CHAPTER 10 – ASSASSINATION HISTORY

The desire to determine the details of status gripped Tom, and this book had the answers. He urgently flipped to the chapter that would tell him what he sought, and then forced himself to slow down.

He breathed deeply and stared at the mirror. A chubby four-year-old was reflected in the silvered surface. The eyes were unflinching, but the cheeks looked like they were being puffed out. A weak body, restricted by the system from earning a single point of experience - which would have been his most valuable currency for improving himself. What could the person looking back at him actually do?

This urgency was beyond ridiculous. Every moment he still had was to be made to count, but his motto had to be smarter rather than faster . Eleven years, that’s what he had. Time enough to build a stable base; one, that, when he came of age and piled on the experience, could be tempered into a spear that could kill a dragon.

That was what he was about.

No doubts, no being merely good. He would grow and beat the best.

When one looked at those soft unassuming features, the ambitions felt impossible, but Tom knew otherwise. Existentia was a harsh world, but it was also one that gave you opportunities if you were smart enough to seize them.

With his mind centred, he read the book in front of him and noted the critical sentences.

* Extracting information for your status sheet before you turn ten is difficult. There are methods in place to help, but please be aware that they are imprecise and flawed.

* Every Isolation Room contains a ‘Status Reveal Ritual Interface’ to support discovery.

* Discovering unknown areas of your status is best achieved immediately after receiving a notification. DO NOT DELAY. The longer you are away from the incident the less chance you would have of being able to discover the specific change.

* The ‘Status Reveal Ritual’ requires recent proximity or exact knowledge, and, if either condition is met, will display the component of your status sheet you are after. In practice, this means any ability or title query more than four days after receiving it will be undiscoverable. The discovery period for lower-tiered abilities can be as short as one day.

* Actively using a skill usually counts as recent proximity, but this is not always the case, particularly for tier 0 to 2 abilities.

* Titles or Skills that are downgraded from your first Existentia life are very rarely discoverable before you turn ten.

Tom read through the details and frowned at those implications. It was basically saying that titles and skills that hadn’t changed would be easy for him to display once more, but if any of them had altered their name or been reduced in power, the change would leave them undiscoverable.

It was also not something he could change, so he put the issue out of his mind. If he had minor titles or skills floating around, then they would be a pleasant surprise when he got access to his system room.

With an understanding of what was on offer, he jumped to his feet and hurried over to the dedicated alcove that contained the ritual process. It had a recharge time of slightly under an hour, so, if he didn’t want the next person in the room to know he had used it, then today he would only get one try at this. However, every other future session he would be able to use it twice.

There was no point in digging into his past status, as this might be his only opportunity to determine the exact specifics of the healing spell he had just acquired. Decision made, he released five points of fate to reduce the chance of making a mistake, and then followed the steps displayed on the diagram pinned above the ritual. They basically consisted of activate, wait while mentally focusing on what you wanted, then select the type of information you need displayed. In this particular case, he had to choose spell information.

Then, if he was successful, the screen would update, and that was exactly what it did now.

Spell: Heal Minor Scratches (Tier 0)

This spell allows the healing of surface level wounds with poor efficiency.

The description was suspiciously short, but the implications of what he had created were clear. Not only was it tier-zero - it had a trash rating within that designation. Most of the decent tier-zero spells Tom had researched during the tutorial. He had never seen this one before. That was how bad it was. He wondered what it would cost in the experience shop. Fifty? A hundred? The fact it was less than a single ration bar said heaps about its quality.

Tom shrugged.

He guessed that, given his plan, it really didn’t matter. He was always going to have to evolve the spell multiple times, and this just meant he would need to evolve it within the tier before increasing its grading. What were a couple of extra steps when he had eleven years?

The real question was, how bad was the spell?

Now that he knew what it was supposed to do, he could do a more sensible test. With a frown, he went to grab a knife, climbing up the shelving to get one from high up so he didn’t end up with a toy.

He unsheathed it, then held it in one hand, impressed. There was a nice weight to it, and the edge shone in the artificial light of the isolation room. It was sharp.

This knife was definitely not something a four-year-old should have been playing with. He glanced at the corner of the room and the white gem on a pedestal.

Even with that powerful healing crystal being so close, this knife did not belong the hands of a child. Then again, children didn’t deserve to grow up in a situation as violent as what they were facing. They needed to learn proper fighting skills, and he guessed that cutting themselves was a risk this society had to let them face.

Tom, however, was not that young, so he positioned the tip over the same spot he had been doing during all of his testing.

Then he pressed down.

