Defiance of the Fall

“What are you doing?” a pleasant, decidedly female voice sounded from right behind him.

Zac, whose nerves already were frayed from the past days’ events shrieked in a higher than desirable octave and jumped forward away from the sound before registering the words. Somewhat embarrassed he turned around while stuttering “Sorry about tha..” before once more shrieking and falling back after seeing the stranger. His fight-or-flight instincts also failed spectacularly, as he dropped the axe while falling.

What had entered his sight was not a beautiful female, as the voice had indicated. His dream of at least having a pretty girl to share this harrowing experience with died out as fast as it had flashed to life. In front of him was a floating eye, larger than his torso.

At least he assumed it was an eye. It looked as though a part of the cosmos had been taken and put into an eyeball. The pupil was a black hole, seemingly sucking Zac’s soul in as he was looking at it. The monster had no iris, but rather a slowly rotating cosmic cloud, looking like it was slowly being absorbed into the pupil in the middle.

The sclera was not white as with a human, but a black studded with shining lights. It looked like the stars in the night sky. Surrounding the eye was a purplish-tinted skin and eyelid. It however had no mouth, making Zac confused how it could make any sounds.

It was beautiful and harrowing at once, and certainly not what Zac expected after hearing the pleasant voice.

“Rude.” the eye muttered. “I am lucky enough to get an assignment at a newly initiated world, and I get to work with this rube. By the way, you smell.”

Zac was still sputtering, unable to fully register what was going on. Unsure of whether to run, get the axe, or bow down to his new ocular overlord he compromised by simply staring dumbly with mouth ajar at the eye.

“Oh well. It makes sense that there were no Stargazers on your planet before the initiation, human. We usually only appear where the system sends us. My real name is a bit tricky for you to say with vocal cords but sounds something like Veth-Abarak. I am here to assist you in your endeavors regarding your outpost. You are welcome.” the eye continued, somehow making a haughty expression with only the help of an eyelid. “I am sure you have some questions, though the tutorial should have explained most of what you can do.”

“Um... Hello, my name is Zac... Err, Zachary Atwood. What do you mean assist me? And how are you talking without a mouth?” Zac responded, still having some problem adjusting to the situation. The eye, or Stargazer as it called itself, gave a long-suffering sigh, already seeming to have labeled Zac as a mental invalid.

“Did you not listen to the Pixies during the tutorial? I am the assistant assigned to you when you assigned this… Trailer? Why did you choose a trailer? Anyway, when you chose this trailer to be your outpost when assaulting the Incursion. I will help with answers regarding the choices you make, to get the ball rolling so to say. As for how I talk, magic of course.” The Stargazer answered, a flash of what looked like cosmic mist grandly surrounding herself to accentuate her powers.

“What choices? And no I didn’t listen to any Pixies or fairies because the stupid system never sent me to any tutorial. It left me in this crazy demon forest 3 days ago while it teleported my friends away.” Zac responded, starting to feel a bit peeved by being looked down on by a floating eyeball.

“Oh, you didn’t go to the tutorial. I guess tha… THREE DAYS? This world was initiated only three days ago? Don’t you mean months?” The Stargazer started shaking, the pupil shrinking to a... well, not needlepoint, but from a basketball to a baseball in size. “Stop joking with me, how would you be able to create an outpost only after three days, even if you skipped the month-long tutorial?” Veth-Abarak shook and hovered closer to Zac’s face, the grand mist surrounding it disappearing.

Zac, who had somehow starting to get acclimatized to talking to this odd being, sighed and briefly explained his experience starting when the world turned dark. The eyeball seemed harmless enough and appeared to be on his side. Furthermore, he really needed someone to talk to, both to unload and to make sense of the situation.

“Oh wow, I got assigned to a Defier. I guess I have some good karma after all! No returning in defeat for Abby!” The Stargazer suddenly seemed quite a bit more amiable, virtually shaking with excitement. It almost felt like the monster would start rubbing itself on him if it wasn’t that he was still generally caked in grime.

“What’s a Defier? It doesn’t sound great. And wait, Abby? Wasn’t your name Veth-something?” Zac questioned, seeming to get more and more confused the more the Stargazer spoke.

“Now now, don’t be so formal. Just call me Abby.” Abby answered. Gone was the slightly haughty tone, replaced with the mild pleasant tone from the beginning. “And I guess some explanations are in order. As you have figured out some people of your world have been moved to tutorial towns after your world was integrated into the multi-verse. However, some people have some sort of deficiency where they can’t naturally absorb cosmic energy and the system deem them worthless. It doesn’t bother with these people and leave them where they are. These people mostly die sooner or later as they are essentially defenseless at the beginning as the system generally vastly increase the danger of the surroundings.”

