The being slowly woke, gently. His tired, sleep laden eyes crusted apart, shedding flakes as he rubbed them clear.
He didn’t know how long he had been asleep for, or why he’d woken up in the middle of a massive crater.
In fact, he wasn’t even aware who he even was, or why he had snakes for hair.
As the being stood up, it raised its hand to rub its sore temples. There was something pressing on its forehead and it wasn’t subsiding.
Light brown fingers grazed a rocky green texture and instantly recognition flared to life in the eyes of the being, of the ranker.
Of the god.
“M- my name… is Bryn,” it spoke, and suddenly he remembered.
The white light, the violent explosion, his body getting torn apart, molecule by molecule.
Rebuilt.
Perfected.
Ascended…
“I’m,” he whispered, as if speaking too loud would wake him from this new dream, back to that damned cave… “I did it, I’m a ranker now, I’m a Fabled Storm Shaman…”
His mind reeled from the implications. As he reached up to scratch an itch on his head, he felt a weird scaly texture.
And then something nipped him.
It was then that the newly birthed ranker noticed, his hair, his braids, had turned to a nest of blue snakes. He then realized two large cobras were staring at him as if questioning his nerve for disturbing their rest.
Bryn screamed at the top of his lungs, eliciting a tremendous sonic blast, akin to a catastrophic thunderclap, that blew apart a wide area in front of him, expanding the deep crater he was already in. Awed by the raw devastation of just a scream, Bryn slowly backed up until his foot slipped on a weird surface, sending Bryn tumbling over.
Falling back down heavily on his ass, Bryn shot out his hands playing them wide, outstretched in hopes of breaking his fall.
A tremendous explosion proceeded to rock the landscape.
It was as if a small nuke had gone off where the deity had landed in a heap. Bryn watched spellbound as the debris rose violently around him as the kinetic force of his fall violently tore the landscape asunder. Bryn sat, attention unbroken, as all around him, culminating hundreds of millions of tons of debris into a small mushroom cloud. His unintended devastation could be seen for miles around.
And yet, not a scratch befel Bryn.
Not from the many, many large falling rocks, many of which despite far exceeding Bryn in size, as they crumbled to dust upon smashing into the ranker.
Nor from the sheer, savage force of the explosion itself.
Bryn wasn’t even moved from where he’d fallen. He was sitting, criss crossed and unphased, as his snake hair thrashed about angrily.
Regardless of their size, regardless of their force, none of the falling rocks and debris left a single scratch on him.
And he wasn’t even using a spell to shield himself.
Bryn watched in silent fascination while the carnage around him finally reached its zenith and began to drop back down, almost as if the gentle calamity were moving in slow motion. The thought that he was observing an explosion he’d mistakenly caused, that would’ve knocked down at least a fifth of his own health bar if he were still merely a celestial, while sitting unbothered in its epicenter, as nonchalantly as taking a nap, left Bryn feeling deeply unsettled.
After the dust finally settled, Bryn finally stood up and looked himself over while keeping a hand firmly clamped over his mouth, fearing to stand up or speak again lest he slip and cause yet another massive explosion.
He noticed that he was wearing a plain white robe, almost resembling a roman toga. There was a beautiful green sash that covered the right side of his toga, folding over his shoulder to cover his entire backside as well attached to golden cape clasp on his shoulders that resembled golden ram skills. The beautiful green sash shimmered in the sunlight. It depicted myriad forest creatures and other more foreign creatures clasped around it and Bryn’s waist was a beautiful golden belt.
“Heh I guess you’re a god now too eh buddy?” Bryn giggled despite himself at his own joke, how could he not? Especially after realizing his new belt’s buckle was Axelrod’s coven badge. The same one Alan had used to fashion into Axelrod’s old belt buckle. The only reminder of his previous existence he barely got to comprehend…
As Bryn softly thumbed the buckle, he heard a voice groan softly into his mind.
“Lord Bryn, can you please get off of me?”
Bryn nearly jumped out of his skin, as he looked down and saw he was stepping on the blade of Neverwinter. Stepping back in a hurry, Bryn realized two things.
One, not only had Neverwinter’s voice changed, becoming far more human sounding and also taking on a stronger Scandinavian accent, it was now speaking to him, without Bryn holding its hilt.
The second thing was that Neverwinter looked different, incredibly different from how it usually did.