Instantly, the skin parted, and the blade disappeared into the flesh. Dark-red liquid swelled up on either side of the embedded weapon. Tom left it in. When he eventually pulled it out, it would gush blood, but that was fine with Tom. When the time was up, a powerful cleaning spell would activate and remove any evidence of any spilled blood.

He left the knife in, then channelled his mana into the system-constructed spell form. When it was ready and poised just above the wound, he yanked out the blade. The blood came, but it was more of a trickle than the flood that he had been expecting. That made sense, because he had deliberately cut in an area that he knew contained no major arteries or veins.

Ignoring the blood, he let the spell activate, and there was an itching sensation as it went to work. In under two seconds, it was done. A splash of water followed by a rubbing with the hand towel left his arm clean.

The spell had closed the wound, as advertised. On the surface, it was a successful heal, but from the description Tom knew otherwise. Experimentally, he poked the faint pink line that had been left. The whole area ached in response.

His frown deepened as he assessed the level of pain. Bruises, even deep ones didn’t feel like that.

The cut might be closed, and the injury at least visually might have appeared healed, but it was not. Under the layer of mended skin, the injury persisted.

“Damn,” he whispered to himself. The spell was as terrible as he had feared. It was false, and its flaws represented an active danger. It only healed superficially. Its magic worked exclusively to close surface cuts. The deeper areas of the injury remained untouched, which was dangerous. Given what he knew was happening, he was not surprised to observe that a nasty bruise was forming almost as he watched.

Trash. Total trash, he thought in annoyance. He had known the instant he had read the description that it was going to be so, but it was annoying to have confirmed it so completely. Unless it was used very selectively, it was more detrimental than helpful. Ignoring the internal injuries while healing the skin was more dangerous than leaving an open wound and allowing the body’s natural processes to fix it.

But I got it after a week of practice, he reminded himself. The first version was only ever the start, and he had always been planning to evolve it into something better, anyway. So, its issues really weren’t a problem. He would, as a matter of course, need to be selective whenever he used it. If he suffered a graze, it would be perfect… then he chuckled to himself.

“For minor scrapes it’s wonderful,” he told the room. “But for self-inflicted stab wounds it was a no go. That’s a skill that belongs as the first step in the path to slaying a dragon” He laughed harder and then reconsidered the way his mind had jumped to the negative. This way might actually be better because of his title Unique Skill Creator. Thanks to it, by the time he finished it was possible his healing spell would have extra sideway evolutions which would make it stronger. The extra steps he needed to take to make it better would give that title more chances to activate.

Annoyed and satisfied at the same time, Tom went back to the book and checked his to-do list. He wanted to use the remaining hour and a half to do some research and answer some of the questions he had.

The first item researched was physical training. He had only practiced with the spear for ten minutes, but he had to admit it had felt good to have a weapon again. The question was whether doing so was problematic. He ended up cross-referencing multiple books before he was satisfied with the accuracy of the answer, which was basically a firm yes - he could train to his heart’s content.

Physics, biology, all those things he had taken for granted on Earth did not necessarily flow as linearly in Existentia. How the young of species developed reflected one of these quirks. The gist of it was that it was near-impossible for a child to create muscle mass or calluses through training.

Basically, the enhanced healing everyone got in Existentia was responsible for it. In the absence of any system, which is what children got, the healing restored you to your prior state. On earth, physical activity made a difference. Where your skin was continually worn away, callouses would form to reinforce the area. When you lifted weights and damaged muscle fibres, extra ones would grow. Basically, biology allowed the human body to adapt to the conditions thrown at it. In Existentia, that feedback of stimulus causing adaptation didn’t work. Instead, when you became an adult, the system took over that role. That was how he had gained natural points of vitality and strength in his last life - even if the natural part of that designation couldn’t have been further from the truth.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

It was not all doom and gloom - his attributes would increase as he aged; however, it was determined by diet and genetics, not activity. There was no known way to force attribute gain, outside of elixirs, while the system considered you a child.

Training was back on. That made Tom smile, even though he knew it wouldn’t alter his body like it would have done on Earth. It meant he could secretly develop spear abilities, which was a part of his long-term build.

Next, he checked on the history of reincarnated kids and their subsequent assassination, because he figured it was something he had to know.

In moments, he was engrossed in the text. It was fascinating, especially since it was about real people with consequences driving societal adaptations, which even fifty years after it all started, were impacting him personally.

The first reincarnated children had been identified within six earth years of the competition starting. Tom absorbed that information with surprise.

That was early.

