Chương 2: Omnimancer 2: Master of All. Jack of None.

Jax was too busy reeling from the torrent of energy exploding out of his body in every direction to notice the mile-long snake patrolling high above the peak currently diving for him. Every thought he had was consumed with trying to stay conscious through it, and so when his unstoppable force of energy met the immovable wall that was the snake, Jax was flung off his feet. Time seemed to slow as Jax soared through the air, letting him think about his current situation.

On the one hand, the cosmic faucet of energy had suddenly stopped, which was nice. On the other, his impressive-sounding power wouldn't be ready for another three hours. Entirely useless for breaking his impending fall. Well, if supernatural powers were out, that just left the next best thing. Slamming the snow with his arm, Jax threw himself into a roll, distributing the impact across his backpack and body. Even then, bruises erupted all over. If that was the extent of the damage, though, he'd gladly take it.

Rolling to his feet, Jax broke out into a sprint… until he realized nothing was chasing him. Looking back, he heaved a sigh of relief when he found the leviathan lazily drifting back to its patrol route as if nothing had happened. Something had very much happened, however. The entire summit where Jax had just been standing was just… gone. Chomped into oblivion by the massive serpent, its remnants careening down the mountain, triggering mini avalanches. The summit wasn't all that had disappeared, either.

Jax's body had, too.

"What the fuck!" Jax stared in disbelief at his own nonexistent hands. Had he hit his head when he'd crashed? Or maybe earlier, when he looked into those eldritch horrors' bodies? But then, the snow was still there. The rest of the mountain was still there, as were the ancillary peaks. Peaks that bore an uncanny resemblance to Lhotse and Nuptse—Everest's adjoining summits. A crack of distant thunder saved Jax from his impending meltdown, and what he saw triggered all sorts of warning bells in his head.

Mountains this tall created their own weather, and this peak was no different. Winds gusted and snow roiled, diminishing visibility by the minute. Where just moments earlier, he could see for a thousand miles or more, now, he could hardly see a single nearby peak. A storm was coming, and he was quite literally on the most exposed spot on the planet. Hurrying to get a move on, Jax patted his body several times to confirm he hadn't somehow dematerialized. He hadn't—just turned invisible somehow.

Which would actually explain a lot. Like why he was still alive and why the serpent hadn't eaten him. It must have sensed the same pulse he did when he obtained his power. Maybe it had been reacting to that? As for the invisibility, he concluded that was the bears' doing. Same for those floating messages. Jax chose not to worry. About that or the snake. Either it returned to kill him and he was dead, or it didn't and… well, he was probably still dead. For one, he was alone without rope on a new peak.

A peak that, if the impossible vistas were any indication, was several times the height of Everest and far more treacherous. That, he knew, because as bad as the objective mountaineering hazards were, they didn't hold a candle to the real threat. No, as Jax began making his way down the summit ridge, creeping slowly closer to the steep face that reminded him so much of Lhotse, he realized that—invisible or not—the journey would be suicide.

Countless alien creatures swarmed the slope, and the more he saw, the less he believed what his eyes were telling him. From sentient fields of lava to stone golems taller than the highest skyscraper, whose every step shook the mountain even at this vast distance… and that was just the ones on the ground.

In the sky, smaller brethren of the gargantuan snake lurked like upscaled hawks, diving without warning to lift prey ten times Jax's size into the air before dropping them onto the steep slope where they tumbled to their grissly deaths. Even if he somehow managed to sneak by them all, even if his invisibility masked his scent and his presence, Jax knew it wouldn't matter. Half an hour in, the raging storm had cut visibility to near-nothing.

Jax never saw the golden statue with four humanoid faces and four projected question marks hovering above its head until he was almost on top of it, making him jerk back in terror. Terror that only multiplied when he took the abomination in. Floating just above the snow, each of its four gilded faces were frozen in expressions of glee, anguish, rage, and sorrow. Each of its ten slender arms wielded enormous curved swords that hummed with deadly energy. The true horror, however, was what lay below.

Instead of legs, jelly-like tendrils extended from beneath its armored torso, drifting aimlessly. The only parts of the nightmare-fuel statue that moved. And then there was its aura. The sensation hit Jax like a physical force. The sensation of death, crystallized into a force that made the very air around it wilt and decay, losing its richness, forcing Jax to clutch his chest as he suffocated. This was no mere monster. It was an Executioner.

