It had all goo hell, after [Alice] left aarted to dive really deep into the problem, he had found only more [Tampering] ing his way. From nudges in his thinking to look more into other worthless stuff...

  To some more...Obvious, like that oime, he had been thinking about the importance of ripping the Mansion for the Shadons out of the [Soulscape].

  It was meaningless and also would put a serious strain on Elizabeth's [Soulscape] but somehow, he had got in the mood that it was the right thing to do!

  But even so, he got stuto the idea of how to carve a part of the [Soulscape] and throw it into the void. If not for his [Skill] turning itself on at the predetermiime and ing him of influence...

  Yeah, he was about te a part of the [Soulscape] and call it a day, it wouldn't influence his [System], not really, sihat was kept up by the [Laboratory].

  The [Magic]? That wouldn't be influenced either, sihe [Library] was what fueled it with all the putational power he had shoved into that half, by all the looks of books and all, Elizabeth's Magic was fueled by hard sce.

  A middle fio all the [Feelings] bullshit Catherine liked to prattle about, was her magifluenced by her [Feelings]? Probably, she was after all a [Fount of Power]. But that only applied to monsters like her and her husband.

  The normal people without [Fate's Blessing] like him or Elizabeth needed hard facts and hard work...Or talent.

  At least the girl had a talent in [Mana Manipution], she couldn't flex it sihe System] did all the heavy lifting, but if not for that [Talent] in the background...Yeah, he would have o spend more of his own [Skill] and [Talent] to make everything work as smoothly as this.

  Ping

  Warning:Thought has wandered away from the main train of thought.

  Exeg mana sing, please do not touythiallic or sensitive to high discharges of Electricity.

  He got zapped by his skill and his eyes narrowed once more, he had been distracted thinking about Elizabeth's parents, it hadn't been a deviation that big in his thoughts, but he couldn't nudge his skill at a lower setting. If he allowed his mind to be distracted whatever was affeg him would seize the advantage and work on it.

  He had started the train of thought about cutting out the Shadow Mansion from something as simple as if a Shadow Scout would let him pet him or not after all.

  No, he o focus, so for now he tinued going about the logs.

  "Hmph," even with all the distras that came his way.

  "I said Hmph!" Whatever they were...Nothing could distract him.

  "I will pin with Mama ime I see her!" As, his little sister knew him the best and how to get his attention.

  "We 't distract Eversoul for everything Alexa," He said with a sigh.

  Not that she could actually tell it to that woman...She was...She wasn't around after all.

  "Mama said that you wouldn't ignore me...You haven't e to the house after Eli-Eli came in that weird disguise." Alexa pined with a pout.

  She was indeed oe little girl as the advertising said, but he couldn't...He couldn't get distracted.

  "This is important Alexa, someone has been messing around here." He said while pointing around, his Laboratory had seeer days, but nowadays...He hadn't let the robotiions his disorder.

  He he physical evidence of what he was doing, so he would be able to cat if he was w on something that wasn't relevant to his current ws.

  "It wasn't me!" Said Alexa quickly hiding behind a chair, as if she could...

  Warning

  Possible thought kernel rollback detected...

  Access dehought kernel in lih current thread of thought...ges are minimal, and no a is required.

  ...What?

  His hair turned yellow and his eyes turned sharp, Alexa seemed to shudder behind her chair, and that made his anger somehow fre even harder...Only for him to breathe deep and squash it.

  He couldn't let himself be toyed by his emotions, he hadn't risen to the top of a as ruthless as the Saintsworths by following his emotions, no. He o be calm, 'Chill Alexanders...[Chill]' Was his personal mantra.

  He might have used some [Idea] in his personal mantra to help settle his emotions, "I know it wasn't you Alexa." He said in what he hoped was a soothing voice.

  "But I o finish this, someone very bad is messing around with Elizabeth and me. So I o fix this first, then we have mango cake..." He stopped his phrase and reformuted it.

  He would probably loathe his past self..."...Actually we might as well go all the way and make a Mango Party." But the sight of his twin sister's eyes shining as a star was worth it.