Without the ritual to force the issue, the emergence of past memories were supposed to happen when they were five or six years old. Add on nine months lag for pregnancy… It meant the child would have to have been conceived in the first year and possibly even earlier. Potentially only months after arriving in Existentia.

That…

His brain struggled to understand that. The biology urges after over a decade of isolation made sense. He had also indulged, but birth control was so easy. He couldn’t imagine a child being a mistake. Unlike the group he had started with, other groups had obviously decided that the best way to earn ranking points were to have children and build up a larger population.

Tom could understand that reasoning. If you could double or triple your numbers every generation then a starting group of a hundred like his could have ended up having nearly a thousand people by now. Having ranking points be generated by ten times the number of people could only be a good thing, so he could definitely see why a group could have made that decision.

That is, if most of those born survived. In practice, he knew from his own experiences that Existentia was too harsher mistress to allow that. A lot of men and women, he realised, would have been reincarnated into a child as part of a nomadic tribe. He shuddered, thinking of the difference between the challenges that they must have faced versus the situation he was in, with his dedicated training rooms complete with encyclopedias’ worth of knowledge.

Tom tore himself away from his own thoughts and continued his research.

In those early days, there had been so little coordination between the disparate groups of humans that the risk of assassins finding the humans had been low. It still occurred, but as the years passed, humanity had migrated into set areas where they could help each other as needed. That, and the beginning of established settlements, had ramped up the frequency of targeted strikes.

Then the massacre of the woolanda had begun. Forty kids had been executed. He read the chronological events in growing horror.

The moment he finished the section, Tom pushed the book aside and leapt to his feet. His mind was spinning at those words. The circumstances had been described, but it was the result that horrified him. To handle his emotions, he focused on actions and rearranged the spears to create a small tent. Even though the process was hampered by his uncoordinated body, it only took a couple of minutes to make. But that was with his adult mind driving the action. Tom was confident that anything that examined this room once he left would assume that he spent most of the two-hour session constructing it.

Yet, as he worked, his mind thought about what he had learned.

The assassin had been a native powerhouse with a rank of a hundred and ten. That, apparently was more than twice as much as any human in the camp. Combined with his class skills, fighting him was impossible, because what could you conceivably do against someone who was twice as strong, twice as fast, and twice as durable as you? They couldn’t fight something that powerful; besides, initially it didn’t reveal why it was there.

Then it killed the first child, and the five champions of the group had fought back. Five against one, they had thought they had a chance but the benefit of the higher-levelled skills and spells at the native’s disposal made all the difference. Skills grown for centuries were far more potent than ones worked on for only decades, and even if the humans had higher-tiered abilities, they couldn’t cross the attribute and experience gap.

The champions had been slaughtered. The native had then gathered up all the children and demanded the reincarnated person reveal themselves. It had promised to spare everyone else once the reincarnated ones were all killed.

There had been no volunteers. Then It started killing. It executed one child, re-cast the spell and then kept going. Another wave of parents had launched a counterattack when they saw their loved ones dying. This time more than forty adults participated, but the attribute gap between them and the native was even larger than what the champions had faced. They all died, and the assassin had ignored the survivors and returned to his task. It killed children one by one as it searched for what it was after.

In the end, over a third of the tribe and all but two children had been slaughtered. It was a mystery to the author as to why the reincarnated ones did not reveal themselves earlier.

Tom clenched his fists as he remembered that. Such cowardice, to refuse to volunteer - and it had achieved nothing! The tent was finished, and he looked back at the book.

How could someone reincarnated to a new life allow forty kids to die pointlessly once they knew resistance was futile? It made his blood boil. If Tom had been there, he would have volunteered after the five champions died, the moment it was obvious that there was no point in hiding. He would have ended things.

The book remained where he had left it, and, reluctantly Tom went over there to finish the history lesson. This was different to earth history because of his experience it felt far more real. He could envisage himself in these situations, but there was no point putting his head in the sand and remaining unnecessarily ignorant.

He picked it up and continued his research.

A month later, the same alien had struck another group of nomads. The same process repeated, but the story had been spread on the auction house, and the adults in this group were weaker. They stood and watched and, once more, the reincarnated ones refused to reveal themselves. This time, only half of the children were slaughtered.

Two months after that, it located a much larger encampment. This settlement had almost a hundred fifty children. The adults were stronger and ready for it, but it came with ten of its companions. The newcomers had an average ranking of over ninety and it was clear that even if every adult sacrificed their lives, it would be pointless as they would all die.

They prepared to fight anyway.

Before they did, four children led by a twelve-year-old called Michael had walked up and surrendered.

After they were killed, the assassins cast their spell and left.

