CHAPTER 12 – REDIRECTING FATE
Tom threw himself back into his spear forms. He had a future to create. With the weapon spinning around him, he focused on footwork and on rotating the shaft to block imaginary monsters striking at him from his blind spot.
The shaft slipped from his small, sweaty hands. It crashed into his shins before spinning out of control, rolling and thumping into the wall.
“Damn it,” he cursed, while jumping up and down on one foot. Sweat was running down his face, and he tested his leg. It protested, but there was no structural damage, so he retrieved his weapon and kept going. He only allowed himself to stop once his breath started labouring so much that every attempt to suck in the life-saving air hurt.
His shins and forearms were covered with bruises. He used a light weapon, but had spun it more than fast enough for slip-ups to have consequences. Without Skills to aid his spear work and with the added disadvantage of the unfamiliar body there had been lots of mistakes.
While sucking in deep breaths, he forced himself to pick up the folder that contained current events. He flipped through to the next chapter he wanted to target, which was ‘Demographics.’
“Fuck, that’s bad,” he cursed in annoyance the moment he reached the page in question. Talking almost caused a coughing fit, but he managed to stabilise his air flow and forced deep breaths in and out.
His eyes devoured the information. The numbers were terrible, and, unfortunately, they provided context to humanity’s poor result on the ladder. Stagnation was the word that fitted the situation best. Collectively, something had gone badly wrong with humanity’s progress.
In his last life, in a little over six months, he had almost reached rank fifty. Yes, he had a lot of fortunate encounters, significant luck, and the first mover’s advantages that had elevated him above his peers. If you stripped away all those bonuses, he might have expected others to take five years at the most to match what he had done. That would be more than ten times slower, and the trials and titles had not sped him up that much.
For so many to have failed after fifty-five years to reach even that modest threshold was damning.
There were an estimated a hundred and twenty thousand humans left in the competition, with the vast majority of them being from earth. Of that population, about ninety thousand were loosely associated with the human empire, which was the three towns and billions and possibly trillions of acres of wilderness that spread out on all sides of them. Two-thirds of that population were classed as adventurers and spent their time on exploring - and then exploiting - the unclaimed lands nearby. While it was presented as a single kingdom, it wasn’t. Each of the towns were effectively isolated entities that were far enough apart that on earth they would be on different continents, and they all had established native kingdoms between them, so you couldn’t even pretend they were linked. However, thanks to the auction house, the towns communicated freely with each other, so in a very real sense they worked together, sharing progress.
The problem was not the existence of these safe havens - it was the general lack of advancement.
Only five people had been confirmed to have reached the PowerHouse stage, which was a rank greater than a hundred. Four of which, he noted, were reincarnated.
Tom mentally did the mathematics. During the trial, the worst of them were getting a hundred thousand experience per day, but to reach the PowerHouse rank you only needed to average twenty. It was a lot, Tom could acknowledge that, but was it reasonable that so few people had hit that threshold?
Tom considered the daily grind that would be required for such an achievement. He had fought in the tutorial for forty-five years, and, until Pinkwing had died and he had started taking unreasonable chances, he had progressed faster than that and his rate of gathering experience hadn’t trailed off.
The tutorial was, of course, different from Existentia, as it had forced him to transition to progressively stronger zones as he grew. There had been no slow periods or slacking off allowed by the setup. To not grow in the tutorial was to be overwhelmed and die. That wouldn’t happen here, as the impossibly large world they found themselves in was a natural system. Sometimes the enemies you faced would get stronger as you continued on, and other times you would cross the power peak and they would start to get weaker. Basically, once you got to high levels, it would become a struggle to find monsters capable of challenging you.
There was also the issue of diminishing returns you got when you kept killing the same type of monster. It was logical that eventually the majority of creatures you fought would be ones you had defeated before, and so the experience you got per kill would be reduced. If you killed a lot of rank ten wolves, then when you fought the rank a hundred versions, you would start hitting diminishing returns almost immediately.
Even when one took those factors into account, it was disappointing that the most powerful human was only rank a hundred and thirteen. He had been expecting better.
He skimmed down to the next fact, and that fact almost made him want to scream.
Over fifty percent of people were below rank fifty.
That was unacceptable.
Tom shook his head in disgust as he read those numbers.
It was extremely disappointing.