  "You promise?!?" Said the little girl running from behind the chair and giving him her patented [Super Cute Tackle Hug Attack ver 2.5].

  He almost even was knocked down too, if not for his superhuman reflexes and mana-fueled muscles he might as well have been squashed into paste from that attack.

  "Yes, now be a good girl and go watagmo oV, his stream is about to start." He said while using his skill to put the chapter of that streamer on the main TV at her Tree House.

  "You are right!" Said Alexa turnitention to a watch that wasn't there before.

  How curious...

  "I o hurry up!" Said the little girl running towards a metal door that had materialized in his boratory, "Magmo Knows " and with those ominous words, she disappeared.

  He didn't know what the girl saw in that flesh-colored puppet with purple colors, but kids are like that nowadays he guessed. How the times ge...When he was a kid he spent most of his time training and trying to survive in a tration camp from the Saintsworth's Main Branch...

  And now here he was...In another dimension stu a [Soulscape] with someoampering with his mind with only a [Skill] he got after everyone he cared about was long dead and his world ruined...

  [With his lovely twin sister at his side.]

  How the times ge indeed. Now if he could get those annoying errors out of the way... He might eve something before Elizabeth returned home.

  He didn't get anything.

  The stupid [System] didn't give him anything he didn't already know, "Who even desighis crap!?!?" Screamed Alexanders while dischargiricity all around.

  If those puters were real, they would have been fried, if the robots around him worked usironics, they would have stopped w...

  As... Everything was made of mana and a visual representation ihe [Soulscape]. What he found out was...That somehow, either the bad actor was trying to distract him by redireg his thoughts about his twin sister...

  Or someone else was also maniputing his thoughts whehought about Alexa...But that was just silly, [who would even try to mess up with his perception of Alexa? She erfed the most beautiful little girl in all worlds possible ever!]

  ...Someone was messing with him, he was sure, no way in hell he thought that on his own!

  [I mean, it was true...] But still!

  "At least Elizabeth is about to do something iing..." He mumbled trying to not think too much about his twin sister, he didn't like the idea of someone using [His family] to mess up with him.

  He had promised Eversoul that he would look after her, [not that he o promise Mama that he would look after his twin sister! That was just silly!]

  ".........Okay someone is definitely messing with my head there, no way I referred to Miriam Eversoul as 'Mama' she is like...half my age? A third? No wait...But I'm 18...What?" A spark of lighting struck him just at that.

  Reigniting his brain as it was about to shut out and he made a o include a redire of his own thoughts wheopic of Eversoul to ever e.

  Something was indeed going on there.

  Elizabeth had arrived at her room and was about to undo the [Shift] to return to her normal form, by what he could see in the logs in the system she seemed to be distressed, he only knew she was about to do so because the skill had pinged for access to the [Database] to save the current form and bring out her body out of the [Soulscape].

  He didn't know where the skill saved it, si was outside of his area of trol, probably in the [Heart] of the [Soulscape] or somethierical like that.

  Either way, he dialed his skill to 100% allowing his brain to work as a sub-processor while the skill-focused all his thoughts, suddenly his world slowed almost to a crawl and he could see how the mana traveled all around him.

  "[Betcha I could even find the heart of this pce, the true one if I followed the mana...]" He mumbled to himself as he saw a flow of mana travel from one of the servers in his boratory to the outside of it.

  It traveled into the shadon mansion and then disappeared into the void...

  He of course didn't follow it, he instead focused on the ges Elizabeth was going by, her body started to refigure itself as her muscles and skeleton were altered by the mana once more to return to her previous form.

  Her body grew, his ans turned from just below average to the perfect image of healthy, and her proportions turned from standard to global award model (He still could appreciate the figure Alice had though).

  And soon enough her face turned from that of the perfect goth girlfriend (for him) to the blonde face that resembled so much Catherihat it made him want to either run away or pester her.

  And...Nothing else ged.

  At least till she opened her mouth. Then all hell broke loose.

  WARNING!

  MASSIVE AMOUT OF FEING MAED

  ERROR

  ERROR

  SKILL CORRUPTIOED

  She seemed to want to do something, he forced his access to allow him visual readings of what was going on, and what he saw through the eyes of Elizabeth...

