Chapter 16

　　The Lockout

　　There was a forceful push, as Maria found her mind that had managed to evade capture was suddenly cut off from the rest of her body. This was why her mind was forced to witness and endure everything that was to come next.

　　Due to her altered state, Maria could see the messages of the system come to her mind, as it was always there, just remaining in a dormant state while the restart was being initiated.

　　At this point Maria watched on in awe and wonder as the world around her began flowing backwards. She watched on from her spectra position outside her body as Title after Title that she gained was removed and lost forever. There was of course, one minor thing, as she was external to her body, she could see the fact that while recognition for the different Titles might have gone away, the effect those titles had on her body didn`t.

　　In fact, Maria noticed how time flowed past the moment she even got her tattoo, but that only seemed to serve as a secondary carving of the soul brand for whatever reason. As the machine used once again carved and rebranded Maria, this time, Maria let her soul also receive the marking as she resided within her body for that moment.

　　To sum up her entire experience into one word, that word would have to be odd.

　　The entire thing, from her planet being poached for resources by fat cat investors looking to make a return on their initial investments. To the fact that her titles were gone, but the effect those titles had on her body and spirit were still present. Actually, there was her meeting with the four fates that was seemingly not part of this, as Maria just saw the event from her sister`s perspective. Rather than seeing the way her spirit left her body and traveled the universe to meet the four old fates that provided her with three blessings. Maria saw how she passed out right there on the floor and how her sister looked shocked. Well at first, she looked embarrassed that her sister had tripped and fell in front of everyone, but once she realized it was bad, she got extremely frightened.

　　Looking at her, Maria realized that she had been a terrible sister, and that was something she wanted to work on this time through.

　　Finally, the reset was complete, or the time went back to just after midnight on Sunday. It would be a pain to have to relive everything, but Maria was more than ready to. With everything she learned from her first time through, she felt confident that she could not only unlock the same Titles again but do so much faster.

　　In fact, that was something that was off to her, as she figured the watchers that were ensuring the integrity of this integration would do something to make it so an anomaly like her wouldn`t progress as quickly. The idea was have one or two people that were really good at one particular thing, and spread it out so humanity as a whole had a chance. If one person was good at everything, then they would be unstoppable, which is likely what the investors, those Harvester people were the most frightened of, someone who knew what they were doing and could fight back.

　　Here in this state, Maria took one look at what now remained of her [Status Screen] now that it looked like everything was about to restart again.

　　Name:

　　Maria Alvarez

　　Race:

　　Human ***

　　Attributes:

　　Current Attribute Rating(s):

　　116 / 400 (All).

　　Spirit

　　151 (+10%)

　　Strength

　　126 (+5%)

　　Speed

　　126 (+5%)

　　Endurance

　　126 (+5%)

　　Intelligence

　　141

　　Blessings:

　　Blessing Received: Blessing of Spirit Stability: Your Power Attribute has evolved to be able to process spiritual essences.

　　Blessing Received: Blessing of Perfect Perception: Able to view the spirit of everyone. Allows the viewing of everyone`s true potential, along with their current progress towards achieving their true potential.

　　Blessing Received: Blessing of Perfect Evolution: You managed to perform a perfect evolution of your body, when going for your first transformation. Base Attribute Potential increased by +1,000% (Maximum of 400).

　　Skills:

　　Visions

　　Minor

　　Necrotoxin Resistance

　　Immune

　　Time and Space Resistance

　　Immune

　　Meditation

　　125

　　Psychic Focus

　　+125%

　　Psychic Manipulation

　　+125%

　　Looking at how her skills had seemingly come out of nowhere from all her random Titles, Maria was a bit confused about a few. The Necrotoxin resistance was given as that was what was required to be able to fight the giant necromantic bunny. Then Time and Space resistance were from her having to be teleported outside of Earth space and to allow her a chance at fighting without any real issues from being transferred to a different realm of existence. Looking at that one immunity in particular, Maria figured that that Immunity might be helping her out right here and now, as she felt fine now that the planetary reset was completed.

