Tales of the Endless Empire

Chapter 351: The First System Event Begins

Eric stared at the glowing notification, his eyes wide with disbelief. He had always known the price for participation was steep. Measured not in gold or blood, but in years of his own life. Until now, the highest recorded cost for a system event among the newly integrated had been five hundred years. His patron had assured him that it had never exceeded that threshold, not in any of the countless eras he had lived through. Five hundred years had always been the invisible ceiling for early system events, a dangerous but manageable gamble. Yet the words before him told a different story. This time, the toll was one thousand five hundred years. This was triple the worst-case scenario.Eric’s stomach tightened. By his own reckoning, he had perhaps four to five thousand years of natural lifespan left before he needed to ascend to D-grade. His plan had always been straightforward. Attend every single system event, grind for rewards, and climb steadily until ascension.

Even if he encountered a particularly expensive event, the cost had never seemed fatal. Most trials later would demanded seven to nine hundred years, but to bleed away fifteen hundred years at the very first event? That risk threatened to unravel all of his careful planning. His patron had estimated ten, maybe thirty years until he could reach D-grade. On paper, there was still room for survival, but Eric could not shake the dread curling in his chest. Why gamble blindly when one could ask the god who guided him?

" Eric sent to Solarian.

The reply came almost instantly, the words burning in his mind. Gods always answered swiftly, as though their thoughts raced at a speed mortals could never comprehend.

""

Eric’s jaw tightened. ""

He had half-expected this answer, but the thought gnawed at him. His army could be teleported in groups large enough to fill a battlefield, but he hesitated now. Too many among them hovered close to their natural limits. If they burned fifteen hundred years here, even survival might doom them. They could win the event only to die of old age before touching D-grade.

And without the proper training, without growth, their classes would stagnate at the threshold. He wanted the best outcome for them, not an early grave. But if he brought fewer allies, could he still stand against other Chosen? The treasure hunt demanded numbers, scouts to spread out, fighters to guard him, and carriers to hoard prizes. Without them, how could he hope to place high enough to claim the rewards?

" Solarian answered after a pause, his voice calm as ever. ""

The god’s words settled over Eric like a heavy mantle. His patron’s tone was steady, unchanged, but the faint delay before the reply lingered in Eric’s mind like an echo. Gods did not hesitate. The thought was unsettling. Still, his resolve hardened. He did not have the luxury of time.

He gathered his troops swiftly. Mustering twenty to thirty elites was no challenge, though it felt strange not to lead the full hundred fighters he had once envisioned. What worried him more was Solarian’s warning about killing another Chosen. That was a far more dangerous game. He had hoped the elites from Thalion’s camp might join him, but they declined.

They debated whether to attend at all, preferring to wait for a safer event where they could control their own fate. Eric could not blame them. Paying such a cost only to hand the reward to another god’s pawn was a gamble few would take. If he died, their sacrifice would be wasted. Even his own future with Solarian’s domain was not fully clear. What help awaited them there without blessings? Even Eric himself did not know. His patron had promised only one thing: survival.

Around the camp, whispers of disbelief spread like wildfire. Soldiers and adventurers alike murmured at the staggering fee. Those with sharper minds understood the deeper truth: competition would be unlike anything before. The weak would not dare attend. F-grade mortals were barred entirely. The entry would kill them by the loss of time. Maybe they had a few days left to reach the next grade.

Even fragile E-grades would balk, unwilling to gamble their remaining lifespans. This event would be a gathering of predators, the strongest of the strong. Normally, perhaps ten percent of attendees were elites, with only a rare few bearing divine patrons. Now, those numbers would swell. The battlefield would be a crucible.

Yet Eric did not falter. He had trained relentlessly, day after day, under Solarian’s guidance. His god was one of the strongest in integrated space, and surely that strength echoed in him. Surely that meant he stood among the higher echelons of the Chosen. At least, he prayed it did.

He readied himself, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with his hunting party. When the moment came, he accepted the system’s terms. Reality fractured.

Agony ripped through him as the purple vortex claimed his body. It felt like his soul was being fed through a grinder. He screamed, the sound torn from his throat as fifteen hundred years of his life vanished in an instant. The tearing ache passed quickly, but its ghost lingered in his bones.

Then the void cleared. He stood atop a massive pillar floating in endless space. His companions materialized beside him, their faces pale, their bodies trembling from the same cosmic theft. Across their vision, the system’s words unfolded in brilliant, merciless clarity.

Welcome to your first System Event

The first event will be a Treasure Hunt

Around your neck, you will find a spatial amulet, capable of storing any treasure you claim

Items you carried into the event cannot be stored

Your task is to gather as many treasures as possible

Only treasures within the amulet will count toward your score

At the event’s end, the system will reclaim these treasures in exchange for points

Beware your allies may become your deadliest enemies

You may leave at any time, but doing so will forfeit everything inside the amulet

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Exit is not instantaneous. The more you carry, the longer it will take, especially while fighting

Speed will be your greatest weapon

Good luck

Eric exhaled slowly, nodding once. He had suspected such rules. Eric reached instinctively for Solarian’s voice but felt only silence. The link was gone. The pillar they stood on seemed more like a waiting chamber, suspended between worlds. They waited there for hours until the true descent began.

The second teleport struck without warning. Eric and his warriors crashed into a new realm. An endless plain of emerald grass dotted with white flowers. To his left stretched a jungle of titanic trees, their canopies clawing toward the sky at a hundred meters tall. To his right wound a broad river, fifty meters wide and unfathomably deep, its crystal waters gleaming like a mirror.