  He saw a red s disguised itself as a note...With her own writing tellio [Flush the mana in.]

  And the bird brained dammed brat started doing that!

  The girl seemed to be uhe idea that she was flushing it out when she was actively funneling the [Taint] into the core of her body!

  He tried to fight it, tried to make the mana go in the right dire, but just as he was about to start...

  Notice:System administrator has vioted the rights of privacy of [User].

  Revoking administratihts...Done.

  Please refer to primary administrator to recover the rights or wait till user has been notified and decides to reinstate admin privileges.

  He felt it before he was able to read it, the s of pure mana came from the floor, ceiling, and walls straight at him.

  He tried to dodge them of course, for he had no time for this, but sadly..The [Asshole] who desighe system was too good for his own good.

  And so he got stripped of his rights as [Administrator] leaving him only with the bare minimum rights to help patch the system, any updates or fixes would o go to the [Primary Administrator]...

  "BUT I'M THE PRIMARY ADMINISTRATOR YOU STUPID SYSTEM!" Screamed Alexanders, "I MADE YOU!"

  Of course, the system didn't answer, so he only got to see how the corruption that Elizabeth had been deceived to accept spread...

  And then, when she left it fester in the deeps of her soulscape... It was almost indistinguishable from the real thing, he uood now why the stupid System didn't fg it.

  If he hadn't been searg for it...If he hadn't seen how it had started as a small little worm of darkness...He would have missed it, if someone didn't [Uand] humaions like the stupid system...Then they wouldn't see it either.

  So when the girl followed the same process she had allegedly done before (That was oeresting way te the taint if nothing else, flushing it out with mana.), it only made it easier to corrupt everything.

  Only...Now the system didn't fg it as [Taint], her mana didn't behave as [tainted], and she would, under any examination, be fgged as [Normal]. And wasn't that a scary thing...

  The worst part was that since he was stuside he would too be affected!

  So he had to burn his mana, burn his mana as if his life depended on it, and fight to tain it with what little privileges he still had. So he fought.

  While Elizabeth slept he fought for each part of his boratory, te it from the influence of the corrupted mana, while Elizabeth took a shower?

  He was busy sterilizing his boratory.

  While she ate?

  She was busy fighting for his goddammed life!

  And how did he know what Elizabeth was doing?

  THE STUPID THING TURNED OFF THE VIDEO BUT LEFT THE AUDIO ON TO DISTRACT HIM!

  And worse, sihe mind of Elizabeth was shoved in a part of the system right now, the [Thoughts] of whatever uppetering her body were parsed through [His System] befoing to the outside world.

  So he got first o see this puppet of Elizabeth and his...Quite w thoughts about that pink-haired friend of hers, he wouldn't judge...But if Elizabeth ever tried to bckmail him using Jack, he would use that material to fight back.

  Either way, he somehow mao get some sembnce of normal his boratory, but wheried te the [Library]...He found it as if nothing had happened.

  "That's...Weird..." Said the blonde man while walking among the halls, w why the [Taint] hadn't spread this side.

  Only to remember that while it looked as if Alexa was the administrator of this site, his boratory was what ultimately fueled it, and besides...His sister wasn't even here, so maybe that was why?

  He could see the door into her [Haven] closed, and trying to open it didn't work, so maybe she was sulking?

  Either way, he o work about a fix, his twin sister could...

  His twin sister?

  Wait...How was Alexa his twin sister?

  Wasn't she like four or five?

  He was 18 years old...No wait...He had been alive during the Sed World War...That was...Wasn't he like 200 years ht now?

  But..."My body is that of an 18-year-old." He said to himself, stopping for a sed and looking at the door into the [Haven].

  "No time for this, it is probably some mild tampering anyway." Said to himself Alexanders.

  He had work to do, so he ramped up his overused [Skill] while turning one of the bookshelves into mana and refueling his overused mana pool, the good thing about w in a pce made out of your own Mana...You have the biggest battery you will ever need.

