Flying in this rift was like having someone shove and pull you after you'd just learned to walk. Or trying to swim in turbulent waters after barely managing to keep your head above calm waters for ten seconds.

In this scenario, Ethan wasn't sure exactly which obstacle was worst. Was it the relentless, howling wind that seemed to be unable to pick a direction it blew into, or was it the damn harpies that kept drop-kicking him whenever he managed to stabilize for 3 seconds. And the violent lightning they blasted with him every time they landed a hit wasn't helping.

A harpy screeched above him and Ethan looked up just in time to see its blue glowing eyes and wide open curved beak as its twisted visage came at him far faster than he expected. He raised his arms, bracing for the impact while tucking his wings behind so they wouldn't twist as he dropped.

The kick was like getting hit by a catapulted anvil. Ethan felt the impact in every inch of his body, muscles and bones included, but it wasn't enough to break anything. Even the sharp claws weren't enough to overpower his scales. But the pulse of lightning did make him twitch and grit his teeth as he was sent reeling downward.

Ethan twisted and faced away from the cliffside before he flared his wings open, catching the updraft and soaring back up as more shrieks punctuated the continuous rumbling of the clouds and howling of the wind.

The one who'd hit him was already flying up, reading for another drop, while another was already on the way. A smile tugged at his lips as he maintained his path, and when the harpy was less than a second a way, the lance dropped in his hand and punched right through the monster's foot, thigh, and chest, skewering it before it even realized what had happened. But it didn't die just yet. It yowled in pain as it pushed them both down, trying to dislodge itself off of the lance while Ethan tried to correct his flight, but its suffering was cut off as the lance detonated and was then followed by a blast of pressurized flames out of his open mouth.

You have defeated [Stormtalon Harpy - Level 76 (II)]

You have reached Level 79. 1 stat point awarded.

Ethan captured the fragments and twisted once more, swooping a little lower as he straightened his wings before he blasted back up, beating his wings to gain altitude. You'd think that seeing members of their flock being skewered, blasted, burned and detonated would give them pause in their assault, but it was as if the harpies only lived to hamper him. Which made sense considering the challenge of the rift.

Rift challenge: Reach the cliff's summit

Challenge reward: Feather of the Storm Mother

With every clash, Ethan was getting better at maneuvering himself in the stormy skies. He'd been forced against the cliff once or twice, but that frankly didn't bother him as much. What really stressed him was that it's been nearly an hour and something of non-stop clashing with the harpies, with no end to them in sight, and he had no clue whether the summit he was supposed to be reaching was ten-minutes up or 5 hours. His Earth-based standards were completely out, and as much as he trusted his people to take care of things, they did make some enemies.

Well, me, mostly. I made some enemies, he thought as he slipped above one of the dropping harpies, extending his black claws below him and tearing the monster into ribbons, right as a bolt of lightning crackled out of the cloud and slammed into his back.

You have defeated [Stormtalon Harpy - Level 76 (II)]

The notification dinged in the back of his mind as his body seized, and while he was pretty sure a noise had escaped his throat, he couldn't even hear it over the stormy sky in which he flew.

Panting, Ethan ignited his scales and sighed as the fire warmed his scales and took away some of the pain, wings beating as he looked above.

He had to hurry.

***

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It took close to three hours for Ethan to reach the top. At least, that was his approximation. At some point, he had found a pretty wide cave that seemed to act as the nest of the damn harpies. Or at least one of them. And he'd been able to quell their numbers pretty effectively when he wasn't being divebombed every five seconds. It had also netted him a few neat-looking primagems and a spell, but he hadn't wanted to dwell and instead, he'd just shoved the spell and primagems in his Soul Space and flew up.

At the top, there hadn't been a boss, thankfully. Just a few more harpies he had dispatched easily enough until he reached the weathered pedestal at the edge of the cliff and peering beyond it, he realized that there wasn't much to see. The whole cliff was connected to a sharply sloping, grass-covered surface that just disappeared into the fog.