The Executioner, around which light itself grew dim, wreathing the monstrosity in a sphere of metaphysical darkness. And at its core was the simple promise of the thing waiting at the end of every life. Jax backed away as quickly as he dared, and even after it disappeared into the storm, he kept going. This monster, he knew, was just the first of hundreds. Possibly thousands. If he proceeded, he would die. No, he needed a different solution. One that played to his strengths.

Jax gazed down the jagged, not-quite-vertical sides of the summit ridge. Treacherous, especially without rope and only a single ice axe of the wrong kind, but entirely free of monsters. Good thing mountaineering just happened to be his specialty. Jax should've been regretting his life decisions when a single misstep meant plunging off the ice face to his death below.

Should've been worried about how the very invisibility that blinded him to those monsters also made it impossible to see his own boots or where his crampon spikes dug into the ice. And yet, the tools had long ago become extensions of his body with how much he'd used them. His ice axe kept him anchored and the crampons found purchase, and all he could feel was joy. The joy of being very likely the first human to climb 'Wakanya's' highest peak. Step by step, he inched down the icy wall.

Every movement carefully considered, every route decision informed by his years of experience. His mind became a laser, focused on the descent and nothing else. An hour of extreme concentration finally brought him to a relatively large, relatively flat ledge hugging the side of the soaring mountain. Where a lesser mountaineer might have seen refuge, however, Jax only saw the death trap for what it was. The sickening sound of hollow snow-ice beneath his feet. The signature sagging of the snow in the middle.

The crevasse that yawned before Jax was easily a football field in length, and the wider they were, the deeper they tended to be. For all he knew, this one led into the very bowels of this world. Jax had learned that lesson better than most after Reina had vanished into one, never to be seen again. He'd been about to skirt around its periphery in search of better terrain when a dozen monster spiders skittered onto the opposite side from the mountain high above.

Jax froze, gritting his teeth as he prayed to whatever gods this world had. Not this way… don't come this way… As if in response, the spiders promptly turned his way and began sprinting across the snow… on a collision course. They'd arrive in seconds, and likely hadn't even seen him. He just happened to be in the way. Jax cursed as a translucent [???] appeared above each. Like the other, just with fewer digits, which he hoped indicated lesser strength. He glanced at the timer in the corner of his vision.

Time to Initialization: 1 hour, 33 minutes, 27 seconds. No help there, but maybe he didn't need it. The snow was weak here. So weak he'd avoided walking out to the center of the ledge. It wouldn't take much to bring the entire thing down. Dangerous, but when the alternative was risking a collision with mutated spiders? No thanks. While the spiders' delicate steps might not have been enough to trigger a collapse, Jax's boot stomp didn't suffer that problem.

With a running start, Jax jumped as high as he could, slamming the ground with a single boot. Then he ran back for the edge as the ground groaned and broke with a series of sickening cracks. Sounds that plagued every mountaineer's nightmares. The cracks spread like fingers, and not two seconds later, the vast expanse of snow failed, falling as a single enormous sheet into the abyss that waited below. The spiders, for all their vast power and auras discernible even from Jax's distance, fell with it.

Even godly terrors, it seemed, could not disobey the laws of gravity. Down they fell into the bottomless abyss, screeching all the way. Jax had only just sighed in relief when they hit the bottom and everything fell silent… when the chittering started up again. Not a moment later, they began scrabbling up the crevasse's vertical walls, making Jax wonder if they really were coming after him.

That was, until the lead spider climbing up was promptly shot down by a volley of spinning force vortexes fired by its brethren. Another spider launched past, taking the lead, only to be brought low by yet more blasts. Maybe it was their biological programming, but it seemed they were willing to kill their own to be the first out. Their black eyes turned blood-red as they ripped into each other with their legs and metaphysical spears of force that distorted reality. Jax's eyes hurt just looking at them.

One made it past that gauntlet of death, only to find another enemy lying in wait. Jax. Who strategically struck chunks of ice with his ice axe, sending them crashing into the approaching spider and earning him something quite unexpected in the process. Congratulations! For killing [Lvl 577 Alpine Rachnaprime Emperor] x1, Luxor, Goddess of Light, has granted you 10, 326 Aurum.

