Dear Diary,

  Well, It’s been a while hasn’t it. 17 days since all of this started and two weeks between entries. I thought I would be better at this but I guess not.

  We did my testing, turns out I am a bit of a big deal. I’ve been trying to think of how to describe it but it's kind of like my body is like a perpetual motion machine for mana. Once I give it a push it will just keep generating mana, that's a big deal they tell me.

  By ‘they’, I obviously mean the only two people I really know, Turrel and Monty. Monty is a bit of a big shot and Turrel is like my personal tutor, the brawn and the brains if you will.

  So yeah, big drama with my first test. Monty did something that made me skip a big milestone and get way more advanced than I should have been. We panicked and then blew up the testing machine. I learned some skills and can make cool shockwaves now.

  No fireballs yet but I haven't given up hope, I have ‘Life’ frequency affinity. So I am kind of like a healer? Monty is the same and says there is a lot more to it than that so I am keeping my hopes up.

  We met a scary cthulhu-looking dude who turned out to be a pretty big important guy. Pretty sure he knows we spoofed the second test but he seemed like he wanted to see where it went so he let us go. I will have to see him in about six months time so that's fun.

  Otherwise I have spent the last seven days on Monty's vessel. It's a giant space ship but they don't call it that. I have met some more of the crew and as strange as it is talking to aliens like it is a normal thing, they are all pretty chill.

  Turrel has been taking on most of my training and it hasn’t been as dangerous or fun as Monty’s was but I did manage to get a new skill, something less destructive but Turrel said it is very important for me.

  I probably missed some stuff but that's the TLDR for now. Tomorrow Monty is going to take me into a rift for the first time so that should be fun. Turrel has been really against it but Monty is the boss and I honestly can’t wait.

  Signing off Day 17, Jack.

  Jack woke up, stretching and enjoying his comfortable mattress in his own secluded room. Monty had set him up with the rest of the crew and he had a tiny little hotel room like space all to himself. He went about his normal morning routine and left the room after splashing his face with water.

  Today was an exciting day, today he was going to enter a rift for the first time. He had no idea what to expect, they had told him lots of different things about them and some people were either jealous or worried about the expedition.

  It could be because it was going to be just him and Monty but he wasn't sure, he was on his way to the mandatory ‘Briefing’. It seemed to be something they did for every rift the crew entered, for as reckless as Monty seemed at times he was a stickler for the rules when it came down to the safety of his own people.

  As Jack walked through the myriad of industrial spaceship halls, he pondered his stats, knowing not much had changed other than his new purge skill being acquired.

  STATUS

  —--------------------------------

  Name: Jack Davies

  Race: Human

  Age: 33

  Origin: Earth

  Modification Level: Tier 1

  Shards Consumed: 0

  Shards Required: ??

  BODY ENHANCEMENTS

  —--------------------------------

  Capacity: Tier 1

  Flow: Tier 1

  FREQUENCIES

  —--------------------------------

  Mana: Life

  Prime: ??Amplification??

  TRAITS

  —--------------------------------

  Prismatic Sensitivity: Tier 1

  SKILLS:

  —--------------------------------

  Mana Sense (Internal): Tier 0

  Shockwave: Tier 0

  Purge Mana : Tier 0 - Allows the user to purge mana from their system. The purged mana is gently pushed out of their body and into the environment surrounding them.

  The skill was nowhere near as cool or interesting as his shockwave had been. It was a purely auxiliary skill with zero combat uses. However both Turrel and Monty agreed it was going to be one of the most important for him to master.

  One because it would let him self regulate much easier than having to use shockwave to expel mana. The second reason was because they seemed to think it would allow him the chance to develop some powerful domain based abilities if he was offered the right traits.

  There was a lot of talk about his power and how to use it, but his main takeaway was that every odd tier was associated with a body enhancement and every even tier was a trait. When a person connected to the Origin, they were presented options by the entity.

  With Jack skipping ahead to Tier 1, they were not sure if his first shard requirement would be the normal one riftshard or the normal number required for Tier 2.

  He brought his mind back to reality as he approached the small conference room and entered his code on the panel. He still couldn't understand the symbols but he memorised his pattern.

  “Ahhh, Jack, So good of you to join us. Come in, we can finally get started” Monty said as he waved Jack over to a seat that looked up at a big screen.

  In the room already were Turrel and Monty along with Rummi the squamari quartermaster he had met on his first time on the space ship. Jack knew Monty wanted to keep the circle small as far as people knowing about his full abilities but he wouldn’t have thought she was the best placed to keep a secret from their brief encounter.

