Chapter 30

After a few more [teleport] jumps down the trail, Frank decided to really test himself. He teleported onto the nearest stable tree branch and waited for his cooldown again. He made a leap through the air and landed on another stable branch in the next tree. He did so again, landed with little difficulty, and then kept going. It felt like he was living a martial arts movie fantasy, jumping branch to branch like some anime character. As he continued this and mixed it up with [teleport] jumps, he was notified his agility had increased by one point.

When the timer for his quest ticked down to five minutes, Frank sat down and closed his eyes. He decided to focus on his core and pull in energy. As he did this, he looked over his status page to reassure himself he had more under his belt than he felt he did.

'Name: Frank Lepari

Archetype: Scout

Status: Awakened Neophyte

Strength: 16

Agility: 16

Perception: 12

Stamina: 13

Vitality: 15

Spirit: 10'

'Abilities: [Total Invisibility, Rank E Level 6]

[Teleportation, Rank D Level 8]

[Psychometry, Rank E Level 3]

[Swordsmanship, Rank E level 3]

[Firearm Marksmanship, Rank E Level 3]

[Limited Telepathy, Rank D Level 1]

[Supernatural Sense, Rank B Level 1]

[Amateur Enchantment, Rank C Level 1]'

He had more than a solid block of skills, even if half of them weren't directly useful in combat. And his stats weren't bad either, especially with a fresh new point in Agility. Frank could guess that unless he really pushed himself, those small bonus points would become less frequent. Of course, he'd be happy to prove himself wrong and pick up as many as he could.

While he drew in more energy, he suddenly felt a feeling of static in the air and a similar feeling to how he felt when he was performing his [teleport] skill. It was almost like the tugging feeling he felt, but less like a pull and more like push. It was almost like the opposite of the feeling his skill gave him. It was strange enough that he opened his eyes and wondered what it was. Was this the feeling of a portal opening?

'Countdown complete. Preparation period over, the mission will begin and the portal shall open'

Frank sprang to his feet, rifle in hand. The air a few feet down the path seemed to shimmer and split open, the closest approximation Frank could give it was like bubbles of soap or oil floating on the surface of water, but from out of nowhere. Strange sparks of rainbow light began to come from the previously empty forest path, racing around in a circuit as they cut through air. A shadow began eating away the space inside that boundary and drew a steadily growing hole in space. It would have been mesmerizing if it weren't terrifying to see for the first time.

Before long the sparks began to settle and coalesce into a triangle shape big enough for about two people to comfortably walk through with space between them and not fear brushing the edges of the "doorway". Where it wasn't a perfect pitch black, the portal glowed the brilliant deep emerald color of the one Frank saw in Lincoln's livestream, but it was far more brilliant and vibrant in person. A camera could never do it justice, but having stared at the doorway with his gun pointed at it for about five minutes, he decided nothing was coming out just yet. He carefully removed his phone from his pocket, then snapped a few pictures of it from the front and around the side. He didn't want to go around the back and was already wasting enough time as it was.

He quickly sent off the pictures to his family group chat, urging Lauren to upload them to the forum. When he got confirmation they sent on the strained mobile network connection he had in the forest, he set his phone to go into power saving mode to turn off all the apps he didn't need, turned off wi-fi, bluetooth, location services, everything he knew wouldn't work without connection to society. Then he put his phone back into the zippered leg pocket on his pants.

He took a deep breath, said a quick prayer and hoped God was listening, then walked through the portal without stopping to dip his toe in first.

---

Frank felt awfully strange. It was familiar to him, but also alien. He was being tugged in all directions, like parts of his body and being were being teleported around. He felt like he was in the portal for a very long time, but also the space of a split second. It was like his consciousness was aware of seconds of travel being broken up and put back together piecemeal. There was black darkness all around, but he could feel light around him. It was like sensing spiritual energy and drawing it into his body, but it was all around him like a cocoon or a blanket. He tried to take note of the feeling, it was like he could feel the hint of a new revelation coming to him about something, he just couldn't put his finger on it. It was almost maddening!

And then as soon as it began, it was over. Frank stumbled out of the portal and tried to hold his balance as his eyes adjusted to being able to see again.

He was... in a forest again. But this time, the trees were... wrong. They weren't the same leafy trees and conifers of the forest he just came from. These trees were different, Frank just couldn't figure out how. Until the wind blew a few leaves over towards him. He snatched one from the air and took a good look. The leaf looked like one from any normal oak tree. Except that it had one distinct central piece that grew taller than the sides of the leaf. It almost looked like a tapering sword tip made of plant material growing from the center. Frank had never seen anything like it, and flipping it around he found the underside of the green leaf was a wonderful shade of cerulean.