"Oh?" Jax grinned. He didn't know what an Aurum was or what exactly their level meant, but he knew he wanted more. And so, at no small risk to himself, he struck more chunks of ice, Most of which missed, but a few started a small avalanche of their own, pummeling the spiders. Congratulations! For killing [Lvl 549 Alpine Rachnaprime Emperor] x1, Luxor, Goddess of Light, has granted you 9, 726 Aurum. Congratulations!

For killing [Lvl 588 Alpine Rachnaprime Emperor] x1, Luxor, Goddess of Light, has granted you 10, 594 Aurum. It wasn't long before their chittering died out, leaving a triumphant Jax breathing heavily, the sound of his heart throbbing in his head.

"Well," he said between breaths.

"That worked out well." He'd triggered that ice fall hoping to avoid getting slammed by those terrifying beasts. Getting them to kill each other and earning that so-called Aurum had been an unexpected perk. Even better—he could just barely make out a path down at the very bottom of the crevasse where the spider corpses lay. A path entirely free of monsters, that would allow him to wait out the hour and a half without worrying about the sky-snakes that circled above him even now.

Three wins for the price of one crevasse? I could get used to this. It was also the easy part. Climbing down one sheer mountain face had taken everything he'd had. Doing it again, more exhausted than ever? This was where the fun began.

"FUUUUUUUUCK!" Jax screamed as he fell to his death. This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. He'd nearly made it, too. Partly thanks to his prior experience, partly because the teddies' invisibility had worn off just enough to let him see his boots, making the descent both safer and more dangerous at the same time. An impressive feat, to be sure. And yet, one supersonic bird swooping by was all it took to end it.

The damn thing hadn't even noticed him—the turbulence it kicked up in its wake was more than enough to tear Jax off the face. Unfortunately, despite having descended the majority of the way, there was plenty of room left to fall. Jax plummeted to the bottom of the ravine, kicking off the wall to point himself at a patch of what he sincerely hoped was soft ground. After that, he did the only thing he could. He swore. All the way until his body slammed into the snow and all went suddenly black.

"I see you made it," the voice said.

"Sure took you long enough. I was beginning to wonder if you'd ever summit that damned mountain." It was a familiar voice, even if Jax couldn't see the face, hidden by the ski goggles and puffy yellow hood, though he hardly needed to. He'd recognize that yellow down suit anywhere.

"Reina?" he asked, feeling his stomach drop out from under him. Something in him woke up then and told him this was a dream. Rather than lessening the experience, however, the realization lifted the haze, turning the subconscious experience vividly lucid. With that newfound awareness, Jax noticed they were in a dark room somewhere. Maybe a cave of some sort, with magical lights placed in wall sconces and ornate rugs covering the ground.

"Hey, Rei," Jax said with a pained smile.

"It's, uh, good to see you." Reina, true to form, snorted, rushing over and enveloping Jax in a bear hug so tight it hurt.

"You dolt!" she laughed.

"You've got no idea. Well, guess I've got something to look forward to now." Jax didn't quite know what to make of that, but then again, when had dreams ever made sense? Even lucid ones. Releasing her hug, she opened her mouth to say something, but seemed to reconsider.

"Rei, I—" That was all Jax had the time to say before he felt himself waking, the precious moment crumbling around him.

"See ya 'round, Jackie," Reina said with a grin as she disappeared.

"And try not to get yourself killed?" Jax jolted awake, gasping for air, flailing madly as he fell. He stopped when he realized he was not, in fact, falling. Just buried in a massive mound of snow. Turned out the patch he'd aimed for had worked out better than he could have hoped, acting as a cushion to pad his fall. All according to plan, he thought, triumphantly pulling himself out of the Jax-shaped depression he'd made… only for searing pain to shoot through his arm. The impact had very much broken his wrist.

Well, mostly according to plan, anyway. Tearing off a length of his long johns, Jax wrapped the fabric around his wrist into a makeshift brace. It didn't hurt too much… so long as he didn't move it. Time to Initialization: 0 hours, 27 minutes, 26 seconds.