Bryn’s mind flashed back to the golden palace. To the class advancement realm, to the being seated upon the emerald throne, to the blade it wielded…
“Hey Neverwinter, haven’t seen you in a while, you lost weight?” Bryn attempted weakly, chuckling nervously.
“Har, har,” came a fake, dry laugh, into the ranker’s mind, “can you pick me up now please Lord Bryn? I have sand in my… everywhere.”
“Ok, sorry,” he apologized. Picking up what was now instead of a long, slender, crystal blade, a large broadsword with the same dragon and ram skull adornments he remembered from the class advancement realm, he noted something that had almost passed him.
“Hey,” Bryn chimed, “you said my name just now, twice I think.”
“That is true…” Neverwinter noted slowly, as it just became aware of the fact itself for the first time. “I feel different,” the weapon continued, “not just physically… but whatever that masked douchebag did to me.. It made me more whole…”
“Does that mean you can just call me by my name now?” Bryn asked cautiously.
“No, you are my Lord Bryn,” Neverwinter said, sticking out a tongue at him while fake pouting.
Bryn laughed gently, “alright, alright, I’m sorry madam,” he softly relented.
Silently amazed, he watched Neverwinter’s massive energy signatures tossing and turning, with whatever the sword was doing. Current
“Hey, Lord Bryn,” it said tentatively after a while, shakily and uncertainly. “I think… I think there’s something I can do now, I mean… something your new power makes available to me… May I?” it asked softly.
“Absolutely, Neverwinter,” Bryn said with determination. Truthfully, he comprehended almost nothing about what was currently going on, but at this point, after everything they had endured together, the ranker had absolute trust in his weapon.
And he would do anything to make Neverwinter feel so.
Neverwinter began to glow a soft yellow light.
Bryn felt a yanking sensation from deep within his arcane cores. It was sort of similar to the feeling he remembered of trying to fly, pinching strands of his power from his two then celestial grade cores.
But now, it felt like a punch to the gut.
Bryn doubled over with the feeling of the blow. Physically, nothing had touched him, but metaphysically, he felt a gushing flow open from both his divine affinity cores and begin flowing out of him. Lifting his head, still bent trying to catch his breath, slowly Bryn realized his divine broadsword was beaconing him to release it, puling on his hand as it silently begged to be let go.
Slowly, Bryn complied. Uncurling his fingers from the hilt that had saved him from death, had spared him from insanity by loneliness, had answered his every annoying question… and that had become his most trusted advisor and friend.
And He let go.
Allowing Neverwinter to begin to float away from him.
The yellow light grew in intensity, becoming intensely painful to see. Instinctively, Bryn raised a hand to shield his vision, but he continued to watch.
An intense wind began to rage throughout the landscape of the weird wasteland they were in. Ice slowly began forming underneath where Neverwinter hovered, slowly spreading about freezing anything and everything around it. Green lightning crashing down wildly laid waste to everything with complete disinterest in anything but causing destruction, striking Neverwinter and the surrounding area cruelly.
Meanwhile, the adornments on Neverwinter, the dragon skull, the faces of the souls molded into the hilt, and the ram skull on the pommel, began leaking gray water from their orifices. Where the gray water met the ice below it, a black portal began to form, from which tortured souls and various pestilences began to emanate. The sword then, while continuing to glow and levitate, slowly turned itself downward, its blade facing the portal, and immediately plunged down. Sinking itself deep into the black portal of souls before Bryn could reach out and try to grab it, Neverwinter was gone.
A blessed second of silence passed.
Then…
A massive, blinding explosion of deep purple light blasted out with a deafening, horrific roar. Bryn turned, finally averting his eyes, but when he turned back, what he saw completely stole his voice, and his thoughts.
A tall, regal woman stood where Neverwinter had been.
She was wearing a deep gray, beautiful, Greek battle robe, elegantly stitched, but ready to be soaked in blood. Over her delicately crafted robes was an emerald green breastplate with three large, black gems arranged in a triangle, embossed into the center. She wore similar emerald greaves that adorned her slender but powerfully built arms. The woman had flowing, curly, fiery red and orange hair crackling with hundreds of small blue lightning arcs, juxtaposing her light, deathly pale and gray skin. The half of her face that Bryn could see, had slender, green lips and a beautiful complexion despite the lifeless, zombie-like color her skin bore. The top half of her face was completely obscured by a beautiful, large emerald visor that was attached to a Nordic style, emerald half helmet with golden trimmings and symbols, also sporting small, golden wings attached to its sides. Behind the woman, Bryn noticed a set of large, black wings that looked eerily similar to his own. In her right hand, was a long, simple blade made completely of purple lightning.