Tears were running down Tom’s face. He couldn’t keep reading. He didn’t know if it was the Michael that he had been friends with. But if Michael had been there, that was exactly what he would have done.

Whoever it had been Tom sympathised. It was painful to imagine what must have been going through their heads. These were heroes who had been given another chance to make a difference, and for that Michael, after seven years of effort, while still being too young to have achieved anything of note, they had been forced to put their head on the chopping block. All because an unstoppable force, a native far beyond their power had come hunting.

“How were the other GODs allowed to get away with this?” he asked the air and wiped his cheeks. “How?” He shouted. There was, of course, no answer.

It was the same bullshit that had occurred with the resurrection of the dragon. He and the others had killed her fair and square, and then the game board had been flipped on them. He had always known that Existentia didn’t pretend to be fair, but that was too much.

An impossible-to-kill dragon being defeated by Clare’s brilliance, and then that getting stolen from them.

Impossible-to-defeat assassins butchering reincarnated kids with parents forced to give them up or be killed themselves.

What was next?

How would they cheat next?

His eyes dropped back to the book. He was sure this story had an ending. It probably wouldn’t be pretty, but the way children were centralised now meant that the problem that had hit Michael’s settlement had to have been dealt with.

Over the eight hours following the deaths of those four kids, human ranking points exploded. More points were gained in that brief period than humanity had compiled over the previous twenty years. When the tally stopped going up, humans’ total had increased by a hundred and ten percent.

Tom froze as he read that passage. Somehow, he knew to the core of his being that this was the GOD’s response to rule breaking. How did he know? He wasn’t sure, but he was certain, and it must have been related to his missing memories. It didn’t make any sense otherwise. Why would he know anything about GODs? From the memories he possessed, he had been very successful in many things, but ultimately he had just been a warrior, a pawn, and others had beaten the dragon. There were no interactions with GODs anywhere apart from witnessing the aftermath of Sven’s blasphemy.

It was a mystery that he couldn’t solve, so he lowered his eyes and kept reading.

Over a month passed until an explanation of the surge of ranking points was made available by one of DEUS’ priests. The woolanda, a known terror species, had been convicted of knowingly interfering with a competition species after receiving a formal warning. The account the priest gave did not make it clear whether it was DEUS directly or a champion of hers, but over that eight hours the woolanda as a species was eliminated. As compensation for the lost lives of their children, humans had been credited with ten percent of the ranking points associated with the elimination of a native sapient species.

The priest cautioned that the reincarnated ones were still not safe, but the other two species hunting them would ensure that they would no longer kill innocent children.

This forced restraint, combined with the new orphanage protocols and the town prayers, has greatly reduced the number of assassinations that have occurred.

In the thirty-five years since the extermination of the woolanda, it is believed that only five reincarnated children have been killed before reaching maturity. In all cases, their status as being reincarnated ones was widely known amongst the town population.

Tom put the book down and wiped the tears from his eyes. He did not know whether the reward humanity had got for the hundreds of dead children was worth it or not, but at least it was something.

An entire species destroyed for interfering with the competition.

Tom had known the GODS took it seriously, but that was heavy stuff.

Sitting on the ground, his thoughts roaring in his head, he shut his eyes and grimaced.

He could guess that, overall, this was great news and he should be celebrating it. However, he didn’t feel that way.

His safety had been purchased by the death of innocents. He wondered if the Michael mentioned in the chapter was the man he had known. Tom swallowed heavily and forced himself not to think too hard on it. Ultimately, he really didn’t want to know.

To distract himself, he glanced at the timer. It showed that there was less than fifteen minutes left before the doors would open. He was feeling fidgety, so, to calm himself, he pulled out his preferred spear and started training.

Now that he knew that doing so wouldn’t risk exposing him, he tried to go faster. It was still a struggle to force his body to move in the right ways, but he needed to build repetitions to get the Spear skill anyway, so he went through the effort. It wouldn’t become his focus until he developed some magic, but training now would help his efforts later.

As he fought, he once more used his new spell to heal the cut, trying to force it to extend its effects deeper. He could see that the attempt failed, and the bruise remained as dark as it had been earlier and when he poked the area, it hurt - more than a bruise of that size was supposed to.

With a sigh, he replaced the spear in the tent and went to the healing crystal in the corner. Its magic fixed the cut, bruise, sore muscles all of it. If someone or something checked the room after this, they would discover nothing. Instead, they would assume he had spent the time constructing a useless fort and building book towers… an action Little Ta had done many times before.

Tom nodded to himself. This was good. He eyed the shelves of reference books.

This was very, very good.

He was going to enjoy the forced isolation times.