Before I can even begin to comprehend what just happened the dead Felix the cat starts to shine and fade away, leaving in his place 3 very shiny crystals, a fur backpack, a boot, and a giant chunk of already cooked meat in a bone that for some reason reminds me of old 90’s cartoons. When I focus my vision on the loot in front of me I can see small pop-ups at the top of the items.
3x Greater Grade Refinement Crystals
Giant Forest Tiger Fur Backpack - Grade A
Giant Forest Tiger Left Boot - Grade B-
Giant Forest Tiger Meat - Grade A-
I think I am beginning to understand how all these weird augmented reality-like pop-ups work and try focusing on the crystals that caught my attention.
Greater Grade Refinement Crystals
A blessed crystal that can be used to upgrade the quality of equipment of Grade S and below
This looks like a very overpowered item, if this world really is like video-game I would assume that the drop rate of these would be very low, but I am probably wrong, right? After all, I got 3 of these in a single drop.
I equip the backpack and put the crystals inside, I’m not that hungry right now so I will try to fit some of the meat inside the backpack for later and I leave the boot there, I mean what the heck am I suppose to do with a single boot, the stingy suicide cat could’ve at least had given me a pair.
After checking myself and my firearm for any damage I start getting away from my position afraid that the loud noise could have attracted more bizarre creatures to me. Looking again and again at my status I can't comprehend how even after getting 16 levels, only my luck stat went up, I am still feeling slower and weaker than my usual self, and what the heck is that encouragement text beside the LUK stat…
A few uneventful hours later rain started to fall and my visibility really took a hit, I decided to take a pause from moving aimlessly in this dense forest and rest a little under a tree while munching the tiger meat and contemplating how am I going to survive in this place. Trying to remember and put together the sequence of events that led me here I’m starting to suspect that my 5 stats that are stuck at 0 and the 5 demons that I met before are related, especially since one of them self-declared as a Goddess of Strenght. I also realize that only have a few more rounds in my magazine box and probably won’t be able to resupply them. That got me an idea to try and check if there are some pop-ups in my rifle.
???
It seems like I can't inspect my rifle, would be nice to know what grade this weird world would give to it. That made me want to try and see if the crystals that I got before would interact with my firearm. When I put both together the rifle started to heat and shine, but soon the crystal cracked and it came back to normal, I considered if I should try again with another crystal and since I still would have one spare I tried again, this time my firearm shone even more and I even had to drop it since it started to burn my hands with the heat before the rifle again came back to normal. I felt that something was very close to happening in the last attempt and decided to yolo and use my last crystal again in the rifle. This time I almost got blinded by the sudden burst of shining light and when opened my eyes again I was very confused with what I saw.
Long Ranged Weapon From Another Realm +3 - Grade A+
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Attack 150, HIT +20, CRIT +15, ASPD -5%
A mysterious artifact that is capable of firing projectiles made of pure concentrated mana.
Upgraded 3 times:
More Penetration
Longer Range
Reduced mana cost
Restriction - Can only be wielded by Daniel Creed
It wasn't only the pop-up that changed, my trusted weapon is way more lighter and now it looks like an old type of firearm very similar to the ones that I saw in a museum back in Kansas, it changed from being made of steel to having a stock made of some kind of polished dark wood with a barrel made of a bluish metal. The sling that it was strapped also changed from the very military-looking one to a very robust one that looks like black leather.
If the flavor text was to be trusted that means that this rifle now shoots rounds of mana and I am indeed in another world, another realm to be more precise. Brushing off for now what that implication means I got very excited to test right away my reformed rifle. I aimed to a nearby tree and when I pulled the trigger I felt like some part of myself was being yanked from me making me lightheaded. At that moment I noticed two bars on the top corner of my vision appearing for the first time, one red and the other almost depleted blue.
HP: 22/22
MP:4/22
Looks like a single shot from my rifle consumed 18 of my mana and the shot itself, turns out, it missed by a very large margin, instead of hitting the tree it ended up flying up into the sky leaving a trail of bluish light, and just after a little while I head it.
“SCREAAACH!”
From the direction that the bullet went, I saw a very large shadow in the sky coming in my direction. It looks like a giant eagle 4 times my size and it was beaming at me with a very high speed, one of its eyes was bleeding very badly.
My first instinct was to try and aim at the bird but in an instant, the few trees around me were broken and the eagle already had sunk its claws in my shoulders and pulled me up in the sky. If the situation wasn't scary enough, I noticed my HP dropping to ‘1/22’ in a flash as we started to gain more and more altitude.
While grabbing to the claws of the eagle for my dear life, I turned my head around, and even with the heavy rain, I could see this giant valley that I was in the middle of. I also could see, even from this high up, several giant monsters, even bigger than that fluffy furred gorilla from before. This oversized pigeon seems to be taking me in a direction away from this valley where I can see some giant mountains in the distance.
I believe that more than half an hour already passed since my sky-uber picked me up, I’m holding to its claws trying to not move much since the claws are still inside my shoulders but somehow my HP is slowly going up.
HP: 10/22
MP: 19/22
Considering my MP I should be able to give one more shot in this chicken but that wouldn't be a good idea since I forgot my parachute today. Welp, it is what it is…
----------- Strength Goddess Pov -----------
“So we all agree what must be done?”
“Yes sister, I had to throw that shoe away since that savage ended puking all over it. I can’t agree more that he should suffer”
We all decided that after sending that insolent mortal to that place so that he can have a painful death, we would grab his soul before it enters the cycle of reincarnation and loses its special properties and tortur… I mean, enlighten him so that he stops spewing such utter nonsense. We are forbidden to directly terminate mortals but after it dies of ‘natural causes’ and their souls happen to by ‘mistake’ appear in our domain, all is fair game. Then it is a simple action of reincarnating him so that he can help our cause, with our blessings greatly enhancing his stats.
Our influence on the stats of the mortals is very limited and even when we choose a champion to greatly boost their stats each of us can’t choose the same person and even then our boost is not as higher than that rude realm traveler would be. That's why despite being an uncivilized swine we still need him since things aren't looking so good for our followers, and consequently our powers. The new pantheon made of those fake gods and the rise of their brand new religion spreading in our lands and also the recent increased activity in the demon continent that worship the old gods, we are at risk more than ever.
It would be so much more simple if we could do another physical descent and directly guide our crusade to crush the new religion worshipers, but for that, all of the six goddesses of our pantheon would have to join powers together and unfortunately, we can’t contact Luna for the last 300 years, ugh! that ugly bitch… if she would at least die already, I don’t think there is even a single church of luck left in the mortal realm, she can't have more than a few worshiping followers, her powers must be almost empty. With her death, a new Goddess of Luck would be born, and with hope this time one that is also beautiful like me and my other four sisters.
“The realm traveler should be dying soon, so start looking for him, we are going to have to be quick to snatch his soul before it can join the wheel of rebirth and bring it here. Go, get to it!”
““““Yes sister””””
I put him into the valley of the dammed, that was the most brutal place under our influence that I could send him with my powers being this limited. He won't be able to survive there as a level one, and even if he somehow manages to level up there, me and my sisters negating him any increase in his stats there is no way he will last longer than a couple of hours, fufufu.