“W-,” Bryn attempted, his mouth hanging agape, “what ar-?”
“I,” the woman spoke slowly unsure but with a growing sense of joy, excitement and exasperation looking towards Bryn with a truly happy, wide and crazy smile, “am the Valkyrie goddess! The Neverwinter! The charged priestess of death!” She proclaimed aloud, raising her sword to her chest before bringing it down swiftly in salute. Dropping to one knee, she stuck her lightning blade into the ground before her. Leaving it standing, she folded her right hand over her chest, she dropped her beautiful, priceless divine dress to one knee without hesitation. Upon the dust and debris she spoke aloud a steady, firm, imposing voice.
“I am honored to serve the 12th Emerald Majesty, The Fabled Storm Shaman, The Storm Executioner. My Lord, Bryn” she said with absolute serenity.
A hand greeted the helmeted goddess when she looked back up, wondering why Bryn hadn't replied in a while.
“Lord Bryn sounds marginally better than master, but we'll workshop it,” he said with a chuckle and an easy smile, his hand beaconing Neverwinter for one of her own, to help her stand, “how about you let me help you up first and we can go from there?”
Neverwinter looked at her liege with an utterly shocked expression, baffled into silence, as if not believing what she was seeing. Then a beautiful, happy smile erupted across her veiled face, her green lips turning upwards in content appreciation. Taking his hand with her left one, allowing her liege lord to help her, his weapon, to stand, Neverwinter couldn’t help herself from jeering at Bryn.
“I see godhood has done tremendous things for your gym routine, my lord, you almost completely lifted me up on your own, one handed. I thought I’d be too heavy in this new form,” she laughed, “but I have to know, what workout gave you snake hair?”
“I see goddesshood has done wonders for your sass,” Bryn shot back with a chuckle.
The two deities broke out laughing at the absurdity of their jokes, all the while, paying no heed to the huge crater they were still in.
“I have to know though,” Bryn eventually asked, wiping a tear from his eye, “how did you do that? How’d you go and grow boobs? I’m pretty sure most swords don’t do that. At least, you never did before. I didn’t even know you were a girl dude.”
“Hm,” Neverwinter hummed, deep in thought, “I guess it’s easier to just show you than verbally try explaining all of that. I’m still not fully sure about it either.”
Opening her right hand, her sword of purple lightning vanished. Neverwinter then clasped her hands together and began emanating a deep gray and teal aura around herself briefly. A second later, a screen popped up in front of Bryn, one that he’d been dying to know how to access since he’d appeared in this god forsaken version of Wizard’s Quest almost a whole day ago.
In front of the ranker, for the first time, in a long rectangle of emerald light, was his new status screen.
*------------------------------------------------------------------------*
PROFILE
NAME: BRYN YAMADA
LEVEL: 800 {86%}
AGE: 18
SEX: MALE
CLASS: FABLED STORM SHAMAN [EARLY RANKER]
RACE(s): EMERALD MONARCH LV 1{5%} [GEM MONARCH] [RANKER WIZARD]
AFFILIATIONS:
* FATEDWHISPER
* GuildMaster
* STORM OWL COVEN
* Grand Warlock
* EMERALD COURT
* 12th Monarch
* STELLAR ROUND TABLE
* 4th Seat
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SKILLS
CLASS ACTIVE SKILLS:
Rare Wild Volt Berserker
Epic Diseased Lich King
Mythic Magic Swordsman
Legendary Storm Chaser
Grand Death Shepard
Supreme Night Horror
Celestial Dragon Tamer
Celestial Storm Reaper
Fabled Storm Shaman
Bolt Boxing Lv 10
Pandemic Plague Lv 10