It was no less than a collective failure, especially by those who hadn’t passed rank forty. Tom wasn’t even willing to give a pass to crafters. Everyone had a responsibility to improve and do better, and, in his mind, being below eighty after fifty years, let alone having only achieved half that rank, was negligence.
He went back to physical training and monitored the ritual corner. It flashed twice to indicate that it was available again, and, thankful for the relief, he stopped the kata. All of his leg muscles were spasming, and he used the ritual terminal to check the skill he knew he still had. The moment he finished, the screen updated.
Skill: Social Silence – Tier 7
This is considered by some to be a powerful social skill, and by others to be the most insidious of curses. A spirit gifted with precognition keeps watch over you, and if you are about to say something that is likely to have a moderate negative social impact or worse, you will be stricken with two seconds of silence.
The same attempt to convey an idea may only be blocked three times, unless the recipient mentally acknowledges the block as being in his favour in which case it will continue to occur.
This skill has been applied as a curse and cannot be removed.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
This skill has zero levels and cannot be turned off.
It was there, completely unchanged from his previous life.
Tom appreciated still having it, despite its occasional downsides. While it could be annoying, it had proven its value when negotiating with the other competition species and trial natives. The way it functioned had allowed him to navigate social pitfalls that he would otherwise have never been able to see. For his current circumstances, it was also almost perfect. It would stop him from saying anything that would risk revealing that he had been reincarnated, because saying something that could get you killed was the ultimate negative social impact.
Tom wanted to find out what happened with the trolls and confirm that the apparent racial trait upgrade had been caused by his plan and, after he had died, by his old team’s continual efforts. Unfortunately, there was nothing in the ‘Current Events’ book about racial traits or bloodlines. Also, he hadn’t noticed any titles that indicated data sets that contained the answers he was looking for while examining the bookshelf.
It would be there. Given all the other materials supplied in the isolation rooms, the knowledge would be here somewhere. But it had clearly not been deemed important enough for a typical reincarnated one to be placed in an obvious spot. It was probably buried as a footnote in one of the larger random that was not a priority for him to read. Plus, it was not necessary knowledge for right here and now. It would be nice to have, and would satisfy his curiosity, but he wasn’t going to waste hours searching for these details. Not when there were both the more readily available and possibly the more useful facts out there, ones that could actually change his approach in the obvious places.
He focused his effort on understanding the society that the survivors had built.
The town served as a central hub for all exploration within half a year’s travel. If you discovered something important, you reported it to the hub, and those who needed to know about it would be informed.
Tom tapped that paragraph thoughtfully. That meant that, theoretically, every trial within six months of the town should have been uncovered and recorded, including the details such as the type, the level range, and any quirks that it might possess. When he became an adult, he would set up a trip that would take him through all the trials and monster areas that can level him as fast as possible. This way, he would not have to search for trials, and that was another boost those early reincarnators wouldn’t have had, despite their massive success. This was even more evidence that he could surpass their achievements and make a positive difference.
Having that kind of data available made the failure of so many people to breach rank fifty even more troubling. There had to be an explanation there.
When his two hours came to a finish, the healing crystal banished the aches and pains, and the clean spell removed all the sweat and the grime. He decided not to leave with cuts to heal, since he figured out that people entering and leaving the isolation rooms would be under the most scrutiny, and he wanted to look as normal as possible.
Bir and Pa were waiting for him when he exited, and they went to get dinner together.
As they were about to enter the gymnasium, a force picked Tom up and pushed him hard into the wall. Bir next to him squealed in shock as she likewise was shoved forcefully against the wood panelling. Pa, a little ahead of them, was spared.
It took Tom a moment to understand what was happening, mainly due to the difficulties of rotating his head to give himself a better field of sight. However, when he did so, snotty Ma, sniffling as always, came into view with the magic ring on her finger glowing.
She paused to grin at them:
“You look squished.” She said before marching sedately toward the dinner queue.
“You dropped your special potion.” Bir yelled after her.
Internally, Tom flinched as snotty Ma spun to face them:
“Was that you? Was that was your fate?”
“Nope, nope. You dropped it. I wasn’t there. Your fault not mine.” She stuck out her tongue defiantly.
The barrier holding them was weakening. Tom tried to push out from the wall with his arms to hasten its demise.