"Nearly there," he muttered, turning his focus to his new surroundings. The bottom of the ravine was so dark, he had to use his headlamp to see clearly. It was also paved with some form of stone as he'd seen from up high. Well, the parts that weren't buried under the mass of snow he'd dropped on it, anyway. Enormous stalagmites of ice jutted up from the ground here and there, several adorned with Rachnaprime carcasses.

As Jax navigated the hidden stone path, he knew he should be scared for his life, and to be sure the impaled corpses were plenty terrifying, but how could he gaze up at these towering walls of ice and not be awed? The feeling redoubled when Jax's headlamp played its light upon the entrance to a structure in the distance. The remains of two massive stone posts, each as wide as a redwood and nearly as tall, sat at the entrance to a great wall of stone built into the deep chasm.

Not posts, he realized upon closer inspection. Totem poles. Ancient ones by their cracked stone, with spatial distortions covering them. It was like looking through a raindrop, where parts of the wall and the statues appeared magnified in odd ways. The stone path leading to it had a giant gash, as though some cosmic being had sliced a tear in the world and put it back together in a rush. Who built this place? He wondered. And why?

The totems' faces were definitely humanoid, even if the proportions were uncanny, and the humanish-sized steps leading up to the massive wall corroborated that. Sadly, the place was too far gone to tell anything more. An ancient battle, perhaps? Or the work of monsters? Of more importance was the hole he found at the bottom of the rune-covered wall that stretched up to the surface. Too small to admit any of the massive creatures he'd encountered on the summit. Just perfect for him.

Nothing like being too fat to stop you from munching on the squishy human, eh? After throwing a snowball inside to test the waters—nothing threw it back—Jax crawled in, expecting to find a cramped space within. He found that… and a lot more besides. The cramped space was actually a tunnel of ice, opening into a darkness so deep that his eyes took a moment to adjust.

When they did, he found a grand cavern that soared into the blackness, decorated with glowing crystals the size of small buildings that jutted out from the ground and the ceiling alike, bathing the entire space in dim hues of blue, green, purple, and red. Climbing up a nearby boulder with his good arm, Jax was able to spot a field of glowing flowers with herds of six-legged deer grazing peacefully, continuously changing in size.

Jax blinked at the sight, and it took him a moment to realize they weren't changing in size at all, but rather that countless spatial bubbles floated throughout the space just like outside. And in the very middle of all that was a glowing pedestal enveloped in a prismatic bubble, shooting fingers of silver and gold light up to the ceiling. The prudent thing would, of course, be to move on. Especially with a broken wrist. It was also impossible.

Exploring places like these was why Jax climbed peaks humans had no business being on. It was why he couldn't resist now. Dropping off his boulder, Jax edged his way into the clearing. Without full invisibility, he knew better than to approach the creatures that roamed the meadows. Grasseaters or not. It almost worked out. When he was within twenty feet of the altar, the deer all collectively froze and perked their heads up at him. Normal deer behavior. Their eyes turning red? Not so much.

Jax began inching slowly back, cursing to himself. It didn't help. The deer creatures lowered their heads, preparing to charge. He didn't wait. He broke out into a mad sprint. The deer bolted too. Just… not at him. They turned and hightailed it out of there. Jax stumbled to a halt, feeling more than a little embarrassed at having misread them. That was, until he turned and caught a glimpse of movement across the cavern, in an area with barely any light at all.

Because anything that caught his eye in that darkness had to be big. Really big. Jax went still, the hair on his back standing on end as he waited for it to move again. Seconds ticked by, then a full minute. The only things he saw and heard were glowing butterfly wings and the slow drip of water somewhere in the distance. The deer had probably just gotten spooked, and now he was doing the same. Probably. Jax forced himself to take a deep breath and turn around.

Every voice in his head told him to get the hell out of there… but the pedestal was right there, and the two shining things atop it were unlike anything he'd seen in either world. Like shards of broken glass. Except, like the eldritch horrors before they'd turned into teddies, there was a depth to their metal that seemed endless. Like a vast ocean was trapped within, just begging to be released. Calling out to him. Mind, body, soul, and all.

Unable to help himself, he stepped forward, entering the spatial bubble, and when he did, his stomach lurched like he'd plummeted off a roller coaster. The sensation abruptly passed, however, and Jax didn't feel any different. Nor did he seem to move any slower than normal… until he looked outside. The butterflies flitted around at 2x speed, and the blades of grass swayed unnaturally fast. Just a casual time dilation Artifact, I see… Jax thought, reaching out to touch the glassy metal shards despite himself.