Iai World Splitter Lv 10
Sky Screaming Bolt Lv 10
Boy Who Cried Wolf Lv 10
Eye of the Void Lv 10
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Draconic Impact Lv 10
Storm Owl’s Wrath Lv 10
Roar of Wild Souls Lv 1
Flashing Thunder Step Lv 10
Life Draining Chains Lv 10
Takouba Sword Dance Lv 10
Gigavolt Destroyer Lance Lv 10
Poltergeist War Drum Lv 10
Celestine Corruption Lv 10
Large Chomp Lv 10
Brimstone Bolt Lv 10
Grand Thunderclap Lv 1
Arch Flash Lv 10
Total Bone Manipulation Lv 10
Saber Flurry Annihilation Lv 10
Sacred Lightning Rod Lv 10
Tombstone Anchor Lv 10
Death of The Stars Lv 10
Dragon Breath Lv 10
Ozone Devastation Lv 10
Embodiment of the Dead Lv 1
SCRIPTS:
* [Final Script] Ride The Lightning, Executioner’s Calamity Bolt Lv 10 [Igni and Modi] [REACTIVATED]
* Celestial Storm Reaper
* [Supreme Script] Call of the Storm Owl Lv 10 [DEACTIVATED]
* Celestial Dragon Tamer
* [Supreme Script] I See Dragons Lv 10 [DEACTIVATED]
* Supreme Night Horror
* [Supreme Script] Hell’s Gate Lv 10 [DEACTIVATED]
* Grand Death Shepard
* [Supreme Script] DeadMan’s Playground Lv 10 [DEACTIVATED]
* Legendary Storm Chaser
* [Supreme Script] Call of The God Storm: I'Ieravnos Lv 10 [DEACTIVATED]
* Mythic Magic Swordsman
* [Supreme Script] Edge of Death Lv 10 [DEACTIVATED]
* Epic Diseased Lich King
* [Supreme Script] Grand Plague Pestilence Lv 10 [DEACTIVATED]
* Rare Wild Volt Berserker
* [Supreme Script] Live Wire Lv 10 [DEACTIVATED]
PASSIVE SKILLS:
* UNIQUE PASSIVE
* Frankenstein Lv 10
* Mythic Magic Swordsman
* Affinity Blade Lv 10
* Grand Death Shepard
* Friend of the Spirits Lv 10
* Celestial Dragon Tamer
* Shapeshifter Lv 10
* Draconic Sympathy Lv 10
* Fabled Storm Shaman
* All Seeing Eyes of The Gorgon Lv 1
RACIAL SKILLS:
* Fabled Enhancement Lv 1
* Petrifying Gaze Lv 1
* Spirit Avatar Lv 1
* Summon Familiar Lv 1 {8%}
* * * BLACK GEM PRIMARIS: Neverwinter [BATTLE FORM] {Currently Active} [50%]
* * * * *
* BLACK GEM DUO: Igni and Modi [BATTLE FORM] {Currently Inactive} [90%]
*
* BLACK GEM TRINITUS: [BATTLE FORM] {Currently Unbound} []
* [BATTLE FORM] {Currently Unbound} []
* [BATTLE FORM] {Currently Unbound} []
* [BATTLE FORM] {Currently Unbound} []
* [BATTLE FORM] {Currently Unbound} []
* [BATTLE FORM] {Currently Unbound} []
* [BATTLE FORM] {Currently Unbound} []
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stats
HEALTH: 10,000,000/10,000,000
MANA: 10,000,000/10,000,000
CELESTIAL AETHER: 10,000,000/10,000,000
DIVINE AETHER: 1,000,000/1,000,000
WIS: 3,000 {100} :: 300,000 (WISDOM)
VIT: 5,000 {100} :: 500,000 (VITALITY)
INT: 10,000 {1,000} :: 10,000,000 (INTELLIGENCE)
STR: 2,000 {1,000} :: 2,000,000 (STRENGTH)
DEF: 1,000 {50} :: 50,000 (DEFENSE)
MDEF: 1,000 {50} :: 50,000 (MAGIC DEFENSE)
CRT: 8,000 {1,000} :: 8,000,000 (CRITICAL)
SPRT: 100,000 {10,000} :: 1,000,000,000 (SPIRIT)
*------------------------------------------------------------------------*
Bryn took one look at his stats page, and nearly shat his divine pants.
“OH MY GOD!” he screamed, blasting another mini crater into the landscape. “Sorry,” he apologized weakly to a startled Neverwinter who’d flinched over, ducking for cover.
Taking another look, and having to steady himself from passing out again, Bryn began to make sense of his absurd new stats.
“Jesus H Christ…” he said, confirming, yet again, that he wasn’t dreaming. “Yo,” he said, hands rifled through his snake hair, ignoring the hissing protests of his hair snakes, “there’s actually no fucking way we would’ve won!”
Bryn laughed with mad hysteria. If the stats he was seeing were true, he finally had a grip on how wide the gap between a ranker and a peak celestial was.
It was wide. Very. Wide.