　　At this Maria saw a system message that filled her with both apprehension and the thrill of being able to make a true difference. Her Attributes were high, almost nearly three times the maximum available before people could undertake their first evolution. Here she was so far ahead, that if she pushed herself, she might be able to get to the peak of her second evolution.

　　Warning: Going Live.

　　Planetary Restart Protocol Initiated. Everything has been reset to customary pre-integration point to establish planetary baseline.

　　If you are an Equalist, a corporeal spirit, or otherwise benign entity you can watch. If you are a Harvester, or one wishing to be so at the end of this, you must report to the deprivation chamber to avoid bias and potential interference allegations.

　　There was a long pause as it seemed that things were moving. From her position right outside her body, Maria could feel the moment powerful entities began moving about to their designated areas. The moment some entities left; she could feel a great pressure to be released from her. At that moment, it felt like she could finally breathe again, not that she was breathing, or needed to as a corporeal spirit, but she did still find herself breathing, nonetheless. This was an odd sensation for her, as she found herself floating in a world that not quite her Earth, but yet clearly was. The first thing that was different was the amount of ambient energy, namely there was some. Also, being here in the spirit world, the energy present was perfect. Well not perfect energy, instinctively Maria sort of knew that perfect energy was different, but rather when she spoke about this energy being perfect, it was spirit energy that had been perfected.

　　If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

　　Being here, outside her body, as a spirit? As a loose cultivator? Whatever you would call her current state, it was seemingly ideal for her as she could gather and store as much ambient energy as she wanted.

　　Of course, she first tried to go back into her body, and had tried to do so throughout this entire process. That was why she found that her spirit now also had the laser generated tattoo on her shoulder. But despite her best efforts, Maria could not get back inside her own body.

　　It was almost like there was a protective layer of film that was over her body, keeping her out and preventing her from being whole.

　　Now is when Maria started to panic, slightly. Though she knew this was likely just a slight mix-up, as she could see her [Status Screen], and she knew that should not be allowed right now. At least not until the baseline was established.

　　Breathe.

　　Maria feeling overwhelmed by everything that was happening around her, forced herself to breathe. This had many different effects, the most impressive of which was that even here she could still cultivate. Even though she was not attached to her actual body.

　　Attribute Increase: Spirit +1.

　　"Well, if I can`t get back into my body, I could always cultivate the entire time." Maria said, staring at her body that lay lifeless and barely breathing.

　　Last Call: Please get to your expected starting areas, this is not a test. We are going live in ten, nine&

　　At that, Maria felt panic take her, as she wondered if she had somehow just cursed herself by saying something so stupid as being able to cultivate the entire time. No, she needed to be out there, she needed to get stronger, she needed to be fighting, creating a safe place to go during the chaos.

　　At this point Maria desperately tried to lie down on her body, in the hopes that being close to her body would somehow absorb her floating spirit.

　　Two, one.

　　A brief pause.

　　We are live.

　　We are live.

　　Repeat, we are live.

　　And like that, Maria felt the world flare to life around her. She felt a sudden lurch, as time began flowing forward. While touching her body, she found a system message.

　　Warning: This is a participant in the planetary Integration Trials, any further touching, manipulating, or guiding of the identified contestant before Integration will be logged and recorded as a potential abuse of the system.

　　At that, Maria got up from her own body, and watched. Looking down, it was clear that the changes that Maria had managed on her last run through were still in effect. Her body still looked awesome. Now that she had a moment to sit back and look, there was clear muscle definition everywhere, even while being covered in pajamas and a blanket. As a spirit, she could see the power of her body and found that it was just as she was seeing with her [Status Screen].

　　Trying to be calm, Maria tried to take everything in, but could only stare on in horror at what was happening around her. She had somehow become separated from her body, an effect that was made permanent now that the Integration baseline was being recorded, whatever that was.

　　Did it mean that she was now considered a separate entity from the pre-integration Maria? Did it mean she would need to do something different to finally be able to rejoin her body?

　　In a way this was sort of perfect, now she would have her system upgrades without having to be noticed by headhunters and the like who would target her for her smorgasbord of rare and powerful world First Titles she had accumulated.