'Yeah, I'm not in fucking Kansas anymore' Frank started to shake a little bit as he let the leaf go, letting it fly on the wind again. He composed himself and took another look around. He was standing on some very old, weathered stones, a strange blue and purple grass peaking up from between the cracks in the stone and thriving all around wherever it could from under more of those blade-like leaves and the branches they were attached to and wherever else it made sense at a glance for grass to grow.

The whole thing was strange and utterly alien to Frank. It felt familiar, like Earth, just palette swapped. Where there were greens and browns on Earth, here things seemed to take on a darker blue or purple shade. Was the color caused by some mutation of common chlorophyll? Or some other weird adaptation that never evolved back home? Frank couldn't even begin to guess, all he could do was click the button on his camera and begin recording.

He began to walk around and examine the strange stone pillars erected around the spot he had come in. The portal was still around, it was also a deep shade of blue now, unlike the green he had walked into. It briefly flashed back to green, then seemed to shake violently. Streaks of crimson began to stream through the colored parts of the edges, then zig zag into the previously calm green borders and before long the whole portal was caught in a turbulent crimson light and shrank, folding in upon itself until it was gone with no trace of it having been there. 

Frank didn't want to be caught halfway in one of those things as it started to collapse, it looked scarier closing than it did opening. Where it opened gracefully, it closed like a violent and hungry maw, angry that it had been opened at all before folding back into whatever void it sprung out of. 

He was glad he was facing the portal, catching the closure on camera. He quickly tested his flashlight by clicking it on and off against his hand, confirming that it worked. So, electronics didn't seem to have any issues from portal travel. That was good to know. He didn't need to test the camera, any recording he brought back was obvious proof that it worked. 

He sighed and began to walk around some more, curious to see what sort of wild life he would run into, and which he would have to avoid. He was hesitant to teleport into a tree and get torn apart by some sort of bird or monkey. 

He settled with looking for a trail to walk, clearly someone had built around this place before, so there had to be a trail to follow. He followed a spot through the foggy tree line leading away from the smooth grey-white stone pillars and finally found a dirt path about 15 feet away from the clearing.

'Weird. Do the locals not come by here often? But then why make a monument? And the trail isn't awfully far away. Something isn't adding up here' Frank thought to himself.

He walked back toward the clearing and picked a few blades of the blue grass, which he found featured very small ridges almost like a serrated knife. The blades were obviously harmless, but Frank found it a pleasing shape. He then used [Psychometry] on it, which immediately upgraded his skill to Level 4.

'First use of psychometry on an alien world, progress bonus granted!

Knave's Gallant: A hearty blue grass that grows well around areas with high spiritual power. Rather than sustain itself with sunlight, Knave's Gallant grows best with ambient spiritual energy and places where it grows tall and thick are said to be excellent spots to gather spiritual energy.

This particular blade of grass is thick with the spiritual energy from spatial travel, until it was plucked it was incredibly healthy.'

Great, now the System was making Frank feel like an asshole for picking some grass. Frank quickly took a look around and other than fairly ordinary looking mice lounging in the grass under a nearby tree, he didn't notice anything particularly strange watching him. He might not have even noticed the mice if not for his perception stat being upgraded. Hang on, why was his perception so sharp right now? 

He checked his status page and found a new line added over to the side of his status window.

'Buff Activated: +5 to perception for standing within detection range of a magic object from [Spiritual Sense]'

'What magic object?' Frank turned around, turned off his camera, then quickly took out his phone. He opened the camera and snapped a couple zoomed in pictures of the Knave's Gallant grass, then put his phone back to sleep and walked back toward the spot the portal spat him out.

Of course, this whole structure must have something to do with the portal, which would explain why the grass fed off of its energy to the point it grew wild over the trail. Were the pillars magic objects? They were smooth and lustrous, where the stone floor around them was cracked and weathered. Looking closer, Frank could see vine patterns in the weathered stone, he missed it before because he wasn't watching it too closely. He could see shimmering all around the pillars if he looked at them close enough. They were almost sparkling with light, he had mistaken it for some property of the stone before, but now he could tell the pillars were chock full of energy. Just how did they do it?

'[Psychometry]

Portal Stability Control Pillar: A pillar steeped in magic energy, enchanted by runes so as to draw energy from portals and allow them to stay open for longer so long as there is an exit or entry point connecting two spaces. Bonus enchantment: +5 to total portals able to be placed within range of pillar matrix.

The storied history of this object cannot be deciphered by the current level of [psychometry]'

'Huh, too much for the skill to handle. Wasn't sure I'd see the day. Maybe I'll come back when this skill ranks up?'