“No wonder I felt like 10 celestial me’s stuffed into a trenchcoat now, I’m literally 10x stronger across all my stats now,” he breathed, “Jesus… and I’m just an early stage ranker? No wonder Alan was shrugging off I'Ieravnos and my Grand Plague Pestilence at the same time like it was nothing, while casually forging a masterpiece weapon…”
Bryn’s eye’s almost glazed over as he looked at the absolute size of his new health bar.
The sheer mass of a 10 million hit point health bar, shook him to his core. Bryn couldn’t stop the memories of the countless tears he’d cried, over 11 years, in his quest to get his health to a base of a measly 1 million as a storm celestial.
But just like that… as if taunting his own prior efforts… he’d increased it, over 10 times. As his base health…
Just by ascending…
10 million mana made him wonder about the endless rain of devastation that Bryn could now output due to having a veritable valley of energy to feed his incredibly energy hungry spells.
10 million celestial aether…
Bryn’s eyes shut, laden heavy with woe. The words “you’ll lose access to your Supreme and Final Scripts,” reverberated throughout his entire being hauntingly. Bryn lamented the loss of his 9 grand works of arcane mastery. This much celestial aether would allow the world to see why it was so hard to get a Storm affinity to rankerhood. The visions of himself that flooded his mind, able to cast every single one of his Supreme Scripts, including his Final Script, before he needed to use a single potion, nearly drove Bryn to the brink of depression.
Bryn’s regretful eyes were eventually dragged back to the bottom of his stat page, and despite his shitty mood, he couldn’t stop the low whistle of amazement in what he was seeing from escaping his lips.
Wisdom, the stat that affected the size of his energy pools and their refresh rates. It also affected the ranker wizard in ways more aligned to the practical definition of wisdom as well. Many wizards had found that increasing their wisdom stat made creating scripts much easier and increased their rate of mastery for all of their spells. This helped players get their skills to the max level of 10 faster, allowing them to master their classes and their passive skills long before other players with lower wisdom stats could.
With a base wisdom stat of 3,000 sporting a base multiplier of 100, Bryn had ascended to an, ironically, mind boggling quantity of 300,000 wisdom.
“No fucking wonder I have so much energy,” he said, shaking his head with a brief, amazed chuckle. The book worm in him was dying to test his newly divine brain on some of the arcane texts FatedWhisper had managed to accumulate that had been far too complex for even a peak celestial to comprehend. “I bet I could run circles around those texts now…”
Next his vision fell to his vitality stat. Vitality, like wisdom, had two effects, a metaphysical one, and a physical one. It’s metaphysical effect was the tremendously large health bar Bryn now had. Storm wizard’s, wizards with their primary arcane core aligned with a storm affinity, or wizards with their secondary arcane core’s affinity tied to the storm element, had notoriously bad defensive stats and health stats. No matter what core they paired it with, nor what armor or gear sets they equipped, the storm affinity always made it leagues harder for them to tank hits of any kind. This sad reality was why no one, except the deeply deranged, played storm. The billions of collective deaths across players just trying to get to lv 100, left a deep, irreparable stain on the affinity’s honor. It had taken Bryn many, many years, and eventually getting a very convenient ranker friend that was also his cousin, to get his health bar to a meager 2.1 million, with all his gear pieces equipped.
For reference, most other celestial wizards and witches without storm cores, had a base health on average of 2.3 million.
The next thing vitality did was improve the body of the wizard. It perfected and reformed the player’s in-game body, making it more solid, more powerful, more ridiculously dense, less fragile, and far less susceptible to non magical diseases or afflictions. Most peak celestials had a max VIT stat of around 30,000 - 80,000, including stat increases from their various gear pieces. He himself had only ever been able to cap at 30,000 and now he had 300,000 base VIT…
“No fucking wonder my ass caused a mini nuclear explosion, just by tripping over,” he whispered, mind blown.
Neverwinter waved a hand over her veiled face, smirking playfully, “nuclear farts again my Lord? You have to learn to say ‘no mas’ to the Taco Bell.” She said with complete seriousness, hands folded neatly in front of her.
Bryn flashed her a middle finger and Neverwinter just giggled in return.
“Ah,” he said, returning his gaze to the rest of his new ranker stats, “here is where shit starts getting quirky.”
10 million intelligence…
2 million strength….
8 million crit…
“I guess I have to change my sexual orientation to heavy siege weapon, because dam,” he said weakly, chuckling briefly at his own joke.
Neverwinter giggledgain into an armored hand.
