Give up this action.

"You congratulate me and condemn me. You praise me and give me obscure authority. You bring up my past and future version," said Adam, his power softening as the [System] said more at one time than ever before.

"Yet, you still haven't told me why. Answer my question," demanded Adam.

[System Conduits] must not be destroyed. Their knowledge is restricted.

"It's just one conduit. On a person that has no memories or true consciousness. Why does this matter?"

The [System] will offer Adam Clemens a bargain. Once, Adam Clemens asked how strong the [System] is. Bargains are how the [System] makes use of strength. Through providing wanted benefits in exchange for physical actions, the universe moves when the [System] requests.

There are other means the [System] can use, but they are antithetical to the [System]'s purpose. Please wait while bargain is being compiled.

Adam read the message three times. It expressed a lot without actually giving any usable information out.

What is strength for the [System]? It creates and shapes the classes and skills for everybody. It facilitates societies. There was never a ban on killing Leputi with the breeder class, according to Lashtam, but simply having the [System] saying it was blasphemy has kept the bunny people safer.

The [System] does so much for everyone else in the universe that even the thought of losing those benefits makes races stand up and obey.

What was the [System] offering Adam? What could it offer Adam? If Adam accepted, then he would be stuck with the weakest defensive class available. Does that limit the strength he can gain? Sure. Does it mean he can't be strong? No. He would just never be able to rise to higher tiers, get powerful skills, or be viewed with respect by the older races.

However, none of that says that Adam can't build his own skill upgrades if he refines his understanding of soul construction. The [System]'s words didn't say classes couldn't be upgraded, just that he wouldn't have the [System]'s help.

Adam frowned. It came down to this, does Adam need the [System]? Technically, everything he had done to this point was without the [System]'s help. It was possible to survive without the [System], but no one else had done it previously because they were so enamored with what the [System] easily provided.

On the opposite side, could Adam gain the knowledge and ability to do it? It had taken a colossal amount of recklessness, and luck to counter that, just for Adam to survive. He had shown some ability, creativeness, and intuition as well, but eventually there would be a time where the recklessness was greater than the opposing traits. A lack of balance to the danger would be the end for Adam.

All those thoughts got Adam riled up. The fact that he even had to risk his very soul just to survive within the [System] made him angry. Knowing that the majority of humans on the planet hadn't even had the chance to get that far made him furious.

If you include all 68 times that future Adam had relived the fall of humanity, then that meant over 500 billion humans had been killed due to the [System] bringing invaders to this world. Did the fact it was the same 8 billion people dying repeatedly even matter?

It all left Adam seething. His head pounded with rage, and he wished he had an army of strong invaders in front of him to express his emotions on…violently.

However, as the lids of his eyes became heavy with his consciousness being overtaken by the river, two new displays appeared in front of Adam. The first was short, and the second was longer.

This is the [System Contract] that you will sign, Adam Clemens. Once you sign it then your friends who discussed the [System Conduit] with you will sign similar ones. Read the contract and then sign it. The [System] calculated that the reward value is equivalent to your sacrifices in this matter.

Adam would have frowned at the wording if his face wasn't already screwed up by his hate. This was not a bargain. This was an order. The wording was clear. It did not offer negotiations. However, it did say equivalent value, so Adam turned to the contract.

[System Contract]

Adam Clemens will never touch, identify, harm, destroy, or use skills or abilities upon a [System Conduit]. The signee will also never reveal the existence of [System Conduits] or the methods of interaction between the [System] and those touched by it.

Once signed, Adam Clemens will ensure that those who found out about [System Conduits] will also sign the contracts provided to them by the [System].

In exchange, Adam Clemens and his genetic kin will be transported to a world where they will be kept safe from further violence or persecution.

Staring at the contract, Adam was aghast. He couldn't find the words to describe what he saw and felt. He reread it several times, but each time the words remained the same. The beat of his heart echoed in his ears as he was so furious he couldn't even speak. His brain was fogging as no further thoughts came, only more anger.

Sign the agreement.

"What?" he asked, dumbfoundedly, unable to believe what was in front of him.

Sign the agreement, Adam Clemens. It is the only option.

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"But…that agreement is GARBAGE! How the hell do you consider that equal value?!"

The [System] understands value more than any person. This is equal value. Adam Clemens and his immediate family, those he wanted to protect when the [System] came to Earth, will be assured of their lives.

"What about my friends?!" screamed Adam.

They will have their own options. Without the ability to harm the conduits their rewards will be less.

"And the Sentinel Army?"

Unrelated.

"The rest of humanity?! The Earth?!"

You are an individual. One is not worth an entire species or world. The scale is disproportional to what you will be giving up.

"Disproportional?! It's my flipping planet! My people! They don't deserve what you have brought here!"

Deserving is unrelated. The [System] does not accept responsibility. The [System] will continue to fulfil its purpose. What people and races do outside of that are irrelevant to the [System].

"But knowledge of the conduit is?" asked Adam, his volume brought low. Reason surfaced even as the fury filled every place in his body and soul.

Sign the contract, Adam Clemens.

"You want it signed that badly?" he asked with a snarl.

The contract must be signed.

"Must be, huh? No actual choice for me? The great and powerful [System] has spoken! Well, then let me respond to this command."

Sign the contract.

"I'll give you a counteroffer."

Do not make this mistake, Adam Clemens. It cannot be returned from.

"[Soul SHATTER]!" yelled Adam.

Even with all the anger he had been feeling, Adam had left his image version holding the energy within Cruxannith's soul. He had never let the coating around the [System Conduit] dissipate.

At his words, his pseudo-skill activated. It was almost anticlimactic. Adam wanted fireworks. He wanted explosions. His need was for a grand middle finger thrust at the [System] that everyone in the world could see covered his thoughts.

