Luca DR

Edge of apocalypse 50

Stealing the core of a building and replacing it with an AI built on a GPT-4 model – developed and fine tuned in less than two days – proved to be a monumental task. Taking the physical thing out of its socket and plugging the AI in its place was the easy part, easier than Samantha expected. What would not be easy now was...

Edge of apocalypse 49

When Albert’s mother returned home, he was so immersed in his attempts to make the spell work and make it into a skill that he didn’t even hear her. She had to come all the way up to his room, knock on the door and yell his name for him to finally notice her.

“I almost have it,” he said, explaining to her the id...

Edge of apocalypse 48

Albert returned from a morning spent at the village of Elvenhome, back to the ‘real’ world. It wasn’t like Elvenhome was not a real place, but compared to the bleak gloom of his house, it felt like he had spent the whole morning in a fairy tale. Doing nothing but basking in the sun, walking around in nature, chatting an...

Edge of apocalypse 47

Albert sat on the side of his bed, dangling his legs and waiting. His mother told him that she would soon take him to the Quadrangle, making use of the small window of time she managed to buy before the HDF intervened to reclaim ownership of the place. The idea was to get a teleportation point for him inside the facility so t...

Edge of apocalypse 46

It was a sleep of no dreams. Or at least, no dreams that Albert could remember. Which meant no nightmares either, a very good thing considering that what happened prior to going to sleep should have triggered some of the most unsettling and vivid scenarios ever.

When Albert woke up, all he could feel was a pounding head...

Edge of apocalypse 45

Albert’s face contorted and twisted, his teeth ground and his voice almost spilled out in a scream as the pain of the gem exploding in his hand coursed through him like liquid fire. It burnt and the shards were hot and cold at the same time, the raw mana impossible to tame, as time itself threatened to break apart. He didn�...

Edge of apocalypse 44

“Cool thing, that system you have.” A voice echoed from afar. “I wonder if I can extract it from you the same way I stole all the memories from your mother’s head before I left her to die.”

Albert’s heartbeat was like a drum. The tunnel, already small and humid, shrunk around him.

“I’m goi...

Edge of apocalypse 43

Albert listened his mother’s voice on the phone, trying to hear the voice on the other side as well but failing, all the while his expression grew increasingly worried. He thought about what not having the gem meant in the grand scheme of things. It was, and they all knew it, a possibility none of them had planned for. Whic...

Edge of apocalypse 42

[Temporary timeline, possible future.]

The portal shimmered. On the other side was the access route to the CARF, operated by unmanned machines and subroutines that not even Samantha knew what they were really there for, or who put them there in the first place. Still, the family lingered on the known si...

Edge of apocalypse 41

Burst of chapters incoming! I finally got around to proofing and fixing up to chapter 50 ^^

Enjoy

41 – Too Easy

There were many ways to access the CARF. Some of them were proper, controlled and regulated, while others were less conventional and reserved only for situations that needed them. Others still ...

Magnus Thorne 07

07 – Pistols and dust

The streets of Neverexia were wide, the dusty dirt road baked by the sun, dry and hot. At the sides of the wide street, the porches of houses made of wood hid plush living rooms from sight, even though I could see hints of them through the folded curtains full of decades old dust that had gathe...

Magnus Thorne 06

06 – Cowboy underland

Fuck systems. Fuck who has them. Fuck all of them. They get the easy life, except since everyone has a system, their life isn’t really any easier. They all get second chances. They all get manufactured fortunate encounters. They all get to be just that much better, but again, since everyone i...

Edge of Apocalypse 40

40 – Planning for Time

Albert looked at the notification from the System hovering, as usual, in the air before his eyes. It always took on different shapes and styles, making letters appear out of pure light at times, while at other times it manipulated the perception of what was already there to make itself blend w...

Magnus Thorne 05

05 – Neverexia

[TLC 1-1-1 Reached.]

[Refinement 1 Reached.]

The accomplishment should have made me feel elated, but I barely had the strength to keep my eyes from shutting as I lay slumped against the wall.

I am very familiar with the concept of portals. In fact, t...

Edge of apocalypse 39

39 – On the same page

“What is the HDF?” Asked Albert.