“Seriously though, I know stormies hit hard, but is this even fair?” he questioned, actually in fear of the implied power that he now had access to.
At the peak of Axelrod’s power he’d barely cracked 1 million INT, 200,000 STR and 800,000 crit. Even with crit maxing at an eye watering height of 1 million, Axelrod had a heavily respectable 800,000 CRIT. Giving him a horrifying 80% crit rate and an 80% crit multiplier. Now… not only was his CRT rate maxed out at 100%, he now had a ferocious 800% base critical multiplier.
That was just crit.
The kind of damage his magic could do with 10 million base INT, was not something Bryn was ready to contemplate. It was unholy. And the ability to have nuclear physical devastation, casually output by the 2 million base STR, from any place on his body….
Not to mention that having a larger intelligence stat also increased the number of spells a wizard could safely chain cast and simultaneously cast.
With 30,000 WIS, Bryn could just barely sustain two Supreme Scripts at the same time to create Neverwinter.
With 300,000…
Bryn shivered.
His fantasies were ripped from their lofty heights to a screeching halt, when he eventually returned to look at his defensive stats. While 50,000 base defense and base magic defense was insurmountably greater than any storm wizard had any right to boast, Bryn couldn’t help but be more than a little annoyed at how much laughably smaller his defensive stats were than his offensive ones.
He sighed, slightly depressed.
“I went from being a glass cannon, to being a larger, shinier, glass nuclear bomb,” he slumped his shoulders, eliciting Neverwinter to give him supportive pats between his large, glowing black wings.
“You could always dish out pain my lord,” she said with encouragement, patting him on the head as some of his cobra, snake hair nuzzled her hand, “at least now you can actually take some of it when it comes back at you instead of dying immediately.”
“Damn straight,” he mumbled in resigned agreement, “we don’t even know if dying sticks here, and I’m sure as hell not gonna use myself to litmus test that.”
Bryn hadn’t even noticed he had green wings now, nor that they were glowing. He had bigger fish to fry, namely, the largest stat point he’d ever seen in his life.
10 billion spirit.
“I ain’t got any idea what spirit is,” Bryn said, the fear quickly returning, “but holy shit, 10 billion?”
Looking over at his sword made manifest as a goddess, he called.
“Hey Neverwinter, what’s spirit?”
“Hm,” she replied, going quiet as she researched whatever new vault of knowledge that Bryn assumed had been made aware to her since her ascension. “Apparently, my lord,” she replied after a while of silent deliberation, “It’s your godly essence. It allows you to cause miracles and fortuitous events, though at 1 billion you can only cause minor miracles and minor fortuitous events. It also functions as a sort of godly ranking system. I am unsure as to the nature or costs of using your spirit, but all I can make out is a warning to use it sparingly.”
“Huh, ok,” Bryn humphed, “I can wrap my head around that.”
Looking at the other pages of his profile screen, his attention got drawn to the skills he’d quickly glanced over.
Largely, the Class Active Skills, and Passive Skills were pretty much the same as he remembered from before his ascension. There were minor differences in them and in his profile page that his brain logged for later questioning. But, it was upon finally internalizing all the sweeping differences in his Racial Skills and in Scripts, that Bryn’s lips unconsciously pursed, and the gears in his brain began turning at breakneck speeds. Compounded to unimaginable new speeds of comprehension and deduction by his new, godly wisdom stat, Bryn was only passively aware that he was literally thinking far faster and handling far more thoughts with ease than he ever could before. Each thought came in and was focused on with crystal clarity, at a rate of millions of thoughts a second. It was literally more thoughts than physically possible for anyone that wasn’t a ranker.
The first thing his eyes went to, was something that he’d been expecting to see under his Racial Skills.
Testimony from Alan and information the duo of cousins had managed to accumulate, had led them to understand that every ranker got one racial skill that was shared amongst all the divine wizards, [Divine Enhancement]. Ranker class skills were notorious for burning through a freakish amount of energy, and it wasn’t just divine aether either. Celestial aether and mana were also free realestate to fuel the power hungry divine spells. The way the devs had balanced this, was by creating [Divine Enhancement].
It had been made as a Racial Skill to avoid eating up one of the precious few 3 spells a ranker class could grant a divine wizard, at least that’s what the players had theorized. Practically, the spell was a divine grade spell, that used very small amounts of divine aether, to empower any mortal spell the ranker knew, including their scripts, to divine versions. While these new divine versions would have a separate cost in divine aether to actually be cast, as well as an increased cost in celestial aether and or mana, it was far less than the cost of a normal ranker skill.