  Rummi looked over at him and nodded, some of her scales glittering as she did so. Jack entered and took a seat, keeping his thoughts to himself. He had been working on his self control.

  “Now just to be clear, we all know nothing said in this room about Jack is to leave it ok? Jack I have Rummi here as she is the one person I can trust on the crew with your secret at the moment. I can’t say more but you will have to trust me for now. She is literally unable to expose your secret” Monty said.

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  Rummi nodded and glanced at Jack with a curious expression. Jack wasn’t sure how much she already knew or not but she had been very perceptive the last time they had met.

  “Turrel is going to run this briefing, we are going to try to keep it short but it is good for you to get an idea of what to expect. Turrel, take the floor” Monty said as he stepped to the side and took a seat.

  Turrel stood up and using his hand to gesture on the screen a map appeared. He zoomed in to a large planet and moved the map away slightly to focus on a swirling black mass of energy.

  “This is Rift ‘D-1-SRD-9456’ and it is the rift we are going to be entering today. The rift ID means that this is a Death mana rift - D. It is a Rank 1 rift, being the lowest classification - 1. It is in the SRD system and is the 9456th rift identified in that system. Still with me?” Turrel asked.

  Jack nodded along.

  “This is a high priority rift, mainly because of the mana type. Death mana isn’t rare or especially valuable but it does present a large risk if it is allowed to intensify and potentially rank up. We covered briefly how different frequencies can impact the basic skills and mean learning abilities can be very dangerous. This is especially the case for Death frequency mana. We have very very few powerful death mana users in the entire universe and they are often too busy to deal with low level rifts. There is a 100,000 credit reward for the closure of this rift.” Turrel looked at Jack and smiled.

  “That is a large sum of credits Jack. We won't go into the economy of rifts today but most rifts do not have a reward associated with them. If they do it is normally much smaller and only happens when there is an imminent risk of a rift break. The reward is to offset the likely cost of having to bring in large amounts of mana stones to allow for combat utilising mana frequencies not of the Death variety. This is where you come in.”

  Turrel tapped on the screen again and a number of symbols appeared, he then tapped again and a small map appeared with large circular centre and a highlighted section on the outer perimeter.

  “This is from a scan we were able to perform approximately two days ago. With the current rotation of the portal we are assuming this is the location that you will enter. We have two objectives other than closing the rift for this expedition.” He tapped on the screen and a small green circle started to expand slowly from the highlighted section.

  “We want to see how much your [Purge Mana] ability will be able to affect the environment around you. You and Lord Montarg will be establishing a small camp close to the rift entrance while you purge, we are allocating one day for this test.”

  He tapped the screen again and two images of creatures appeared on the screen.

  “The second is to give you some basic combat experience in a real environment, the scan shows we have two primary rift creatures here. The rodents and the larger wolf-like creatures. Monty will give you a run down in more detail when you are in the rift. The main take away is don’t get bitten.”

  He tapped the screen one more time and a much larger wolf appeared, this time he looked towards Monty.

  “This is the core guardian, we weren't able to get a full scan but it looks like the standard lupine mana enhanced variant. It should not pose an issue to yourself, I still do not recommend you engaging it while Jack is in the rift. It is weak, yes, but it is a pack animal and it is quick.”

  Monty shook his head and patted Turrel on the shoulder.

  “My friend, you have not seen me in action for a long time. I will have no difficulty protecting Jack inside this rift if we are correct about his purging effect. His safety comes first so rest assured I will ensure he gets out if anything looks wrong.” Monty said. He then turned and looked at Jack and Rummi.

  “These briefings are normally much more detailed Jack but I wanted to keep this brief as I know how your attention fades. Rummi here will let us know if there was anything valuable that showed up on the scan we conducted and we will keep an eye out if we can find it.”

  Rummi looks between Jack, Monty and Turrel and sighs.

  “I have no idea what is going on here, If I am going to be included in a secret meeting I would at least like to know the secret?” Her eyes were trained on Jack as she continued without leaving space for anyone to speak. “As far as rare or valuable items, there may be some fairly valuable mushrooms in the rift. Death rifts often spawn highly sought after narcotic ingredients. There was an indication there could be some dark quartz within some of the vegetation, It will look like a large crystalline tree stump in its raw form. Both of these will be almost impossible to transport without specialist equipment however being extremely toxic and the quartz is just dangerous to move due to its absorption qualities.” Rummi said.