“That was mean. You made dad angry.”
“I didn’t do it. You dropped. Your clumsy.”
Snotty glanced down at the ring on her hand and noticed the glow was lessening. Then, with an annoyed final glance, she hurried into the dining room to get into the line ahead of them.
When she was about twenty metres away, the power of the shield holding them in place shattered around them and they could move as normal. It had not hurt them as it lacked the strength to do so, but getting trapped like that was definitely annoying.
“I’ll get her not-parents again.” Bir promised fiercely. “I’ll show her. Fancy pants, artefact, meany.”
Tom managed not to massage the bridge of his nose in response. An escalation between them was not something he wanted to see. The loss of that powerful elixir annoyed him on a fundamental level. He glanced sideways at the glaring Bir.
“Rather than pranks,” he said carefully. “Have you considered using fate to win competitions?”
The girl tore her scowl away from Snotty and stared at him instead, her eyes suspicious:
“Is that why you beat me?” She asked. “Is that why Ta is suddenly better at bubbles?”
Tom felt a pit of worry in his stomach. He hadn’t ever used his fate in any of their play, but he was suddenly worried that he was displaying too much competence. Was his adult mind boosting the performance of this body too much? He wondered how it would be best to play this. Social Silence was not giving him any guidance, but he guessed that wasn’t unexpected. In his last life, it had never stopped him from putting his foot in his mouth when amongst his friends. With them, it let him do anything, and he speculated it was the same here. Its lack of activation informed him that there was probably nothing he could do to harm their relationship right now.
“I want to win.” He told her honestly, even though it was misleading. He would never use fate so trivially.
“I’ll do it too.” Bir declared.
Tom’s senses picked up her fate immediately flooding out of her. The abruptness of the response shocked him, and he expected it to blast into Snotty and be negated by her protections, but instead it kept going and spread out through the food tables. It was his turn to look at the other girl suspiciously. He couldn’t see the angle and what the fate was being directed to do.
“Hurry,” Bir insisted before she hooked his arm, grabbed Pa’s hand and dragged both of them to stand in the opposite line to Snotty. A line which was significantly longer than the other.
Pa’s stomach rumbled. “Wouldn’t the other one be better?” The one Bir had chosen had a lot more people in it because a large group of nine-year-olds had all decided to join this one to stay with their friends.
“Not going in Snotty’s line. This ones better.”
Tom looked at Pa helplessly and then saw the determined expression on his other friend’s face. There was no way they would convince her to do otherwise, so he resigned himself to getting a later dinner.
There was an abrupt crash as one of the automations broke down in front of the other line. The brief release of magical energy was spectacular, but not particularly noteworthy, as one or two of them failed most days. They were all used to seeing it.
Dimitri immediately came over to take charge, along with a number of automations designed for that exact purpose. More magical flares occurred as the broken construct was turned off, with each of the various pools of magic drained away. Only once it was completely inert was it finally broken apart and removed from where it was blocking access.
Their line moved forward and Snotty’s one didn’t. Mentally, Tom’s eyes narrowed, and he couldn’t help but glance at Bir. She looked smug.
An idea of what that fate was doing occurred to him and he searched for where it would act next. Snotty’s queue was still shorter, so he was certain there would be more general mischievousness in the play.
Then a girl in their line had her plate slip out of her hand. She tried to re-catch it and somehow knocked it right over the food-laden table so the piled-up, sauce-filled, pasta, followed shortly after by the plate, landed on the other side. There was a splat, then a bang, and red droplets spread out everywhere on the ground with the remains of her meal in the centre.
Snotty’s line was prevented from moving again.
More automations came and milled around as they cleaned it up and, because of the way the plate had fallen, they were stopping Snotty’s line from progressing.
Furthermore, his queue was moving very quickly as the group of nine-year-olds had decided to collectively raid the pie stand. Six of them were scooping everything onto their plates while the other ten stood beside them, taking nothing. In a quarter of the time it should have taken them, they were off to their own tables.
Surprised, Tom found himself free to serve himself, while Ma, because of the multiple delays, had four people in the queue in front of her. Bemused, he collected his food, and when they reached the kids’ table, all but three places were occupied. They took them.
Snotty Ma had to sit on the empty table by herself.
Bir was happily grinning like a Cheshire cat.