  So he started w, he felt the proddings of the spells the pink-haired girl was using and didn't even bother to disguise the [soulscape] he didn't have the privileges to do so anymore after all.

  He did get a ping from the [System] asking him to do it, but when it didn't give him back his [Privileges] he shrugged and didn't do anything, the system wasn't flexible enough to uand that he couldn't do anything without those, but didn't want to prod Elizabeth...Not that it would work sihe current Elizabeth pet of whatever had [Tainted] her mana.

  So he worked, he purged what he o work, and he made a straight liween the [Shift] spell and what he suspected was the area where Elizabeth's body usually resided.

  And whe a ping from the [Fake] about to use the skill..."[Slow Processing Power]" He struck.

  First, he used his dominiohe skill that was one fual part of his [System] to slow the processing speed, then building the el he ted "[More silent than the darkness sleeping at the bottom of the sea.........that is the shadow burning deep within the melody of sce!]" Because of course, it would require the extra Oomph te the skill and hijack the process.

  After managing t the [Correct] Elizabeth though, he had been drained dry from mana, sihat had taken more than he expected, and while he liked to banter with the girl (really, if only she wasn't the daughter of Catherine...).

  He almost fot the situation he was in, he hadn't noticed how the fake girl replica had ed down the Shadon Mansion...Nor how the mansion wasn't anywhere in the [Soulscape]. So while bantering with the girl...Someone spoke behind him.

  "So that's how ye a path straight to [The Core]." Said a meical voice from behind him.

  He turned quickly using his enhanced reflexes to strike the voice with a high kick...

  "Greeting [Invasor]." Only to be met with a man shadows with a bone atop his head. "I go by the name of Ethan O'el..." Said the man.

  Only for his figure to ge into that of a grizzled man with an army uniform and a head full of gray hair "Nowadays they only known me as [The Stygian Bane], such a terrible name..." He said while Alexanders directed what little mana he had to send a message to Elizabeth.

  His body lost the shining and the only remnant of his mana was the golden halo around his eyes, "'t let you do that now, I...Let's see...Elizabeth, call your father and tell him Ethan is up to...bbb..." Said the man while plug something from thin air and reading it.

  It was...A blue s...With what he had sent Elizabeth...

  "Let's ge that now...here...[Oh, sorry...Losing...e...Stupid...(System).], yeah, that sounds like something you would say. " Said the man who then showed him the blue s.

  His face lost almost all its color ah a motion allowed the message to resume his travel, he tried to send something else while the man seemed to be distracted...But his e got severed.

  "Now...I would love to speak with you...But you aren't even here..." Said The Stygian Bah...Pity?

  "What are you talking about? Don't tell me you also believe that e in the real world?" Asked Alexanders while trying to absorb some mana from anything near him.

  Only to find shadoreventing his advances.

  "Oh no, that man couldn't be further away from [Alexanders Saintsworths], he didn't even earn that name in this world anyway." Said with a smile Ethan.

  What?

  "Yeah, his registered name is [Mathew Smith]. you believe it?" He said while barking a ugh. "If not for Catherine bringing up your [inal] and making that deal to save her daughter...The Saintsworths wouldn't have built such presen this world."

  What?

  "You...Aren't very bright either are you?" Said Ethan while grabbing him by the shoulder and pushing him forward, "e I will show you."

  He should have used that ce to discharge all his mana in one directed volt of thunder...

  He liked to think that he didn't because he didn't have enough mana...He would like to say that he didn't because he was goihe [Heart] of the [Soulscape] where the most delicate parts of the struct that was this boratory stood...So any discharge of mana could put Elizabeth at risk...

  He...He Really liked to think those excuses...

  "Here it is...the [inal]...[Alexanders Saintsworths] the [S of the Saintsworths]." Said Ethan while he spat into a crystal tube that held the body of what could be a kid barely older than four or fiv.....

  "The Twin brother of Alexa..." Was what Alexanders...No...What the [Simucrum] of Alexanders said as he looked back at his hands.

  "I...I...I..." He was being mind tampered by [Alexanders]...No...By what had been the security measures done by [Alexanders]. To make sure they stood loyal to their [Mission].

