon, but since its location was always changing, there was no way to ascertain exactly where it would be.

Finally, the only other landmark that I could properly identify in Khestra was the rift that we used to enter. Given how long it had been since the rain started, I wanted to see if any of the neighboring realms had set up a forward base in Khestra to investigate the current happenings or any future changes.

However, that was when things turned weird. Typically, the rift was shifting with colors constantly, looking like a tear in space with a blurred concept of the destination beyond. Now, though, the rift was frozen. It still stood above the flooded desert, but it was completely grey. Any rain that struck it did not pass through, but simply rolled off the side of the rift, as if it had become a solid object rather than an intangible portal to another realm.

“Well, that’s unusual and worth reporting,” I muttered, earning confused looks from the other two. I turned to face them, explaining the situation that I had seen from the rift. Their eyes widened in shock hearing that the rift had seemingly shut down.

“Is it just this rift, or are the ones in other realms also affected?” Diane asked hesitantly, so I did another check. This time, I directed my Beyond Horizons to the rift near Fallcry, but I found that it was operating normally. Once I told them this, she let out a sigh of relief. Still, she was already typing a message to send to her Player.

“Maybe they planned for people to camp out in Khestra until the terraforming was done, so they could see the process of it happening?” Bella suggested, though she herself was clearly unsure. “Or the completion of these dungeons has triggered something that is interfering with the rifts?”

“My Player said that she wants to see a picture of the rift before we leave,” Diane said, so I grabbed the two of them and teleported us to the top of a dune with a good view of the frozen rift. Diane stared at it for a few moments to get a screenshot, then sent that image to her Player. “She also wants to know if we can leave, and said that you should take us with you when you test it, because there is a risk that it might only block travel in one direction.”

My eyes widened slightly at the idea of teleporting back to Fallcry, only to then discover that I was unable to return, stranding the other two until the rift was repaired. Without hesitation, I placed my hands on both of their shoulders, and teleported us back to the palace of Fallcry, relieved that the transfer wasn’t blocked.

Diane quickly reported this as well, and we waited to hear what her Player had to say. After five minutes, she finally spoke up. “My Player mostly agrees with Bella. She thinks that the rift being disabled should be the equivalent of an extended ‘cutscene’, forcing the Players to watch as the environment reshapes itself. If at all possible, she suggested that we go back to Khestra to set up camp for the night, because this shouldn’t last more than a few days.”

“Did she give any reasoning behind these expectations?” I asked, my brow arched curiously. Why would Diane’s Player want us to camp out in that giant green storm?

“She said that the pieces started coming together when we were going through the Seed Bed, getting the power-ups that enhanced your Timeless Traces skill. The only way for the terraforming process to be completed in a short timeframe, even if fast-growing seeds are sent into the clouds, is if the power of time is used.”

“After reviewing everything we saw from the existing dungeons, Cromora definitely had access to the power of time, making this a real possibility. My Player believes that is the reason behind the green glow in the rain.”

Bella shuddered slightly as she listened to the explanation. “So, your Player thinks that getting hit by the rain will make us age faster? And she’s suggesting we do it?”

However, Diane immediately shook her head. “N-no, not aging faster. She said that the devs shouldn’t have designed this to kill the Players who progress the main scenario. Instead, the rain should contain some form of reward for the Players. A sort of baptism, she called it. According to her, the most likely outcomes will either be a new skill, a modification to an existing skill, or an experience increase. However, we have to let the glowing rain hit our bodies, and not block it like we’ve been doing until now.”

When Bella heard the potential rewards, she seemed undeniably tempted. “Fine, let’s do this,” she ultimately said with a sigh, turning to face me.

I shrugged, grabbing the two of them and teleporting us back to Khestra, this time without the protection of a projected umbrella. If there was any kind of reward from the green rain, its effects should have been maximized near where the glow began, which was the Seed Bed. So, I sent us to a relatively high dune near the dungeon and used Walking Fortress to make a sandstone platform for us. The last thing that I wanted was for the dune to collapse and be washed away under the rain.

“Do either of you notice anything?” I asked, looking to the two of them as the glowing green rain pelted us from above. I had not received any notifications of new or modified skills, so I checked with them.