Turning his attention back to the pedestal, he peered at the large, crackling gray feather that floated on top, and hummed.

He'd never gotten an object before. What even was this thing?

Reaching for it, an arc of blue lightning jumped from the edge of the feather to his claw, but as soon as his talon touched it, a notification popped in front of him.

Assimilate [Primagem - Feather of the Storm Mother (Special-grade)]

Oh? That's new…

Ethan was surprised. He hadn't known this was a possibility and frankly, he considered immediately assimilating just on the off-chance he'd lose it somehow. But then he decided against it. Slotting it into his Soul Space, he tapped his chest and grinned. He wanted to save it for the right evolution. If he assimilated it, it could show in the evolution of any spell, but he didn't want that. He wanted to reserve it for the best case scenario. It sounded too powerful for anything less.

As soon as the feather disappeared, the howling winds and grumbling clouds immediately quieted down. They didn't completely die out, but they went from the equivalent of an ongoing storm to a slightly cloudy afternoon.

Pushing the rift completion message aside, Ethan quickly went through his notifications and pulled what he'd gotten from this foray into the rift, and he even found a trigger to detach the primagems that had formed on his scales. In the spell itself, he'd sensed the possibility to directly assimilate them or eject them, but he opted for the latter and a pulse later, they all dropped soundlessly on the windswept grass.

For primagems, that's 2 lightning mid-grades, 1 storm mid-grade, and for what I got from my own scales, they're all low-grade. That's 6 fire, 3 earth, 1 smoke, 4 wind, 8 lightning.

A massive haul when it came to primagems. He also snagged a tier-3 [Stormtalon Harpy's Claws] in the nest, and got plenty of fragments and levels along with it.

You have reached Level 80. 1 stat point awarded.

You have reached Level 81. 1 stat point awarded.

Shardpurse: 17248 fragments collected.

New Dawn: 34496 fragments withheld to be delivered when within range.

Shardpurse: 31612

Checking his total, Ethan knew it was time to get through some Arcanum upgrades. As much as he itched to get out and go check on what was going on, he wouldn't help anyone if he wasn't at the top of what he was capable of. Delaying upgrades could end up costing more than the fifteen minutes it would take him to get through, so Ethan sat down, crossed his legs, and pulled up the first of them.

Prime Arcanum - Tier upgrade (Tier-2 → Tier-3): Increase the Arcanum's tier, empowering its capabilities and unlocking more upgrades - 2000 fragments, 250 Essence, 1 Riftcore (tier-2)

Secondary Arcanum - Tier upgrade (Tier-3 → Tier-4): Increase the Arcanum's tier, empowering its capabilities and unlocking more upgrades - 1500 fragments

Tertiary Arcanum - Tier upgrade (Tier-3 → Tier-4): Increase the Arcanum's tier, empowering its capabilities and unlocking more upgrades - 1500 fragments

For the first one, Ethan had finally collected enough essence to afford the upgrade, but what bugged him was the riftcore requirement. He had plenty of those, but he didn't know whether he wanted to use any or whether he should be using the one he'd gotten from the volcanic rift. Did the Arcanum require the potency of a riftcore, or did its nature affect… something?

Ethan grimaced. He couldn't risk a suboptimal upgrade, even though he was pretty sure the nature of the riftcore wouldn't matter.

"It's just not worth the risk," he mumbled. He had wanted to save it for the future modules the pylons would unlock, he opted to pull it out of his Soul Space and placed it in front of him. Immediately, the grass around withered and smoked as the powerful, scalding energies of the riftcore wafted out. Then as he confirmed the first set of upgrades, he wondered what would happen to this rift if he had taken its riftcore and replaced it with this one.

I guess I'll eventually get the time to figure that out, he thought as the magic began building around him, and as a thread of intense red floated out of the riftcore and snaked toward his chest.

Hopefully this would be quick.

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