“And these are the Defiers?” Zac interrupted a bit anxious “Is it genetic? Do you think my family is stuck somewhere as well?”

“It’s not genetic as far as I know, and no they aren’t the Defiers. These people are generally called mortals. Please let me finish, we have limited time. As far as research shows, it is random who can take in cosmic energy and who can’t. However, in worlds with lower class energy mortals are more common. The higher the energy, the more common it is to be able to absorb the energy. On B rank planets and above almost everyone can absorb cosmic energy naturally.”

“When I was in that black space the system said Earth had class F energy, and after the merge class D.” Zac chimed in hoping for some additional information.

“Well, class F is the lowest of the low. I doubt there were people who could fly or use magic before the merge, right?” Zac nodded affirmatively. Abby shook her eye and continued “From what I’ve heard only 5-10% of the population turn out to be cultivators in an F-energy world. And most of those people are younger, as their minds haven’t turned too rigid yet. Of course, this is for you humans. The Multi-verse consists of myriad races and civilizations and many races have natural advantages compared to you humans, who are notoriously average."

"Cultivators are what they call those who can naturally draw the cosmic energies into themselves by the way. Cultivators can be divided further into many types depending on class and skills, but that’s for later. D-class energy is pretty good for a new world, most are E classed. So to recap, the world is populated by mortals and cultivators. This might mean your family is safe for now.”

“Lucky how? It sounds pretty bad to me that my family are probably stranded somewhere with monsters spawning just like me, but without the Titles.” Zac questioned testily.

“Well, if they all are mortals they haven’t been split up. They are probably together in the city you lived in. Also, even if they are mortals there is strength in numbers. Even if the monsters are normally impossible to kill one on one, they should be able to kill the easier monsters using teamwork. And while they can’t just get continuously stronger through cultivating, they still get stronger from killing monsters and leveling up like you did.” Abby explained patiently. While not completely comforting, what she said did make some sense to Zac. He could only hope his family was being careful and safe right now.

“Anyway, that brings us to Defiers like you. In extremely rare cases a mortal gains power far above what’s expected, either through luck, talent or hard work. There is no strict definition of them, rather a ‘You know it when you see it’-attitude. The name comes from the fact that the System essentially has deemed you trash but you defy the system and fate and become strong. Your situation is extreme even for Defiers, I mean a Herald spawning on top of you and you survive? Stealing a bunch of exclusive titles? Crazy. I think it has only happened a few thousand times in the multi-verse.” Abby seemed to get excited just thinking about it, happily bouncing up and down in the air.

“So it’s not that rare? There might be even more on earth?” Zac interjected.

Abby rolled her eye in response. “I think you misunderstand Zac. A few thousand times in the multi-verse. Oh right, you missed the tutorial. Suffice to say the multi-verse is almost infinite, with endless worlds with life on them, most far larger and more populated than your earth. It has existed for at least hundreds of millions of years. And during all that time it has only happened a few thousand times. Which makes you an aberrant even among Defiers. You, and by extension me, have truly hit the jackpot. “

“So how does it help me?” Zac asked. “I understand that I have a leg up on others with all these strong titles, but I still can’t absorb that cosmic energy you mentioned. What is that, anyway?”

“Cosmic energy is the building block of the multi-verse. It is energy, it is magic, and it is life. It is everything. You couldn’t really see the effects of it earlier as your world had so little of it, but you will soon see the effects of it on everything around you.” Abby said, almost having a reverent tone mentioning it.

“See how?”

“Some things in nature will be unable to take in the stronger energy and die out. But many things will be like the cultivators, naturally absorbing the energy. Essentially, things will grow big. Both the beasts and nature itself. Many things will also change in unpredictable ways. A tree might gain the properties of metal and be almost unbreakable, a mouse might grow wings and fly, or suddenly be able to spit thunder. It’s quite spectacular.” She explained.

“Not being able to cultivate will impede you somewhat, but not as much as you think. You have a massive advantage in the form of titles, strength and your newly created outpost. In any case, there are so many things to go over, but unfortunately, we are running out of time." Abby realized she had gone off on somewhat of a tangent, seeming a bit embarrassed.

"I will be summoned back in 10 minutes.”