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Chapter 173

CHAPTER 173

For a moment, Tom stood in his system room as his mind processed what he was reading. It went beyond his expectations. He had always had a plan. It had been researched and refined to where he had been confident of executing it no matter what challenges were thrown up. He had expected that foresight to propel him to the top ranks of all of humanity, but this was ridiculous.

Despite deviating from his plan, he was still well positioned. A large part of him looked at True Dreaming and saw the tier nine and then broke down, sobbing inside. It was such a waste. It was the same with Binding Contracts. Tom knew intellectually how useful those items were… but… they were not combat oriented… it was almost sufficient to make him cry but even if he excluded those two skills he was doing far better than he expected.

His titles were the primary drivers, but his earth skills gave him similar confidence and now this dodge ability. The ridiculousness of the situation was that irrespective of the evolution potion… even if it failed… the Lucky Dodge skill was already overpowered. It was the type of advantage that would be a freight train against creatures of his rank. The longer he survived the more deadly he would become.

Once more, he read the details of the new skill.

Every dodge he triggered in a fight would release point seven percent of his fate pool to wreak havoc. Yes, it would be restricted to certain activities, but some of the benefits could accumulate over time to create a significant opportunity later in the fight.

The primary evolution was exactly what he had been attempting to visualise. He had wanted to turn a relatively situational falling skill into something that he could use consistently. Which was precisely what he had obtained. If he dodged, then he generated fate to protect him. It was not the dodge skill that he had in the tutorial. It had none of the core functionality of that ability. The muscle memory that skill granted and the bells and whistles that accompanied it, was not present. The increased speed when dodging, the predictive algorithms, the fudge that had let his body twist in ways that were not anatomically possible. This skill lacked those bonuses, but Tom knew he could and would repurchase a skill that would do all that. He would reacquire that beautiful sixth sense when dodging. Sometimes skills in the same niche clashed, but his intuition told him that would not occur with Lucky Dodge. If he bought a standard dodge skill, it would work at a hundred percent capability. The trap where only the highest benefit component of similar skills applied would not kick in.

Lucky Dodge was a pure fate based skill. And unlike the falling version, which he might have got to use once every couple of battles providing, he actively sought opportunities. This ability would be triggered constantly.

The base skill was solid, and that rapidly escalated to incredible once the four additional benefits were factored in. Two of them were purely extra fate generators which would respectively help him parry attacks and gain openings to strike back at his opponents. They were passive advantages that would immediately boost him, but not in a way that would ever be visible. It was an invisible and unacknowledged benefit. The sort of thing where his mates who witnessed him fight would tell breathless stories about how he had managed to parry the giant’s blow and he would claim it was technique. All he had done was use the knowledge of physics to deflect the enemy’s weapon just enough for him to survive. Of course in practise everyone knew it had been blind luck that had saved him.

It was benefits two and three that Tom focused on. Not because they were more powerful than the others. The contributions of free fate could never be underestimated, so benefits one and four were incredibly powerful, but the middle two, because of the non-traditional advantages they provided might end up better.

Benefit three doubled the number of uses of his lightning dodge and would do the same for any similar skills that he got in the future. Currently, that improvement was that his one life saving outcome per day was now two and he would gladly accept the boost to his safety.

But despite that, it was benefit two that he focused his attention on.

Benefit 2. An additional 0.1% of the user’s fate pool is released to facilitate additional engagements or non-standard uses of existing teleportation abilities. This fate is persistent and, if not used will accumulate indefinitely.

There were two bits of that description that his eyes were drawn to. The first was non-standard uses of existing teleportation abilities and the second was that it would accumulate indefinitely.

Those two properties meant it would be easier for him to find creative ways to use his teleportation abilities. Instead of flailing around blindly with the spell and searching to deepen his understanding through trial and error, the world, Existentia itself, would be on his side and create opportunities for him to discover the secrets.

Tom could remember all the years he had put into Spark. The meticulous process he had used to slowly uncovered ways to extend its range, then split it, then reduce the energy loss when it moved away from him and finally the capacity to use it as a sensing domain. Each of those advancements had taken thousands of hours of practice after he had the epiphany of how to develop the skill. The question was how fast would Spark have advanced if the fate was continually pushing him to improvise?

Once he got a teleportation ability that is what would happen. It would mean quick levels and potentially earlier evolution opportunities.

He opened his eyes to the real world.

“You can…” His throat was dry, and it was difficult to talk but he pushed on, anyway. “You can use fate to grow skill levels.”

“What?” Michael said in surprise. “Say that again.”

“Explain.” Everlyn demanded, shooting an annoyed glance at the healer.

“Hey no derailing the conversation,” Harry interjected. “We were talking about your evolution. It looked successful. Well, was it?”

Tom pointed at Harry. “Yes. But fate driving skill levels and evolutions.” Tom said, trying to get his head around it. “I hadn’t even considered it before now. But if you reflect on it. Well… its magic breaking.”

“Slow down, Tom,” Michael demanded. “You’re not making sense.”