Many had also come to prove, ranker spells could not be empowered by [Divine Enhancement], but no one knew the true depth of what this racial skill did. Nor if it would evolve if an early ranker were to ascend to an outer ranker, the next ranker stage at lv 850.
But none of that was Bryn’s current concern.
“....Why does it say [Fabled Enhancement]?” he wondered aloud.
“I am unsure my lord,” Neverwinter replied, seeing his question as directed to her, “but I would assume it has something to do with you being a gem monarch now, and having ascended into a fabled class?”
“Yeah… about that,” Bryn agreed slowly, folding his arms across his chest as he walked around in a circle, pondering aloud, “...why do I have 2 races?”
Subconsciously his left hand raised to softly graze the outer rim of his rocky crown. Though it was no longer firmly embedded into his head, Bryn supposed this was by design so as to not kill the nest of surprisingly well behaved snakes his hair had turned into, it was still impossible to take off.
“Silver linings,” he muttered sarcastically.
“Ever the optimist, master,” Neverwinter chimed in with another sly giggle.
“Ever the shithead, sword,” Bryn shot back, looking up from the green, metaphysical screen, to shoot finger guns at Neverwinter.
Clutching her chest with mock alarm, the tall half greek - half nordic sword goddess doubled over backwards at the waist, flailing her arms comically.
Bryn snorted in laughter despite himself, causing Neverwinter to break out laughing so hard she actually fell over, tripping on her long red and golden hair. Bryn sighed and shook his head smiling. Turning his attention back to the screen, he continued to scrutinize his new abilities.
Bryn started with what he considered the least most confusing.
[All Seeing Eyes of The Gorgon].
Bryn stared at that line entry for a while.
“So…” he started slowly, I’m a gem monarch, whatever that means, a ranker wizard… and a gorgon?” He looked over at Neverwinter with a deeply confused look on his face, “I guess it would explain the snake hair, but it doesn’t say it on my race entries.”
“Hm,” Neverwinter murmured, thinking silently for a moment before speaking up, “I can’t tell yet what a gem monarch is, or what your fabled class moniker implies, but I’m 98% sure that this passive ability was gained as a result of or caused your new physical transformation.”
“Makes sense,” Bryn muttered, lost in thought, “but it’s a passive skill, so that means it should be active all the time, right?” He looked at his snakes intensely. Slowly he lifted a finger to softly brush one as it curled itself lovingly around his finger.
Suddenly, Neverwinter manifested her purple lightning blade. Launching herself backwards a great distance, she then shot forward in a tremendous explosion of force that roared a deafening thunderclap, shot forward in a blast of energy, bringing her sword down in a sickening chop on Bryn’s head. In mere fractions of a second, she’d eclipsed the distance between them, he sword continuing its path true.
Instantly, a thick, heavily muscled brown arm, laden with emerald and gold jewels, shot out.
Catching Neverwinter’s arm in a vice grip, the Storm Shaman completely absorbed and shrugged off her unimaginable momentum. There was little else to show for her efforts except for another explosion, and a shocked and pissed off expression on Bryn’s face. An open mouth and complete lack of any quip or witty remark, heralded Neverwinter’s bafflement.
“WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK NEVERWINTER?!!” Bryn yelled angrily.
“Apologies, my Lord Bryn,” she said, landing gracefully with a sheepish smile, “but that should have answered your question about your passive skill.”
The words struck a chord deeply within Bryn’s psyche. In a daze, he let go of Neverwinter’s wrist as he realized for the first time, that he could actually see what each and every one of his snakes were seeing.
He then realized he hadn’t even been facing Neverwinter when she’d begun her attack, but he’d seen every angle of her movements, without ever needing to turn around….
“...Badass…” he whispered, staring in renewed awe of the snakes, lazily surrounding him. “That’s why I never noticed it before!” he gasped aloud, the thought nearly knocking him off his feet, “my wisdom stat was so high my brain just never noticed I was seeing out of so many eyes at the same time… damn.”
He nudged a snake that was blocking his vision, tucking it softly behind an ear, “and I’m sure some of these guys are asleep.”
“So…” he went on, letting the feeling wash over him as he looked up at Neverwinter with renewed interest, “I gave you access to my skills somehow… and you used [Summon Familiar] on yourself?”
“Exactly, my lord,” Neverwinter replied succinctly.