The clock ticked. There was, hidden in some part of everyone’s mind – be it more at the forefront or more hidden away depending on the person – this sense that they were wasting time here. Yet, they also knew that they could not rush to save Albe...

Magnus Thorne 04

04 – Dwarves

Crouching, I slowly made my way towards the dwarves in the distance. The lights of their settlement were clearly visible now, at the far end of an underground room that was so big to have weather and mist hiding its ceiling from view.

“Greetings,” I said, approaching a lone dwarf who was carry...

38 – Tense talks

[New Quest: Peer at the Leviathan.]

• Ask your mother about the HDF.
• Reward: Prototype teleportation device.

Albert waited outside, standing in the cold air of the night while his grandfather and his mo...

Magnus Thorne 03

03 – TLC and Refinement

Both TLC and Refinement are surprisingly easy and intuitive to understand. For me, at least. I will try to explain them to you so that you can understand how magic works in this world. Without such classification, which is nothing more than a label that I put on things, trust me that it would...

Magnus Thorne 02

02 – Killing monsters

Having absorbed the power of the cage meant that I could explore the hidden secrets of magic once more, but unfortunately I was still mostly a mortal.

A loud growl made me think of a monster at first, then I realized it was my own stomach. It’s not like the cage, which held me in suspen...

Magnus Thorne 01

New novel, fresh out of the oven! It's still pending approval on RR, which means that it's going to be a while before it goes public. Also, worry not, releases of the other fic will not slow nor stop!

***

The first time it happened I was about to die. I had been thirteen at the time, barely a year after t...

37 – Confrontation

[Quest: Leviathan Unveiled complete.]

[You can choose one quest to autocomplete.]

“Delay that, please. I can’t think about it right now.”

[Understood.]

Huh? Did the system…

No. He could ...

36 – Disastrous Circumstances

[Time nexus event triggered by Subject: Albert Grassman.]

[Regressive timeline detected.]

[Aborting emergency quest…]

[Restructuring…]

[New Quest: Leviathan Sleeps.]

35 – Leviathan Stirs

There was a direct phone line connecting the Quadrangle to the Warden of the CARF. Being a facility where some of most dangerous people on Earth were being held, the line was encrypted and available at any hour of the day or the night, and the warden was to be always ready to answer the phone should the need arise. Of course,...

34 – Lurkers in the shadows

Samantha was in full panic mode. Nobody had ever seen her lose her cool like that in her long years as the Head of the Bureau, not even when the real shit had hit the fan and the security of the whole nation was at risk, but now she was different. She was agitated. She was not thinking straight, and she knew it.

She lef...

33 – Meddling with danger

Continental America Rehabilitation Facility – The CARF.

The black cube dominated the landscape like an inescapable prison from which not even light came out. Its vertical walls absorbed everything that came into contact with them, never to be seen again, and not even reflections or shadows existed on the sleek edges o...

32 – Secret Societies

The problem with rewinding time is that it cannot be un-rewound. The process cannot be undone. Events cannot be restored after they get deleted. The only way to get them back is to live through the same choices, hoping that no butterflies flutter their wings in the meantime.

Life went on as usual, without anyone being a...

31 – Terrible Mistake

The television flickered, the image projected onto the old screen struggling to form according to the newest modern digital codecs. Inside Lloyd’s house everything was an antique, but everything was perfectly preserved, as if stepping into a past long gone that might or might not have existed in the real outside world. On t...

30 – Tensile strength of the mind

It was almost frustrating how, during the golem fight in the daily mission at Elvenhome, the Minor ring of Protection had been so useless as to not even resist one single hit from the stone monster. It was time to upgrade it, Albert thought, and since it was now so useless the ring would also be the right ite...

29 – Ghost of old age (2/2)

[Hazegem upgraded.]

• Cost per hour: 3FU -> 2.5FU
• Cooldown 1:1 -> 1:0.9

The room was just like Albert left it before he went on his quest. It was true, what the system said, and time had not passed while he was away. It was still the same ...

29 – Ghost of old age (1/2)

Right before Albert teleported back to the Elven village, he felt a rush of energy suddenly leave the body of the golem and enter his sensory range. He turned around to see it, but only managed to catch a glimpse of something shiny before the stream of energy entered his body. He knew what it was of course, so he was not too ...