  “Rummi, I know how you love puzzles, I didn’t want to deprive you of the opportunity to work out why Jack is so special. Would you like me to tell you or would you like to take a guess?” Monty asked playfully.

  Rummi’s eyes squinted and she stared at Jack so intensely he actually leaned away in his chair.

  “Fine, keep your secrets. Based on the core charging and the fact you are so confident about clearing this rift with just the two of you, I would have to assume it is something to do with either conversion or some sort of amplification. I will work it out soon.” She reached over and handed Jack a folder.

  “There are images and descriptions of any of the valuable mushrooms or other fungi that you may encounter in the rift as well as the dark quartz. Lord Montarg is very generous and allocates a 30% split to the crew of any valuables found on expedition so we would all appreciate it if you kept your eyes open.” She winked at him as she said the last part.

  “Got it, dangerous mushrooms and dark crystal tree. My eyes shall be open.” Jack responded as he looked at the folder and then tucked it under his arm.

  “Let’s go I’m ready for my first rift experience, big Monty will keep me safe and I just need to do my thing.” He winked at Rummi, trying to keep an air of mystery going. He didn’t expect the look of shock that was plastered on her face in reaction to his joke.

  “Jack, Remember we talked about maintaining formal addresses while in front of crew, it is something that to most of the inducted universe is very important.” Turrel said.

  “Ohhh sorry. I believe Lord Montarg will be able to sufficiently protect me during this expedition. Let us commence. Is that better?” Jack asked.

  Monty shook his head and patted Jack on the shoulder as he led him out of the room.

  About an hour later Jack was standing in front of a massive glass window, watching something amazing. The vessel had warped over to where the rift was located and floated a few kilometers away. The rift was something special to look at, it was a strange swirling mass of mana made physical.

  There was a central circle that was constantly spinning, from the spinning circle there were massive ribbons of mana that Jack wasn't sure were being pulled in or falling out. They spun around like tails orbiting the rift and giving it a strangely hypnotic effect as he stared.

  Jack wasn't sure exactly how they were expected to ‘Enter’ the rift, at the point they were close but the rift itself was just floating in space. He thought maybe they would be launched towards it with space suits or some sort of boarding vessel that might transport them in. What he didn’t expect was for a massive section of the vessel to detach and transform into a giant circle looking like a massive star gate from an old television series of the same name.

  As the metal ring surrounded the rift, part of the bottom of it expanded out to include a flat surface in the shape of a circle. In front of Jack a small circular platform rose from the ground, circuits all over it started to light up and he felt a hum from the area.

  Monty, now dressed in a very different outfit approached and patted him on the back. He looked regal and dangerous, his long tan pants seemed to be padded with armour but were well fitted. His upper body was covered by a long-sleeve top of matching material. Both were accented with a grey trim along the seams that made the armored sections stick out visually. He had a tight belt with multiple cylindrical loops throughout, each of them housed a mana crystal.

  He had thick black boots that contrasted his tan outfit and he had worn fingerless gloves in a faded tan colour to top it off.

  Jack had been given a similar outfit, however his was much more basic, simply being an all grey single tone suit. He could tell his was more of a mass-produced piece in comparison but it still felt sturdy. It was surprisingly heavy and took him by surprise to begin with, he couldn't complain however he did prefer safety over looks.

  “Let's go, Jack. This transport might feel a little rougher than the larger ones. When we get close to the rift, hold on to me if you need to. It will be a little disorienting the first time. We are going to walk through off the platform and then through the rift. Try not to linger too long in the open.”

  With that Monty stepped forward, pulling Jack with him.

  Jack stared down at the platform as he approached it and then back out into space. He couldn’t help thinking how he was the first person from earth that would ever enter a rift. He was about to make history and no one even knew.

  They stepped onto the platform and it started to vibrate, being much rougher than the large scale transporters he had experienced so far. The hum intensified and then with a flash of light he found himself staring up at a massive swirling black mass in front of him.

  His head spun and he felt nauseous, he held on tight to Monty. He felt himself being slowly held up and pulled forward as Monty led them into the rift. Jack noted that it was strangely warm this close to the rift, he thought space would be cold.

  He could feel the mana leaking from the rift, it gave him a strange feeling and across this body he felt goosebumps. He closed his eyes and let himself be led forward.

  He felt a strange pull, and then there was a sensation of space around him warping.

  He was falling.

  He came to a stop, the world around him seemed to slowly correct.

  He opened his eyes and looked around him.

  The inside of the rift was nothing like he expected.