“Nothing on my experience bar,” Bella said in disappointment, but a loud gasp from Diane drew our attention.

“Skills! Check your skill experience!” she called out, causing us to both blink and check our skills tab. Sure enough, the experience for my skills was steadily progressing, as if I was actively training them. All of them.

To call this a simple reward was a massive understatement. Perhaps for a normal Player, a single day’s worth of dedicated training for all of their skills would just be a nice reward. However, I had a substantial experience modifier, as well as another one that I could further apply to other people. Furthermore, this experience growth affected even active skills and those that were difficult to train, like Dungeon Breaker.

Without hesitation, I made sure that Ancient Mentor was targeting both of the others, ensuring that they would get the biggest benefit possible from this rain. Combined with the aura of my King of All Trades, they should even be able to unlock at least a few Grandmaster skills if they’re lucky.

“Is there anyone else that we should tell about this?” Bella suddenly said as we stood on the sandstone platform. “This rain is covering the entirety of Khestra, right? There’s no reason that we can’t invite other people to benefit, since you can ferry them over.”

Understanding what she meant, I looked through my friends list to see who would be safe to invite. I could only invite those who would likely be at a predictable location, such as Nuoda or Ennolf. There was no point trying to invite Daichi, since he was always traveling around.

Though, now that I looked at my friends list, the vast majority of them were largely stationary individuals. Well, there was Wisteria, but she would be the one teleporting to me, not the other way around. In the end, the only ones who weren’t able to come or decided not to were Karlson, Hammerhead, Daichi, and Kelly.

I was rather surprised when Kelly refused the invitation, as I had assumed that something like this would have been an extremely appealing opportunity for her. I had even explained about my experience buffs in the messages that I sent out. However, she simply responded that she didn’t want to take shortcuts when leveling up her skills, or she was afraid that she would grow rusty in their usage.

For those that accepted the invitation, I had them gather at the locations I was familiar with, and then quickly teleported around to bring them all to the sandstone platform, which I promptly expanded to accompany the greater numbers.

Diane, meanwhile, had been in constant contact with her Player, and had a wry smile on her face as I arrived with Ella, the last of the people that would be joining us. “It seems like we’re exploiting a loophole.”

“What do you mean?” I asked in confusion. “This rain is covering the entirety of Khestra, so there were bound to be more people receiving the benefits than just us.”

“Right, but also not quite. According to my Player, Khestra was likely designed to be an unappealing destination due to the difficulty to get here, as well as the few available resources. Its only purpose was likely for the story up until now, so the number of people able to receive the baptism would typically be limited to the group that pursued the story dungeons.”

“That’s likely why the rift was locked down, to prevent a surge of people from arriving from adjacent realms once they heard about the experience buff. Then there is your experience buff, which magnifies the reward by at least an order of magnitude. So you’re able to bring in others to get a much larger reward than normal.”

Everyone listening to that glanced at one another, though they didn’t really seem ashamed to take advantage of the free experience. I simply scratched my cheek and chuckled. “You don’t think that we’ll get in trouble and suffer a penalty, do you?”

“I asked my Player, and she said that it was unlikely. If they have an issue with you teleporting people in like that, they should have completely sealed Khestra during the baptism. The fact that they didn’t meant that they were leaving the backdoor open. Your World Walker isn’t the only teleportation skill, after all.”

I nodded my head at that, looking around at the others. “Alright… all of you can find a spot to get comfortable. I’d offer to provide shelter, but that would defeat the point. And also, it looks like the rain stops glowing after it hits something, so we can’t use a water collector or anything like that to get around it. We just need to sit under the rain until it stops.”

The others all nodded their heads in agreement, finding a place to sit down and adjust their postures to get comfortable. Some, like Ennolf or Safire, had brought snacks, while others assumed either a meditative posture or just laid down on the hard stone.

I sat down with my legs crossed, closing my eyes and letting the rain wash over me. I didn’t open my skills page to track the upgrades, primarily because I was worried that doing so would make me anxious. After all, it wasn’t just my martial skills that were soaking up the experience, but the magic ones as well. And after the pain that I’d gone through enchanting Create Feast-X onto the menu, I was hesitant to see what other skills would now become incredibly dangerous for me to use.