Bryn just stared at his sword for a while, taking in the amalgamation of sword made winged, dead looking woman, accompanied with fiery red lightning hair and purple lightning sword. She was smiling innocently, hands folded behind her back as she waited for an order or to be asked a question.
“....Makes sense, after all my hair is alive now ,” Bryn accepted, throwing his hands up in defeat with a shrug.
“Ok, so,” he continued, “what are the black gem summons?”
“Terrific question my lord,” Neverwinter said, clapping softly with delight, “remember the three black gems that are embedded onto my blade? In my summoned battle form, they are currently embedded into the front center of my breastplate. Apparently, they are black gems from the Obsidian Court.”
She stumbled a bit and Bryn ran to catch her, thanking him softly, she continued as she steadied herself.
“They were the blessing that that strange asshole was referring to,” she continued weakly, “And because I am soul bound to you, upon my ascension when the masked man fused them into me, a second set appeared within your new ranker soul, giving you access to 3 Black Gem Summons: Primaris, Duo, and Trinitus. A familiar fused to a black gem summon gains a far stronger battle form and a special skill that gets passed along to you, Lord Bryn. This pairs with the unique ability of [Summon Familiar] by reactivating your scripts by fusing them with a familiar. Allowing you to cast your scripts through them.”
Bryn couldn’t believe what he was hearing. That was one hell of a blessing. The fact that she could compound the effect of the blessing on herself even furthur due to her being soul bound to him, sounded unfair beyond belief, but Bryn loved every second of hearing her answer. Even if he had to give up his Scripts all over again, he would do so in a heartbeat, after all, all he had to do was get 8 more familiars….
Then he’d be back in business. How hard could that be?
Ripping his thoughts back to the still suffering Neverwinter he was gently supporting, Bryn voiced something that had been nagging him for a very long time now.
“Neverwinter,” he asked softly, “how do you know all of this stuff anyway?”
“Ouchie,” Neverwinter moaned softly in pain, rubbing the side of her helmet. Turning to look at Bryn she replied, “I don’t know why, but in my mind I… I can see a big wall. Tremendously big. It’s…. blue, and… it looks like solid diamond. Whenever you ask me a question, I instinctively envision that wall, I don’t know why, and it always shows me a different section of the wall.”
She sighed softly, “I learnt that though the wall is written in some script I’ve never seen before, if I focus on it, hard, I can start to sort of feel their meanings and they’re never the same, in time, I learnt that they were the direct answers to your questions. Whatever I can comprehend from the diamond wall is what I reply with. That was how I guided us in the Cavern of Hallowed Heros and in the strange, golden palace.”
She lifted up a weak, feeble, shaking hand.
“Since ascending I’ve noticed I can actually read parts of the wall now too. Now I can access more knowledge than before, but that takes an even more extreme level of maintained focus it seems,” she murmured.
Bryn softly sat her down on a rock, massaging her temples for her softly while Neverwinter slowly regained her strength.
“Apologies for my weakness my lord,” Neverwinter lamented sorrowfully.
“Nonsense stupid,” Bryn said firmly, knocking her softly on the head.
“Owie,” she whined softly.
Bryn laughed, softly patting the sword goddess on the head, “but seriously, no more blue or diamond or whatever, wall reading for you for a while, ok?”
“Ok,” Neverwinter agreed. Perking up she added, “although I’ve memorized great amounts of what I was able to passively comprehend from the wall, so I can still answer some of my lord’s questions.”
“Just not anything too complex,” Bryn finished for her, nodding, “got it.”
“So,” he went on, “I’m guessing the reason I gained the [Ragnarok] skill then, is because you’re now a Black Gem Primaris summon, that’s also soulbound to me, And because you have 2 god storms living inside you?”
It was a question, but sounded more like a statement.
“Correct, my lord,” Neverwinter replied, sitting regally on her rock seat, “similarly as you gained [Dragon’s Talon] from being gifted Igni and Modi as your Black Gem Duo summons.”
“Yeah, about that,” Bryn said, arching an eyebrow, “who da fuck are Igni and Modi? I don’t remember making them into familiars, I don’t even know how to make a familiar!”
“Why don’t you just summon them and see them for yourself, my lord?” Neverwinter suggested.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Bryn admitted. “Quick question I really hope you read ahead for,” he said with a slight, sympathetic wince for Neverwinter who was still nursing a headache as she sat on her rock, “how do I actually cast a spell?”