His confusion was answered in the form of a projected HUD message. Space Shard (Tier III) obtained. Time Shard (Tier III) obtained. Would you like to consume these Shards?

"Hell fucking yes, I would!" he said. Shards Consumed was the only response. No cosmic onrush of spatiotemporal abilities. No godly powers to command. Time to Initialization: 0 hours, 3 minutes, 14 seconds. Jax was as excited as a kid on Christmas morning. Except this Gift, whatever it truly was, would alter his life. Of that, he was sure. He only wished he could tell Marc. About all this, and to say he was well. Better than ever, in fact. He wished he could tell him not to live a life full of regret.

He could do none of those things, however, so with a final glance back, Jax started walking to the entrance. The predator hunting him had other ideas. A deep roar bellowed from the darkness. Jax spun around to find that every shadow in the cavern had been wiped away by a blinding light radiating from a white wall. Horror dawned upon Jax as he realized it wasn't a wall at all, but a coat of white… fur? Fur that belonged to a gargantuan red-eyed bear so blindingly bright that Jax physically couldn't look at it.

Where instead of a stomach was something else entirely. Something so hot and impossible it made Jax sweat.

"A sun?" Jax wheezed.

"The monster bear's got a freaking sun in its belly?" Jax was almost sure this was the shadow from earlier, which meant it could turn that sun on or off at will. Or at least hide it completely. Worse, the narrow corridor he'd used to enter was blocked by that bear. Probably intentionally. His eyes desperately scanned the cavern, landing on a tiny hole in another ice wall. Time to Initialization: 0 hours, 1 minute, 29 seconds. Jax didn't waste any time thinking.

He dove straight into its too-narrow entrance, getting stuck halfway in. The sun-bear gave chase, closing the distance in seconds as Jax desperately writhed through the claustrophobic channel to the blindingly bright snow on the other side. Outside. To the open mountainside, where Jax might reasonably escape. It didn't matter how fast Jax was, or that he somehow managed to make it out. The bear was faster.

Plowing right through the ice, it shattered the passage Jax had just squeezed through, sending thousands of shards flying, many of them right at Jax. That's it? Jax thought. This is how I die? By a fucking monster bear in some alien world!? The shards ripped into his suit and his skin, slicing bits of his flesh as they passed. They were followed by larger pieces that slammed into him, breaking arms and legs, and sending him careening down the treacherous slope.

Time to Initialization: 0 hours, 0 minutes, 13 seconds. No goddamned way. The ferocious bear roared in rage, closing the gap in a near-instant. Jax's entire body throbbed with pain, and his mind refused to function. System Initialization Complete. The [Omnimancer] has manifested. It was why he didn't question the pulse that exploded out from his body, giving the bear pause. It was why he didn't question the projection that appeared when he stumbled shakily to his knees.

And it was why he didn't question what the [School of Fire] was when his left arm went flying away, having been lopped off by a searing beam from the bear's core so hot it instantly cauterized the wound. Jax screamed in pain… but he did not cower in terror. He did not panic, and giving up didn't ever once cross his mind. Because Jax was a mountaineer, and if there was one thing that defined mountaineers, it was willpower.

So he mustered every shred of what he had left, stared the bear right in its blood-red eyes, and willed his power to activate. You have purchased the School of Fire for 30, 000 Aurum. Welcome to the School of Fire. For entering into this school, you have gained a permanent 25% boost to all offensive magic damage. Congratulations! You have reached Level 3. Previous Level: 0. 3 Levels gained. You have purchased [Lesser Fireball] for 3, 000 Aurum. [Greater Fireball] is now available to purchase.

You have purchased [Greater Fireball] for 6, 000 Aurum. [Apex Fireball] is now available to purchase. Congratulations! You have reached Level 4. You have purchased [Apex Fireball] for 15, 000 Aurum. Congratulations! You have reached Level 5. Knowledge Jax never had flooded into his head. Information he never learned became second nature. Like a half-forgotten memory, suddenly refreshed. Jax knew magic.