  What?

  "Why did y me here?" He asked the Stygian Bane. While looking at the figure of the kid floating in the crystal tube, he was dressed in a b coat too big for his size...[His Labcoat] that he hadn't found and had been searg for.

  He was also covered in blood and his body had wounds all over, his bloodied body spoke of wounds that were missing, but those had probably been healed when Elizabeth crossed those thresholds.....

  Oh...

  "I took you here, because [He] is only a threshold away from [Acclimating] to this world, he will be able to leave the [Soulscape] and will take his p [My World]. You oher hand..." He made a motion to one side of the crystal tube.

  There were four meters there, the first two were empty and the third was below 10%...Just...Just about how much life force he felt he had after having wasted so much mana trying to fix this pce.

  "You will not survive this...her he will by the way." Said Ethan pointing behind the crystal tube, a carbon copy of [Kid Alexanders] was there floating, but his body...He could feel it was made of mana...

  The same Mana he had.

  "So...I want to make a deal." Started sayihan while stretg his hand forward, only for it to be zapped by a current of electricity. "As you see I 't deal with...Him...So you only o siphon his life force to solidify your existence, keep living in the [Soulscape], heck. If I manage I wouldn't mind giving you a body at a ter date...One [Shadow Aligned]...Just...[Deal with him]."

  He gave a pair of tentative steps towards [Alexanders], he was there sleeping, his eyes closed...He remembered what was life was like when he was at that age...

  Well, what he could remember that the [inal] had given him anyway...He remembered the days full of trials in the [Saintsworths ], the harsh training...The fight to get a [Name]...

  Then he looked around, really around, they were at what could be called the [Core] of [The Laboratory]. Elizabeth wasn't around, nothing of her was, not really. This wasn't her [Soulscape] anymore and was more of [His].

  "You need me to deal with him...Why?" Asked the Simucrum while turning his back to the [inal] and standihe Batteries that reflected how much [Life] he had left...Him and the [Simucrum].

  "Because that will make my work easier, it isn't needed...I just keep him ed in here after killing you...Then killing your iteration when he wakes up upstairs would be more easy..." Answered The Stygian Bane, his eyes didn't betray the distaste he had for him and [Alexanders].

  Wait...What about...?

  "That [Thing] you call a [sister] isn't a problem, she will just make another you on a desertiet or something when I finish dealing with [Elizabeth]." Answered back Ethan without missing a beat.

  He was tempted...He was so tempted...But as...He was an [Alexanders], "The thing an [Alexanders] loves more than anything is [Knowing] something and sharing that knowledge..." He started saying.

  Ethan didn't seem to mind it, so he walked towards the battery that marked the fourth iteration of the body that was [Alexanders] "You see, and there is ohing we want more than anything...That is [To Live]." He said and iion he kicked the battery of the fourth iteration.

  The life mana started to leak and he greedily absorbed it, his baining his color and his mana pool expanding almost as twice as what it was before, he felt the rush of power in his body almost instantly.

  "Careful there, you don't want to explode." Said Ethan with a knowing smirk.

  "And this [Wish] is what makes us strive forward...That was what made me able to take the name of the first founder of [The Saintsworths]...So to answer your question..." He said while densing all the mana he had mao acquire in his [Core]. "Yes...I wish to live...To live free...To learn, to sleep, to eat...To...To do whatever the hell [I wish]."

  He funneled more and more mana "I don't think you hat much mana to kill a sleeping brat." Said with a frowhan, he could see the shadows around sharpening themselves and preparing to strike.

  "I know." Answered Alexanders, "But I least this amount to [Sever]." And with a smile on his face, his whole being colpsed into a sharp yellow sword that fleards.

  Iion the [Soulscape] got cut in two, [His] boratory no longer ected to [The Core] of [Elizabeth].

  She would have a hard time using her own skills...

  "NOOOOOO" But at least Ethan would have no access to the more important parts of Elizabeth.

  With some luck, the [inal] would be able to deal with it...If not...

  Well, it was no longer his problem, was it?

  It....would...be....his....problem...god....so...sleepy...should...had....brought....my....pillow...