I Hate Systems

"You're not Grade 2?" Slayer was alarmed at the statement before he calmed down, frowning as he spoke, "Did Zaira complete that plan?"

"What plan?" Arnark asked.

"Well, when I was lowkey acting as your enemy, I did a lot of tasks for her to avoid being annihilated, you see." Slayer continued, "And among that, I was the one that proposed the idea of the Four Directional Alliance."

"Four Directional Alliance?" Arnark asked in confusion, "What the heck's that?"

"The genres of Luck, Monetary, Recovery, and Transportation form the Four Directional Alliance." Slayer said, "Transportation Genre was created with the collapse of the Adventure System. But, it was somewhat on a loss-making spree."

"At that time, Zaira was working on a way to get her hands on powers similar to yours. And since the Main Character System fragment in me was inherently different from yours, she wanted to kill me and extract this power." Slayer smiled wryly, "So to avoid any mishap to our plans, I proposed her the next best thing."

"The four genres that all protagonists would have influence over in the majority of the cases. I'll help her conceptualise that. After all, despite being able to produce so many Systems, Zaira was unable to accumulate the concepts regarding the three genres apart from Transportation." He continued, "You see, the moment she began to amass the concept of Monetary, her finances took a severe hit. Similarly, her luck plummeted when she tried to amass the concept of Luck."

"You can say that the collapse of the Adventure System too was related to that. At that time, Zaira had attempted to amass the concept of Luck, as a result, her luck diminished alarmingly, and the Adventure System took the fall to help stabilise the System World. Otherwise, the System World would have collapsed." He spoke.

"I see, so there were more reasons behind the Adventure System's failure." Arnark nodded, "Indeed, one cannot survive an adventure without luck. So, it makes sense that it shouldered the loss of luck. But,"

He stared at Slayer, "Master, why did this problem happen in the first place? Zaira never faced any issues with absorbing concepts to create Core Skills in the first place."

"The reason is simple," Slayer sighed, "Usually, she absorbs Mental Energy regarding a concept that is sourced from countless worlds, fuses them, and then condenses a Core Skill by injecting it into a Coordinate. If you were to look at it from a deeper perspective,"

Slayer took in a deep breath before continuing, "One of the Mental Energy takes form as the head of the concept while the rest fill in the gaps. You can think of it being similar to the nature of a Genre Representative where the collective consciousness of the strongest world in the genre takes the head while the rest support it."

"The strongest aspect takes the lead and establishes a flow of framework for the rest to follow suit. But,"

He sighed, "Luck, Monetary, and Recovery are by far the strongest of concepts. They are potently powerful in every single world. Therefore, it creates a case similar to what you saw in Mystique."

"Each concept is strong, so fusing them isn't possible." Arnark nodded in understanding, "The Mental Energy of them from each world will act as units that fight against others of the same concept. The clash would simply result in effects regarding the concept to flare up."

"Yes, that's why when Zaira tried to fuse concepts of Luck, the Luck of the System World itself took a hit, because that Luck was symbolised from the thousands of worlds the System World was connected with. So, once these Mental Energy clusters of the Luck Concept began to fight each other for dominance, they influenced the part of luck sourced from their home world. And as a result, it resulted in a macroscopic war of luck throughout the System World, causing the overall luck to shatter in response." Slayer said.

"The same is true for both Recovery and Monetary concepts too, which is why Zaira failed all the time. But," Slayer sighed, "That's where I came into the picture."

He pointed at himself, "Since I have the same power as her to create Systems, I took on the task to create the Core Skills of the three Genres. I sourced the Mental Energy for that from our world. So, with just a singular collection point, there wasn't any problem. But as a result, it took me ages to create them."

"But, it was also because of this that I was able to survive long enough for our plan to bear fruit." Slayer said, "Otherwise, just the act of me possessing her power was threatening enough for Zaira to dispose of me long ago."

"I gave her a valuable power. But it was this act that bought me enough time." Slayer said, asking with a wry smile, "Do you blame me?"

"No, I don't." Arnark shook his head immediately, "You did what was necessary. I won't blame you. So, what's the end goal of the four Directional Alliance?"

"When the Systems of each reach level 99 and devour the rest of the Systems of their genre, there would be four Grade 2 Systems birthed: Luck, Monetary, Recovery, and Transportation." Slayer continued, "And if they were to devour each other, a Grade 2 System would form in the protagonist genre. Zaira was pretty confident in this conjecture, which was why she was patient all the time."

"Basically, this is her preparation for the end game against you." Slayer said, "After all, the Main Character System is the most special among all Systems. If you don't go under her, she would need to prepare against you."

Slayer then asked Arnark, "What is your response to her invitation? I can tell with an assurance that the moment you set foot on the System World now, Zaira would receive all data regarding the Main Character System. You would automatically fall under her influence."

"Nope, no plan to do so." Arnark shook his head as he waved his hand, destroying the communication line that Zaira was intending to set up between them using the Astral Network. It was basically him refusing her invitation, "I'll be free and unrestrained, always."

"Perfect!" Slayer grinned in response as he grabbed Arnark and teleported to the Fantasy World.

'So, the reason I couldn't reach Grade 2 is that there's another System in my genre.' Arnark thought as his eyes shone with killing intent, "How troublesome."