Chapter 29
Core Name
Alpha (Linked)
Controller Options:
Link
Level
16
Level
HP
13/21
Expand
Mana
1250/1250
Reduce
Territory
7851 M^2
Evolve
Floors
1
Summon
Inhabitants
4 Humans, 5 Korgoath, 1 minotaur, 3 horses
Spawn
Customize
Experience
7.8*10^10
Seed
Tom exhaled a sigh of relief. It had worked. He had managed to use the Level skill without consuming the entirety of the Core’s banked experience. Granted, the core had gained three levels at once instead of only one as he’d intended it to, but he still counted the experiment as a win. The most important outcome of the attempt was that Alpha Core’s HP was no longer one; it was now thirteen of twenty-one.
That meant that it had gained four hit points for every level, which implied it would take two more levels to heal it to almost full health, as each level would also cause the maximum HP to go up by one. Two more levels would put it at level eighteen, with 21/23 HP. Then several weeks of being sedentary for it to restore the final hit points. He considered attempting to increase its level again, but ultimately decided against it. Perhaps later, after he’d increased his Rapport with it further.
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According to the books he had been given by the agent of Koratia, whose name he never did get, Rapport was a hidden stat which increased the longer a Core was Claimed by a Controller. The only ability he currently had that was affected by Rapport was Level. However, Rapport would become important with other skills which he would presumably unlock at higher levels.
Presumably, because he didn’t know how heavily his subclass would affect which skills he unlocked. Inheritor gained Sunder at level fifty, and Collaboration at level thirty. For Conqueror, it was the reverse. Both subclasses had other skills, some of which were shared and some of which were not, which could be unlocked. However, nowhere in the reference material he had been granted could he find a mention of the Link skill. Nor could he find reference to the progenitor subclass, for that matter. It seemed that he had unlocked the ultra-rare subclass of an already ultra-rare class.
“Did you succeed?” Antoine asked, interrupting Tom’s musings after the boy took a step back from the Core.
“Sort of. It gained three levels instead of one, but it didn’t burn nearly all of its experience. It’s mostly healed now, but not quite all the way to full. I don’t know if I’d want to use it to Link to another high level Core like Gamma, but I should be able to use it to conquer lower level Cores just fine like it is,” Tom answered.
“So, you’re not going to go crazy and start spawning snakes to put into our bedrolls, are you?” Sevin asked.
“If I put anything into your bedroll, Sevin, it will be spiders. As payback for the ants,” Tom answered. Tom glanced at the core, then up at the sky. “I wish she hadn’t found us. I feel rushed. I wanted to let the Core stand in place for a week before I tried to level it, instead of just a day. The books say that Cores are happiest when they’re sedentary.”
“Well, I for one am happy that we’re almost there,” Jessica volunteered. “I’m thoroughly sick of traveling underground, and while you all are fine company, I am really looking forward to a hot bath.”
“You’ve taken a bath at every village and town we’ve stopped at,” Sevin reminded her.
“And I’m thoroughly looking forward to the next one. You could use a shower yourself, Sevin. You might be handsome, but you stink.”
Sevin frowned. “I do?”
“Yes.”
The Warrior sniffed his armpits. “I guess I never noticed.”
“And Antoine, you need to shave. You look way better clean-shaven than you do with that ugly beard,” She continued.
Antoine bowed to her. “I shall consider your fashion advice with great sincerity, mademoiselle.”
They continued to talk of light subjects until the evening. The Winged knights arrived early the next morning and escorted them the rest of the way to the capital.
~~~~~
King Fenard dismounted his griffin, patting the winged creature affectionately. It had taken quite a bit of effort to gain the “Winged Messenger” subclass in addition to Noble, but the effort he had spent on that youthful endeavor continued to pay dividends all these years later. To think that his father had told him he was wasting his time!
The Weaver estate – renamed for its new inhabitants, it had fallen into the crown’s possession twenty years previous when the former inhabitants had fallen into arrears in their taxes – was not terribly far from the capital itself, but being able to fly cut the travel time from a full day down to about an hour.
Normally it would irk him to be forced to attend to a lowly knight at their personal residence, rather than having the knight come to him. However, a Controller’s aversion to cities and even villages whose Cores they have not, or could not, claim was well established. Tom was far too young to claim the Profons City Cores for himself, and bringing him into the city would only cause the boy discomfort and, possibly, temptation.
While he disapproved of Antoine’s methods in conquering wild dungeons with Tom, he couldn’t exactly argue with the results. Level eleven, with a wild core and multiple monsters claimed. Considering the typical pace for leveling a Controller was much slower than that, Fenard was tempted to forgive the Vanquisher’s interference. In fact, given that Antoine likely had more influence with the boy presently than Fenard, it would probably be for the best if the interference was overlooked, and Fenard acted as though everything that had occurred had been part of the plan.
The estate was approximately two hundred years old, although the primary building was built eighty years ago. The building that it had replaced had been demolished, but some of the outbuildings dated back to the estate’s beginnings. The primary house was three stories tall. It had been designed by Stephen Weber, an architect summoned by the previous Controller of Welsius, who had served under Fenard’s father for many decades before falling in an unfortunate attempt at conquering a high level dungeon.
Weber had not been a fighter, and had thus neither gotten into the extreme high levels nor gained the increased longevity that went with them. He had, however, been very good at his job, and his designs continued to influence the architecture of the day. Wells had described the style of this particular estate as Georgian. The outbuildings, in contrast, lacked the grandeur of the main house, having not been designed by any architect of note. In fact, Fenard was fairly convinced that they had been put up without any established style in mind.
