Chapter 4076: The Weight of Endless Service! V

The minerals themselves were beautiful. They appeared as purple crystals that cast shadows in directions that didn’t exist, their facets reflecting light from sources that weren’t present. Holding them felt like grasping solid uncertainty.

Noah smiled at the absurdity of it all…materials that might retroactively decide they had never been collected, tools that could be forged from possibility itself.

He carefully stored them in a space that he convinced to exist specifically for things that might not exist.

“You should experience the Memory Stone,” he said, looking at Sigrid, then turning to include Moiraine, the Infiniverse, and Ruination in his address. “All of you. Place your hands on it and see what it shows you. I experienced something… significant.”

The four women exchanged glances of curiosity.

They moved toward the Memory Stone thereafter with varying degrees of eagerness.

Sigrid approached with the measured steps of someone expecting either wonder or trap.

Moiraine moved with confidence that suggested she feared neither. The Infiniverse floated forward with anticipation of new experiences to catalogue.

Ruination walked with the certainty of someone who could end whatever they encountered!

The four were breathtaking!

As their hands made contact with the stone simultaneously, scintillating obsidian-purple light erupted around them.

The light didn’t illuminate so much as reveal, showing dimensions of their forms that normally remained hidden. Their eyes closed in unison, consciousness pulled into crystallized memory.

While they experienced whatever the stone chose to show them, Noah turned his attention to his own mining efforts.

How would it feel for him to mine himself? After all, this was effort!

He approached a particularly large cluster of crystals, raising the Goad with the intent of someone about to teach rocks about their own nature.

The first strike was recognized immediately!

HUUM!

|Effort Detected: Manual Mining|

|Principle of Perpetual Harvest Acknowledging Labor|

|Physical work toward resource gathering quantified|

|Multiplication Factor: Applied|

The Goad connected with the crystal formation, and instead of simply breaking, the crystal seemed to undergo an existential crisis!

The stick that had touched it carried a simple message…”You exist to be harvested.”

…!

The crystal’s response was to shatter in a way that suggested it had suddenly understood its purpose. From the broken formation, Paradox Minerals erupted…not the few that should have emerged, but dozens, as if the effort of mining had convinced reality that more reward was deserved!

|Mining Effort Recognized|

|Yield increased by 1000% due to Perpetual Harvest|

|Paradox Minerals are choosing to exist in greater quantities|

|Current harvest: 133 units from single strike|

…!

The 1% of a single Principles continued to be utterly nuts as Noah could only marvel at it!

He could also only become somber as…how the fuck had Early Creatures with Principles died when 1% was this insane!

1% of a Principle had effectively granted him Honored Living Existence power as he could do much more, with one of the main things being…versatility.

A tremendous amount seemed possible!

Noah shook his head as he continued mining with rhythmic precision, each strike of the Goad carrying its own educational component.

There would be a strike, and then a response to the strike!

Strike: “Your crystalline structure is temporary.”

Response: Crystals accepting their impermanence and yielding minerals.

Another strike and…”Holding minerals serves no purpose for immobile crystals.”

Response: Formations releasing their contents with something like relief.

Existential Truths were lain with each strike!

“Being mined is participation in greater purpose.”

Response: Enthusiastic shattering that produced extra yields.

…!

And it continued on and on!

The absurdity of educating geological crystals about their existential purpose while mining them should have been comical! Instead, it felt profound…another demonstration that in his Shore, even the mundane became miraculous when proper effort was applied.

HUUM!

His mining rhythm was interrupted by a sudden eruption of power from the Memory Stone.

The four women touching it blazed with complexity that made the air itself denser!

Purple-obsidian light shot upward from their forms, carrying with it the weight of experience.

|Your companions have experienced enhanced memory immersion|

|Unlike you, they witnessed events through Early Creature perspective|

|The effort of luck and opportunity is also effort|

|Perpetual Harvest recognizes serendipitous positioning|

|Sigrid has gained: +25,000,000,000 Complexity/Purity|

|Moiraine has gained: +25,000,000,000 Complexity/Purity|

|Infiniverse has gained: +25,000,000,000 Complexity/Purity|

|Ruination has gained: +25,000,000,000 Complexity/Purity|

|Additional Inheritance Detected:|

|Early Art of Existence Obtained: Morathis’s Final Conflagration|

|Creates temporary fire-based Kleos Glyphs|

|Temporary nature allows 100x power multiplication|

|Duration: 7 seconds per Glyph|

|Warning: May cause Existence combustion in target area|

…!

Noah read these prompts with astonishment that quickly transformed into joy.

They had received a far greater boon than he had…experiencing the memory from Morathis’s perspective had granted them not just her observations but fragments of her power!

The light surrounding the four women condensed, sinking into their forms as their consciousnesses returned to the present.

Each bore a slightly different expression…Sigrid looked thoughtful, Moiraine appeared energized, the Infiniverse seemed to be categorizing new data, and Ruination simply smiled with satisfaction at having witnessed another ending.

Noah laughed, but not with envy… with genuine pleasure. Their gains were his gains in every way that mattered. Their increased power meant his Shore was stronger, his companions more capable, his family better protected.

“You experienced Morathis herself?” He asked.

Sigrid nodded slowly, her eyes still carrying echoes of golden fire. “She was… magnificent. And terrified. The combination was heartbreaking.”

They all became silent as they processed the heavy meanings all of this would have!

They stood in this contemplative silence for a moment, surrounded by the Crystal Requiem where Kelgar had maintained his eternal vigil.

The Paradox Minerals they had gathered hummed with uncertainty, existing and not existing in their containers. The Memory Stone stood silent, its purpose served but its presence still monumental.

But Noah was not one to let an atmosphere wallow in gravity and seriousness.

Whatever came, they would simply do all they could to face it!

So…

“We should explore deeper,” Noah finally said, breaking the moment. “The first level has given us this much. Imagine what awaits below. let js finish collecting the Minerals here and go.”

“Mmm…” Sigrid nodded as the others followed!

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