Its serpentine course vanished into a canyon ahead, carved wide as the grandest of chasms, its cliffs crowned with castles both ancient and defiant. Eric’s skill, Light’s Eye, narrowed his gaze to the horizon. The fortresses perched precariously along the canyon’s edge gleamed with runes, daring intruders to test their strength.

Before he could plan, other presences flared. Three more parties materialized within sight. Two were human, one elven. Eric’s eyes hardened. This was no time for mercy. He could not afford rivals. Not here, not now. Every treasure mattered, and trust was a luxury he could not grant strangers. With ruthless efficiency, he struck.

The amulet’s rules had not forbidden seizing the spoils of others. And Eric intended to take everything.

<--

Lucas and his group arrived at the system event in the final moments, all of them doubled over in agony as the purple vortex spat them out. The transition shredded their bodies and minds, leaving them gasping for breath. They had been together since the beginning, forged in the fires of the long tutorial, and had grown into a hardened band. Now they numbered eighteen, every one of them an E-grade.

In the tutorial, they had lived like bandits. Preying on weaker survivors and the beasts that roamed the wilderness. Their preferred prey had been a massive bee colony, an endless hive that provided both danger and consistent levels. It had been, in Lucas’s opinion, the perfect training ground.

A treasure hunt suited them well. After all, they had learned something crucial in the tutorial. Most humans had no practice fighting each other. Lucas and his group, however, had perfected ambush and guerrilla tactics. That edge would serve them well here. They weren’t aiming for first place, but the top ten thousand? That was within reach.

As the stabbing pain faded and Lucas forced himself upright, he blinked away the dark spots clouding his vision. Around him, his companions staggered to their feet, weapons in hand, ready despite the disorientation. They found themselves at the edge of a wide clearing, a rare break in the oppressive jungle canopy. The clearing was no brighter than the rest of the forest. The towering trees blocked most of the sunlight, leaving only dim shafts of illumination.

Then Lucas saw them. On the opposite sides of the clearing stood two other groups. All three parties froze, taking stock of one another. They formed the points of a triangle in the circular space, each side assessing the others with sharp, predatory eyes.

Lucas wasted no time. His skill flared, identifying their opponents. The strongest was a mage, level ninety-eight. Dangerous, but not unmanageable. His group had two expert archers, and Lucas knew how vulnerable mages were to fast-moving projectiles. Against a rain of arrows, they would crumble. He smirked inwardly. The coming fight would be easy.

But the standoff was fragile. Whoever charged first would expose themselves to the third group, and everyone knew it. The air thickened with tension, a silent stalemate where no one dared to make the opening move.

Then something unexpected broke the deadlock.

A man stirred in the center of the clearing.

He had been lying flat on the ground, concealed in the grass, unnoticed until now. Slowly, stiffly, he sat up. His movement was sluggish, as though his body still ached from the vortex’s tearing grip. He didn’t seem aware of the three groups encircling him.

Greed flared hot in Lucas’s chest the moment his eyes fell on the man’s armor. Black metal, ornately designed, with a crystal embedded in the chestplate. It radiated value. Loot like that could propel him far up the leaderboard.

The man didn’t react to the stares boring into him. Instead, he raised a hand to his mask and pulled it free, revealing his face. His skin was wrinkled, weathered, like a man in his fifties, but his short hair was white as fresh snow. It stood out starkly against the reddish tint of his skin.

Lucas frowned and activated Identify again. His eyes widened in shock. F-grade. The man was still F-grade.

To enter the event at that level… he must have sacrificed nearly all of his remaining lifespan. A fool’s gamble. System events consumed years only upon entry, not during. That meant this man might have mere days left after the trial ended.

Lucas watched him touch his face, run his fingers through his hair, his eyes still closed. Pathetic. Today was Lucas’s lucky day.

“Hey, idiot! How much lifetime do you have left?” Lucas shouted across the clearing, his voice dripping with mockery. The man still looked dazed, perhaps unable to handle the agony of the life-drain. Weakling.

The others laughed as well. To them, this newcomer was the biggest fool they’d ever seen. Who would enter a system event alone, with no allies, no support? With no party, he had no chance at the leaderboard. Even if he survived, the reward could never justify the cost. The man had doomed himself.

Yet he didn’t flinch.

He lifted his gaze, and crimson eyes locked onto Lucas. Calm. Indifferent. They were not the eyes of a man resigned to death. If anything, they radiated the quiet assurance of someone who knew far more than he revealed.

Slowly, deliberately, the man replaced the mask over his face. As it clicked into place, a faint rune flared, drawing the hood of his robe back over his head as if pulled by unseen strings.

“I have seventeen hours left after this system event,” he said plainly, his voice steady, almost casual, as he rose to his feet.

Lucas sneered. The fool was trying to act cool. Surely he knew the truth. This would be the end of him.

“Alright then,” the man continued, sweeping his gaze across the three gathered groups. “You don’t have anything valuable on you. If you leave now, I’ll let you live.”

The clearing erupted in laughter. The arrogance was absurd. Alone, outnumbered, and still in F-grade. Who would take such words seriously? Greed burned in the eyes of every fighter present.

But before another insult could be hurled, the man moved.

He unleashed a speed and force that defied everything an F-grade should possess.