　　The other frightening thing would be what would happen if her body suddenly and undeniably arose and started acting like her, doing everything she would do. Did that mean she would be replaced? Forced to roam the world as a specter?

　　Not having anything better to do, Maria cultivated. She cultivated and stared.

　　Using her own understanding, she soon found that her position wasn`t affected by traditional forces of power like gravity, or mass. Instead, she found that in this new realm she was in, this realm in between was only empowered by one thing, spirit energy.

　　Every moment here was like breathing in big breaths of catnip, and she suddenly found herself being an opioid addicted cat. The catnip in this case was the ambient spirit energy that felt pure, far purer than even her network of thirteen total connected nodes was able to produce.

　　No right here, was perfect.

　　Looking around, Maria could also tell that this energy around her was somehow artificial in nature. Well not quite artificial, it was not truly processed in any meaningful way. Rather it had a foreign consistency to it, as this energy felt like it was being forced here. However, Maria herself couldn`t exactly explain the reason why she felt this way.

　　"What is it now." A familiar voice cried out, speaking loudly as if no one could hear them. Looking around, Maria could see that the voice that was now speaking was the voice of the second attendant, the one that was not a giant eyeball, but rather the more knowledgeable if slightly lazy leader.

　　"It says there is an anomaly right here." The first voice that Maria heard speaking, the giant eye said. This was also the one that hit the override command and seemed to have botched it all up while the manager took a long break.

　　Hearing them, Maria thought of running and hiding, but then thought better of it, as she chose to sit right there. Worst case scenario they strip her spirit and send her back to her body. Judging by how well these two performed this task last time, she felt there might be some room for them to mess up the process. Also, to be completely honest, the idea of staring down at her nearly lifeless body was frightening.

　　"Yeah, say this is 73556984, isn`t she the one that we had the issue with?" The leader of the two asked.

　　"Yeah, but I hit the override and everything went through just fine." The giant eyeball said.

　　"You used the override command?"

　　"Well yeah, it wasn`t working."

　　"You imbecile, did you write down that you used an override command?"

　　"No, wait, should I have?"

　　"NO! In fact, from this point on, we do not say override. You got me. This is a huge deal." The leader said, a note of desperation coming to his voice."

　　Seeing them like this, the floating Maria just waved at the two, but to no avail. From looking around, it was clear that those two were on a different plane of existence than she and her now comatose body were on. Still, why was it that Maria could see them, but they couldn`t see her? Was it because of her spirit vision thing? That did make sense, but& her thoughts trailed off, as she was hit with another system message.

　　Attribute Increase: Spirit +1.

　　Seeing the message, Maria paused, then realized that she had gained that Attribute point by just breathing. Not really Meditating, well that was ultimately what meditating came down to, breathing correctly, but still to be able to gain an Attribute point by just breathing showed that Maria was onto something with being able to increase her Attributes by just breathing in this ambient energy.

　　Ping.

　　The tablet that the leader had back in his possession chimed.

　　"Wait, it says that there was another disturbance here?"

　　"Where?"

　　"Right here." The leader of the two said, a note of confusion in his voice.

　　"Are we causing it?"

　　"Of course not, we are separated by a fully protective barrier." The leader said gesturing with a tentacle to the protective membrane that separated their plane of existence from this in between realm that Maria now found herself in.

　　"So what is it then?"

　　"It says that there is a drop in the ambient immersion energy being provided." The leader said, reading the tablet and shaking his head in confusion.

　　"So what do we do?"

　　"We increase the flow of immersion energy here, clear the alarm and check to see if anything odd happens." The leader said.

　　"What do we do with 73556984?"

　　"What do you mean what do we do with 73556984, she is right there and alive." The leader said.

　　"Right, but she is in a coma."

　　"A coma that you caused by issuing the security override commands." The leader said, looking through Maria`s free-floating spirit and directly at her body that was passed out on the bed.

　　At that, the giant eye visibly shrunk and looked down in what Maria took to be clear disappointment.

　　"You`re right, but still, what do we do?"