Frank quickly snapped a few more pictures of the pillar and its siblings before running off down the trail. He jogged, feeling his senses dull a little bit as he made distance through the fog and away from what he was dubbing the Portal Pillars. There was a noticeable drop in clarity losing the five points of Perception, but even without it he could still appreciate the beauty of the forest. He noted the absence of the perception buff in his status page, and the presence of the +2 to agility from being undetected before he got an alert from the System.

'Test of Courage: First Portal Raid

You have been given time to adjust to your surroundings. Now you must do your duty. Gather information about the enemy, find their leaders, disrupt their operations.

Objective: Find an enemy camp.

Reward: 2 Attribute Points'

'Damn, guess I'm not sightseeing after all' Frank sighed and wondered why the system decided to give him his mission so late. Then he heard it. The stomping of feet around a bend in the trail. He quickly activated [Total Invisibility] and clicked the record button on his chest camera.

He saw them as he was backing away into the trees, rifle at the ready. Goblins. The fallen variety, of course. Their ugly goat-like eyes and misshapen smiles highlighted how alien they looked, as if the long, tapered ears and pale, hairless green skin didn't give it away. Now that Frank thought about it, why were these guys all hairless but the true goblins weren't? What exactly did a goblin have to go through to become classified as "fallen" anyway?

 Frank sank into a crouch and let the goblins pass him by. He wanted to fire at them, to get the threat out of the way and to see what benefits the system offered him. But he was outnumbered and unaware of how close their camp may or may not be. Maybe they would take him to it? It was likely if he stayed undetected, they would have to go back to wherever they came from. 

Frank walked beside the group, teleporting ahead when they got too far ahead. His [teleport] skill made no noise, so as long as he kept the patrol within his sight, he was able to keep up without issue. Before long, the group had made it to the Portal Pillars and began fanning out for a search. So they knew he arrived. How did they figure it out? Did they have some sort of technology, or perhaps magic that could tell them when a portal was opened? How far away were they that it took them so long to get out here?

Being this close to the pillars again gave Frank his +5 passive perception buff again. He almost wished it hadn't, these things were filthy and just screamed bad news. It took Frank all he had not to just dump a mag into all five of the spear wielding monsters before him. He decided it would be good to get further away from them, so he teleported into a tree within view of the area. After making certain he was otherwise alone in the tree, he deactivated [total invisibility]. Better to be hidden from view where the enemy wouldn't look while his skill went through its cooldown period than to have it fail while following them back.

Now that Frank thought back to Lincoln's video, he remembered there was a huge flash of emerald light in the sky when the goblins had come through for their raid. Had they seen that and come here, knowing that this place was designed for portal travel? It made sense. Frank would have to keep that in mind next time he came through a portal from Earth. In fact, he was damn lucky nobody was already waiting for him here when he arrived.

Frank watched the goblins patrol for a good fifteen minutes or so, turning off his camera to save some space on the card. A little while after the goblins regrouped and decided Frank or whoever they thought they were looking for was long gone, they began to march back down the trail. Frank, having gained a little more confidence, decided to teleport around in the trees as far as he could to save his stealth cooldown. He was watching them intently, while they watched the trees and the road. Luckily the goblin patrollers were watching the ground level, or they may have noticed a figure watching them from the dark shade of the branches like a curious bird. A curious bird with a rifle ready to punch them a one way ticket to their maker.

---

As night began to fall, the patrol made their way off the trail and headed a little ways into the spectacular forest, with its half blue trees and sapphire grass contrasting against their skin. Frank too, was worried about standing out since he brought green and brown camo, expecting a green forest or a plain. He wasn't thinking of the possibility of blue plant life being the dominant color. Frank did have different clothes to change into, a dark black. It wouldn't be the optimal choice, seeing as how blue would serve him best now. It would also perform better at night than black. At least in theory, assuming the moonlight around here was the same as on Earth. He had read somewhere that ninja wore blue on night missions to better blend in with the moonlight. He really just had the black clothes in case he found himself inside a cave, but they were the next best thing for him, other than [Total Invisibility] which just rendered all other camouflage irrelevant. 

Luckily for Frank, there didn't seem to be any strange tricks of light here. Although he still didn't get a good look at the sky since it was still just as foggy as when he arrived. As the patrol settled down at a camp site they seemed to already be familiar with, Frank made sure he was recording every word they spoke from the safety of the branches. He may not be able to understand the words, but somebody might someday, and that possibility alone was worth money to somebody, somewhere back home. 

Frank was excited about his adventure so far, but thinking about the internet, money, and sharing his videos just made him miss home. He scratched his chin and resolved to try to do whatever the System asked of him as quickly as possible to get back home sooner, rather than later. He just had to keep it in the back of his mind who he was putting himself in danger for.