Instead, what he got was the soul's equivalent of mixing baking soda and vinegar. The energy frothed and sizzled, burning away the part of the [Soul Conduit] that fit into Cruxannith. Just for a little extra rebellion, Adam grabbed the sizzling energy that had made up the conduit and used [Soul Combine] to form it into a new boundary to seal off where the conduit had entered.

With a feeling of satisfaction that soothed the rage, Adam returned fully to his body.

"Millenia of existence and I guess you still need to learn how to negotiate better," he said to the [System] displays in front of him. He felt smug as he saw them disappear on their own.

Then Adam looked around at his prison. The floor was cracked, the walls had chunks taken out of them, and the gates to the cells rattled and vibrated, all from the release of his emotion fueled power. The occupants of the cells also looked like they were in bad shape. They were all unconsciously, and quite a bit of blood and other fluids had leaked from them.

Adam took a step forward and was about to call for the midwife to help with them when he was stopped by a new message.

Adam Clemens, your actions have the potential to bring harm to the [System]. That cannot be allowed. Though antithetical to the [System]'s purpose, retaliatory actions will commence.

Immediately a new type of burning struck Adam. It began in the top left of his head, then he felt it spreading out. It was both sharp and dull, a consuming feeling that left the affected area numb except for the pain. Adam's thoughts began to dissolve as the pain tried to replace every part of him.

He was already angry. Furious. That contract and the demands of the [System] had pushed the river as hard as it had ever flowed. A pulse released the heat. It throbbed through him and then reached the boundary of his body and soul before it bounced back. Followed by another pulse rushing through him.

Then a coolness that he hadn't felt for a while, different than the numbness that was eating his thoughts, spread out from a small place where it waited in his head.

Hot and cold. Both pushed outwards. His body temperature grew. Every pulse filled his body with power. His mind held off the heat, clearing his thoughts and chilling the energy there.

Adam growled, a feral rumble of an animal that had been attacked.

"Screw this! I know where you are!"

He used [Soul Vision] to enter his own soul. What he saw filled him with both concern and certainty. The energy he had inside was being taken from his soul.

He cast another version of [Soul Vision] and looked through it. The energy that he had gathered and stored was being stolen, vacuumed up by golden roots. Without a doubt Adam knew where they led, and without the energy he would wither away.

In the physical world Adam opened his cooler of blood packs, took out a dozen, and threw them to Cruxannith, the only captive who had not succumbed to his earlier expression of power. He saw her reach out for one mechanically, then he returned to his soul.

The heat pulsed weakly through his soul, but when it hit the boundary, when it was about to rebound, it brought new energy with it. From the soul bond. Only his soul was being attacked by the system, but Cruxannith's soul was no longer touched by the [System]. He had the energy from two souls.

Without hesitating, he flashed his body to where he had found his own [Soul Conduit]. Pulling from the opening of the soul bond, he drew in energy. He used the cold to freeze the energy around himself, to stifle the absorption that the [System] was using to attack him.

While the energy froze, in the same way he had frozen it to stop from attacking his friends while fighting goblins or had frozen his soul to protect it from Cruxannith, he moved the stopped energy all around the [System Conduit]. He stacked blocks of frozen energy as tightly as he could, as if he was single handedly trying to build the great pyramids.

Once the entire area was practically filled with froze energy, Adam yelled, "I see that the corruption was right. There is only one acceptable outcome between us."

Then, almost as if two voices said it, an older voice and a teen voice, the words rattled with the fury of 69 tormented lives.

"I WILL CONQUER YOU!" all the lives of Adam screamed at the [System].

Then he cast [Soul Shatter] on himself.

It hurt. More than he could have expected or prepared for. The frozen energy didn't want to burn. The [System Conduit] had already drained so much of his energy. There was an impasse.

But Adam wasn't alone. White, yellow, red, and black flecks ignited around his soul. Fires flared. The conduit tried to create a line to stop it, like how fire fighters use a controlled burn. But the cold in Adam withdrew back to his mind and the heat pulsed forward, carrying with it as much energy as he could draw.

Cruxannith must have been devouring the blood packs, because new energy was flooding in with the heat. Everything swirled in the form of a raging river. Adam didn't stop.

He burned his energy, ignited his soul. He pushed all of it around the roots and conduit until his very soul boundary where it lay was burning. Then, as Adam's soul was about to lose its cohesion, Adam relocated himself to his class area. There was only one place with enough energy to patch up the large wound he was about to suffer.

Grabbing the latest skill, [Stun], an ability that Adam knew he could do without, he dragged the block of a skill from Cruxannith's soul into his own. With a better understanding of the shape and connections of the skills, he was able to pull it away without damaging the rest of his class, the opposite of what he did to Sgolkr's class.

Arriving back at where the [System Conduit] had been, he shattered the skill and then used [Soul Combine] to plaster the energy it had been made from onto his boundary, making sure there was no permanent damage to his soul.

Adam's body was sweating with the effort and heat it had created to do all this. But his goal was completed. The [System] was no longer able to directly influence him, and Adam's soul was intact, although his stores of energy were drained.

With a weary sigh, Adam opened his body's eyes. A few deep breaths calmed him down, his anger and rage were forgotten in the heat of saving himself from the [System]. Idly, the thought that he couldn't evolve his class passed the surface of his mind, but it was ignored due to the exhaustion.

Raising a new chair from the ground, Adam plopped into it. His muscles were tense and clenched, and it took more effort to relax them.

Adam wasn't sure how his defiance would affect his future, or his friends, but for now he needed to rest. There was no doubt he would find out when it happened.

Unfortunately, it turned out that Adam didn't have long to wait.

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