　　"What can we do? We can`t exactly reset her now, as this is her baseline. Her base is now her being in a coma. All we can do now is hope that when the Integration happens, she wakes up, or&"

　　"Or?"

　　At that the leader just shook his head in frustration, "or we hope her logs get lost once the Integration actually happens."

　　"Hello?" Maria said, now waving frantically at the two, but there was nothing. Maria moved forward, waving her arms and trying to shout at the two. Only to find that she was stuck at the barrier wall that separated this energy immersion area.

　　Ping.

　　Hearing the sound, the leader of the two looked down and read their computer tablet.

　　"What is it?" The lackey asked, seeing the note of confusion in his boss`s face.

　　"It seems that the area here has gone back to a normal level, but there is a fluctuation with the barrier wall here." The boss said.

　　Hearing that, Maria realized the machine likely said what she had done. The system was so sensitive that it could register her touching the wall and send a warning. This was perfect, as Maria realized she could use this to tell the two about her condition, that she was somehow separated from her comatose body.

　　"What do we do in that case?"

　　"Protocol states that in such cases, it might be a corporeal entity trying to steal resources."

　　"What?"

　　"Yeah, if that is the case, we need to do a ectoplasmic purge of the area, to ensure all spirits are dead, and then monitor for 48 hours." The boss said.

　　Hearing that, Maria quickly lowered her hand that she had been about to use to start banging loudly against the protective barrier that separated her from the two integrity watchers.

　　"Should we do that?"

　　"Do you want to sit here for the next 48 hours and constantly measure these barriers for any signs of disturbance?" The leader asked.

　　"Well no, but what should we do?"

　　"We should do a lot of things. But what we are going to do is write this whole thing off. We saw the alerts for the decreased pressure of spirit energy. We adjusted accordingly, then when levels were being leveled out, we noticed a slight ripple on the protective barrier. Nothing too major and we can chalk this up to a level one response, versus having to get the level three testers out here, where they will likely be able to find signs of an override being used and will likely ask questions."

　　"Level three?" The fledgling investigator asked, a note of panic in his voice. "Do you honestly believe they will be able to identify that an override was used?"

　　At that, the leader deflated a little. "Honestly, I don`t know. All I do know is that I do not want to be here when they do in fact find out what happened. And the best way to avoid them and us being here at the same time is to quell these alerts, got back and hope that there are no more interruptions."

　　At that, the leader turned towards Maria, well to the membrane that held Maria separately from her comatose body.

　　"You hear that spirits? We will have to come back and purge this place if we get another alert." The leader said, speaking slowly as if trying to talk to someone who either is rather slow or a non-native speaker of their language.

　　Again, Maria found it odd that she could feel and interpret the mental signatures of the two individuals but did not want to get lost in that thought. She still felt that her understanding had something to do with the fact that her mind was caught in an open mind state, when the scenario was paused, leading to her being in this odd state of not quite death, but not quite life either.

　　"Who are you talking to?" The giant eye asked its boss.

　　"No one, just a superstition thing."

　　"Don`t tell me you believe in ghosts?"

　　"Of course not, but I do believe that there are powerful cultivators out there that can do many things, some of which we can only pretend to imagine. It is those people that I do not want to offend by inadvertently clearing an area of spirits."

　　"Ah. So you mean&"

　　"I mean nothing, now lets get out of here. We have already spent long enough investigating this anomaly." The leader said, as he brushed past the subordinate and began walking away.

　　"Right." The minion said, as he turned around and he too began going away.

　　This left Maria alone staring at the retreating backs of the only two people who could do something about her condition. Granted that solution was death, likely permanent death, but for the moment all she could do was sit here and wait for the end to happen.

　　Looking at the giant clock that shone on the ceiling, Maria realized it was going to be a long time before her sister awoke to find out she was in a coma.

　　12:35 AM.

　　"Might as well get comfortable and begin channeling in this extra spirit energy." Maria said, as she could feel a slow surge of energy in her exact area. Realizing there was nothing else to do, Maria sat down in a meditative pose while in the air, and began drawing in the sweet, sweet nectar of the Gods, or in this case, of the spirits.