He didn't know how he knew, but he knew that if he drew upon the Lux in his chest, that if he chanted the right words in the right way, imbuing every syllable with the correct intention, something would happen. Something befitting the [Transcendent] Gift that only he, in the entire world, wielded and would ever wield for as long as time marched forth. Warning, insufficient Lux. User emergency detected. Converting spare Aurum into Lux at rate: 10 Lux per Aurum spent.

Strange and foreign words spilled from Jax's mouth, almost automatically. Words he'd never uttered in a tongue he'd never learned.

"Thar'koven sho'rek ai navaa…" With each syllable, more sparks wreathed his arm. More and more, growing in intensity, forming little puffs of smoke. Warm through his gloves, but not burning hot.

"Ko'te lem'zholen, sho'rekaa nav'ko te'lem!" Through it all, Jax surged with the rush of magic. An adrenaline-fueled high no daredevil on Earth had ever felt, when every second spent chanting turned into a small eternity in which he, alone, was God, and no other power could compare.

"Eat this, you gaudy fuck." The incantation finished, the magic coalescing into a ball of flame that hovered above his palm before arcing through the sky, crashing into his foe's face. The ball of roiling fire didn't so much hit the bear as it pummeled it, the force behind it enough to lift even the giant creature fully off its paws. That was all Jax saw before the worst headache to ever wage war against humanity consumed his attention. Except Jax laughed at pain.

He blinked away the stars, pushed through the migraine, and readied another [Fireball], because no monster this strong would go down with just one. He'd need several just to scare it away. No matter how many headaches he had to endure, no matter the cost, he'd endure. No, he'd do more than that. He'd win. Jax readied his next [Fireball], only to find no trace of his foe. Where the bear had stood was now only empty pawprints. Then Jax saw the trail of snow going down the steep slope like a snowplow.

At the end was a massive bear with a sun in its belly, tumbling end over end even now, proving what Jax had learned over his climbs. That once something started rolling on a slope like this, it never really stopped. Even mutant sun-bears, it seemed. He watched it go with gritted teeth, trying to ignore the pain. While the bear could probably shrug off flames all day long, his spell had unbalanced it enough to get it going. It had worked, and that was all that mattered.

Not even the agony of Jax's injuries could ruin the pleasure of seeing that. Broken ribs? Punctured flesh? A lost arm? Flesh wounds, all. What scared Jax more was the realization that he'd spent everything on a power he'd picked at random. That might have been the only chance he'd ever get to choose his power, and he went and picked a Fireball... Jax brought up the slew of messages he'd ignored, bracing himself for the damage.

Performing Standard Experience Formula for plane [Wakanya/Mortal]: — [277] Unique [Earth/Mortal] Summits reached… — [1, 101, 233] ft altitude gained… Result: 122, 950 Aurum Awarded. Calculating Multiplier for Mancer Level of [0]... Result: 244 Calculated total: 29, 999, 800 Aurum. ERROR: Maximum experience allotment reached. Allotment will be capped at: [1, 000, 000] Aurum.

[̴̼͚̯̬͎̍́̈́]̵̼̬̳͚̭͌̽̊͑[̶̨̗̐]̴̹̬̺̃͝[̶̯̜͝]̷͈̥̲̬̮͒̽[̷̢̡̛̦̪̫̑̓͘]̸̱̖̲̌̇͆[̴̭͖̑]̸̭̥̭͓͕̑͒̕ Entity'His Supreme Luminance The God of Everything Awesome' Tiramisu, and [̴̼͚̯̬͎̍́̈́]̵̼̬̳͚̭͌̽̊͑[̶̨̗̐]̴̹̬̺̃͝[̶̯̜͝]̷͈̥̲̬̮͒̽[̷̢̡̛̦̪̫̑̓͘]̸̱̖̲̌̇͆[̴̭͖̑]̸̭̥̭͓͕̑͒̕ Entity'Oh, Is This Where That Title Thingy Goes?' Cupcake have initiated a transdimensional override with note:"Can't let her cheat out of yer hard earned Lux Bux now, can we? But you can't spend it all at once, okay? Aunty would definitely notice." Recalculating… Recalculating…

[30, 000, 000] Aurum awarded. Account Balance: 29, 945, 965 Aurum. Jax stared in confusion at that extremely large number and muttered the only thing that came to mind.

"Huh…"