He had sent servants ahead to open the house for its new residents, but those servants had not been warned of his surprise inspection, so he did not begrudge them the lack of a formal reception. His retinue was greeted first by a pair of stableboys, who looked awed and excited at the possibility of tending to any number of flying mounts; the experience would potentially grant them an opportunity of unlocking a subclass which might allow them to properly tame one in the future.
When Fenard’s herald announced him, however, the boys went white. They bowed, then one of them promptly excused himself to fetch the butler.
“You may see to the other mounts when your friend returns,” Fenard told the boy who had remained behind. “But I will see to Ironfeather myself. He can be grumpy when new hands attempt to see to his needs, and I wouldn’t want you to be injured in performing his care.”
“Thank you, your majesty,” the boy said, and he bowed again.
The butler emerged ten minutes later out of breath and red in the face. Fenard caught the look he gave the stable boy who had remained behind, likely believing that the boy was derelict in his duty by allowing the king to see to the care of his own mount, so Fenard came to the lad’s defense with an explanation that griffins tend to take the hands of those not trained specifically in their care.
The rest of his escort rode pegasi, and the boys were being instructed in the care of those mounts thoroughly when Fenard left them.
“I wish that you had sent warning, your majesty,” the butler said, which was almost a reproach.
“Were you not told that you would be receiving your new master today?” King Fenard returned. “If you were not prepared for his arrival, how could you possibly prepare for mine?”
The butler looked suitably chastised and said no more on the matter. King Fenard requested and received a tour of the estate. He didn’t bother inspecting the staff; they had been vouched for by Yecha and despite the mishap with the drunken Watcher he trusted her recommendations implicitly. He still regretted the necessity of that execution, but while disaster had been averted, the fact remained that the man had been derelict in his duties to the point of treason.
As for Yecha’s punishment for failing to oversee the man properly; Fenard had confiscated two of her properties. She had, in the end, thanked him for his leniency and informed him that the execution of the previous Watcher had significantly improved the dedication the others had to performing their duties adequately. She admitted that she had been lax in her supervision, pointing out only once in the conversation that it had been twenty years since the map rooms had signaled an alert.
Fenard was not a young man, but he was a level seventy-two Merchant. It was fortunate that he gained a significant amount of Class experience for ruling thanks to his Noble subclass. While he had mostly stalled out in his leveling progress, he appeared to be a man half his true age. Still, he reflected as he walked the grounds of the Weaver estate that he would need to add more exercise into his routine.
The Winged Knights from Tom’s party appeared midway through the tour to announce that their arrival was imminent. The messenger was as surprised by Fenard’s presence as the butler had been, but handled it with more grace.
His presence made half of the staff nervous as they waited for the party to arrive. The other half seemed to disregard him completely. That was not entirely unsurprising for Yecha’s people, and Fenard put it out of his mind.
The parade was an impressive one. Thirteen Winged Knights, five Korgoath, a minotaur, the Vanquisher, and finally three teens. Fenard immediately associated each of them with their descriptions.
The young Warrior that Tom had Evolved from his childhood best friend; a handsome lad with chiseled features and short blond hair. The lad had the beginnings of a beard, although someone would have to teach him how to tend to and trim it properly if he were to be present in any court functions.
The Summoned Sorceress. A beautiful young lass with bright red hair. While Fenard was pleased to have a Heroine who was interested in joining the Royal Knights, a small part of him wished that he had gained another expert from Earth such as the Architect Stephen Weber.
There was the Vanquisher himself, who acknowledged Fenard with a glare. Fenard sighed inwardly. The man had never forgiven the former king for the death of his summoner, and Antoine’s hatred had transferred over to the nearest living proxy upon the succession. Perhaps it would fade when Fenard’s heir took the throne. While Fenard could hardly fault Antoine for mourning Marshal Graves, Tom’s predecessor, the king wished that they had perhaps not been so close. The rumors of how close they had been – despite Antoine’s well known employment of women of the oldest profession – were never whispered within the man’s earshot. At least, not after Duke Torvin was forced to flee the court for fear of his life when Antoine challenged him to a duel.
And finally there was the boy himself. A fine looking young lad, if a little ordinary in appearance. Fenard scrutinized his face closely for any defining characteristic that might show ancestry of one of the noble houses. Even if the link couldn’t be established through pedigree, the certain shapes of the nose or jaw or ear might be enough to justify adoption into certain houses.
A great many nobles throughout history were well known to have many bastards, and Fenard knew many of his liegemen would stumble over themselves to claim Tom as a lost scion of their house if his appearance matched their family genetics closely enough. At least, they would once it was revealed that he was a Controller.
Fenard had no illusion that the information that a new Controller had been selected by the system remained a secret, but he had hopes that the boy’s identity would not be revealed to the interested parties for some time yet.
Fenard’s herald waited until the party had all dismounted and the Winged Knights before introducing the king. The three teens in the party awkwardly gave him a bow, or a poorly performed curtsy in Jessica’s example. Antoine did not.
“Welcome to your new home, Tom,” Fenard said. “I hope that the journey was not too stressful.”
“A part of me wishes that I hadn’t arrived yet,” the boy admitted.
Fenard kept his expression schooled in a friendly, open manner while he analyzed every detail of the interaction. Why was the boy reluctant to arrive? Had Antoine successfully poisoned him against the crown? Or had he simply enjoyed traveling with his new companions?
“I’m certain that, once you have gained some levels, you will have many further opportunities to travel,” Fenard said diplomatically. “I have instructed your servants to prepare baths for the four of you. Once you have refreshed yourselves, I would greatly enjoy the opportunity to give you a tour of your new properties, Tom Weaver.”
Tom blinked in surprise. “I have servants?”