Formless Ascension: My Affinity Is Limitless

Mateo shrugged his broad shoulders, taking a slow sip from his own stone cup. ”I mean exactly what I said. Having this camp is vital to passing this trial. If it wasn’t, I couldn’t care less whether these people lived or died.”

Uhtred’s face remained flat as he listened, not betraying any of his thoughts. He could tell that Mateo wasn’t willing to expatiate further. It was as though the man had recognized that Uhtred needed information, but he wasn’t willing to give it immediately without getting something in return.

Uhtred let out a low sigh, leaning slightly away from the table. ”I took you for a direct man, Mateo. Was I wrong in my assessment?”

A low grunt escaped Mateo’s lips, and he leaned forward in his seat, clasping his hands on the table.

”Well, I don’t know what to make of you, and that is why I do not speak yet.” He looked at Uhtred for a beat longer, then finally sighed. ”I need your help, number one ranker.”

”I saw your insane move of placing those massive bounties on the heads of the top ten ancient variants earlier this evening,” Mateo continued, a serious weight settling into his voice.

”Not only me, but everyone in these trial grounds knows your name now, Uhtred. And more importantly, anyone with half a brain has already begun to link your name to the legendary number one ranker among us humans... Red.”

Uhtred remained silent, neither confirming nor denying, though his silence was telling enough. Just like Mateo had said, at this point, anyone with a bit of sense could already decipher that he was the same person as Red.

It was useless to try to deny it, especially to someone like Black Sun, who was ranked number five on the human leaderboard, a powerhouse in his own right.

He simply listened as Mateo continued to speak.

”Your name, whether you like it or not, now carries weight to every human on these trial grounds,” Mateo said, a strange, unreadable glint flickering deep in his eyes.

”You hold enough influence to assemble every scattered human group on this continent together under your banner. You hold the influence required to stabilize our collective front, which is the only way to stop our species from needlessly dying in the thousands every single hour. It is only you that holds that kind of clout.”

Uhtred stared across the table at Mateo, a trace of an idea beginning to form in his head about the punchline the man was working towards.

”And what makes you think I would want to rally millions of people who I don’t know under my banner? What makes you think I’ll want to take responsibility for their survival?”

”It’s not about whether you want it or not,” Mateo said. ”It is a necessary requirement for us humans to pass this trial.”

Mateo suddenly paused, leaning back slightly.

”Let me ask you a question, Uhtred. How far have you actually managed to push into the continent since you arrived?”

Uhtred raised a brow at the seemingly out-of-place question, but he kept his mind sharp, trying to understand the underlying point Mateo was trying to get at.

Now that he actually paused to think about it, he realized he hadn’t made a single attempt to move toward the deep north or the deep south since arriving here.

But then again, he hadn’t even had the time to think of something like that when his survival had constantly been threatened by the environment and high-level beasts all afternoon.

”From the look on your face, I’ll take a calculated guess and say you haven’t pushed inward at all,” Mateo said.

He reached across the desk, grabbed a small, sharp piece of stone, and stood up from his seat. He walked around to the side of the table, leaning down to draw a rough geographical map directly onto the smooth stone surface for Uhtred to see.

He carefully carved a wide, uneven circle representing the coastline of Australia, then drew a second, tight concentric circle just a fraction of an inch inside the outer boundary line.

”So far, we have discovered that for every single participant dropped into Australia, the Age of Hunger trial region only spans a narrow band of perhaps one hundred miles into the continent from any given edge,” Mateo explained.

”We are all currently operating within this incredibly tight, restricted ring close to the coastline, wrapping around the entire landmass.”

He looked up at Uhtred to ensure he was following along.

”However, this boundary is not completely rigid. The initial one-hundred-mile distance constraint was only fixed at the start of the trial. During the first few hours after we arrived, if an ascender attempted to walk past that one-hundred-mile toward the interior, they would hit a hard wall.”

”A massive, invisible system barrier physically blocks every human from walking any further inland. However, as the trial has progressed and as more humans have begun to climb up the ranks, this barrier has continued to shift.”

He used his drawing to illustrate what he was talking about.

”Right now, from the hundred miles which we could only move when we first arrived, it has increased to nearly two hundred and thirty in total. An hour or two ago, this was just a hundred and fifty miles, even with all of our efforts throughout the afternoon.”

He paused, then looked at Uhtred.

”Can you guess why the barrier suddenly shifted from one hundred and fifty miles to nearly two hundred and thirty miles within the span of just an hour or two?”

Uhtred sat in silence for a brief second, his mind connecting the timeline with his own actions.

”... I’m guessing it’s because of me.” he stated rather than asked.

It was an obvious deduction. Everything he had done — placing the bounties on the heads of the ancient variants and forcing them to begin to turn on each other, reshuffling the entire top 10 ranks — had surely had an effect.

Mateo nodded his head firmly.

”The moment you made the move of placing the bounties on the heads of the top 10 ancient variants, the System acknowledged that as a significant threat against them as a whole. As a direct reward, it pushed our species’ regional boundary forward by several tens of miles into the continent.”

Uhtred’s eyes became distant as he began to analyze what he was being told.

”So let me get this straight. From what you’re saying, The System places priority on acts that affect our species as a whole within this trial. Mass disruptions and significant hits that damage the ancient variant faction’s overall standing will benefit us much more compared to just a singular individual feat. Is that right?”

Mateo raised a brow, and a brief flicker of respect flashed across his eyes at Uhtred’s rapid deduction, but it vanished just as quickly as his face reverted to a flat mask.

”Yes. But it goes beyond that. The same thing also happens on the side of the ancient variants. Any move they make that damages our species as a collective unit rewards them with territorial expansion, pushing their inner barrier further into the core of the continent. Right now, they are well ahead of us, more than three times into the continent compared to where we stand.”