“I am too. The evolution I got shows the concept is possible, and it’s an obvious use when I think about it. Our fate can be used to progress abilities. It’s amazing, and it changes everything.”

“Wait! Explain slower.”

“Fine old man. At first you can advance spells and skills just by putting in the time to use them, but eventually you reach a point that you need epiphany’s to go further.” Tom glanced around and no one looked like they wanted to dispute that statement. They would all have been in the tutorial long enough to have run into the frustrating situation of an ability not progressing in levels until after they had a breakthrough. “Do you all agree?”

“Yes Tom.” Michael said. “We’re not slow.”

“What does fate do?”

Understanding appeared in Michael’s, Evie’s, Keikain’s and Clare’s eyes. The others didn’t get it yet, but Tom was confident that they would.

“Fate makes unlikely things more probable.” Tom continued.

“But to progress skills we need an epiphany. Can fate really influence our minds?” Keikain asked.

“Clearly,” Everlyn answered sharply. They had a hatchet that they needed to bury between them, but that wasn’t going to happen today.

“Not clearly, more maybe,” Tom said with an apologetic smile at Everlyn. “But if pushed I would say yes to the question, ‘Can fate influence your mind?’ But the beauty of this is that it doesn’t need to be able to do that to speed things up. Consider the effort of converting Spark to create a sensing domain.”

“You can do that?” Jingyi blurted out, before looking away embarrassed when no one else looked surprised at the revelation because they already knew about the ability.

“Yes, it’s useful. I developed it in the tutorial. I had the idea, and I possessed all the building blocks. Yet that wasn’t enough. Even when I knew what to do.” Tom tapped his skull. “I lacked the muscle memory, so to speak to actually mesh together the complex weave required and Existentia does not provide any assistance until you’ve completed the magic once on your own. I spent hundreds of hours and got nowhere. I only persisted because an Oracle question confirmed I was on the right track and that it was the right thing for me to master. It took me ages to build the framework to get the desired effect. Minor mistakes created cascading failures. With fate….”

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“The small errors don’t happen.” Michael concluded for all of them.

“Yes. If we use it, then what would otherwise be an almost certain failure results in success.”

“And that will short circuit the leveling requirements because after you’ve done it successfully once… well, then… you’ll get help to complete it successfully in the future.” Michael reflected on his own words for a moment. “You’re right it’s groundbreaking.”

“It’s stupid.” Harry declared. “This wasn’t in the tutorial. How come I didn’t see it written anywhere?” Harry asked into the silence. “I mean there were reams of stuff on every topic, but I saw nothing about fate.”

“It was blocked.” Everlyn said simply.

“More than blocked,” Tom told them quietly. “The tutorial differed from Existentia I’m sure of it.”

“No, it was the same.” Michael said.

“A simulation of Existentia is not technically the same as Existentia.” Keikain stated. “The tutorial was designed to be as close as possible for training, but was explicitly not identical. For one, it needed to present level appropriate areas for development and to shift difficulty to ensure people didn’t coast.”

“A simulation implemented by DEUS. She would not get something as basic as fate rules wrong.”

“SHUT UP! You’re not listening!” Everyone was staring at him in shock at his passion. “Fate didn’t work to elevate skills in the tutorial. No! Michael! Shut up for a moment. I’m telling you, I’m not hypothesising, I’m not guessing I’m stating facts. At several points, I thought about this in the tutorial. I asked questions. It did not work in the tutorial and it does now!”

There was an uneasy silence.

“It might have been to help us,” Everlyn suggested finally. “All that trial and error you did with Spark has to have real value. You wouldn’t have got that experience if you had used fate to short circuit the effort…” she trailed off into silence. Not quite believing her own words.

“I don’t buy that Everlyn,” Harry said. “Because using fate more aggressively to train in the last month is worth more than that benefit of trial and error.”

“Nor do I,” Everlyn said despondently.

Tom’s mind was racing. “It’s more than that…”

“Tom,” Everlyn said quietly. “You can’t say something like that and stop talking.”

He started and glanced guiltily around. He had been distracted by his internal thoughts for half a minute. “I’m not trying to be difficult. Have you ever noticed how hard it is to talk about anything to do with Fate.”

“God yes,” Michael said. “When I’ve tried to spread your methods, half the time I forget.”

“It’s literally hard for me to talk at the moment. It’s taking effort to form words. It’s like something is squeezing my vocal cords …”

“Maybe if your plan is to annoy the GODs,” Sven interrupted quietly. “It might be prudent not to.”

“That would be prudent.” Tom acknowledged.

“But you're not going to do safe are you?”

“No, I’m not Sven. There’s a conspiracy here. We were denied reference material in the tutorial. The uses of fate were artificially limited and now that we’re here it is hard to talk about it. Why would that be the case?” No one answered him, but he saw Everlyn try to say something but stopped before any noise came out. She rubbed her throat, disgruntled. “There’s also the auction house to consider. We’ve been sending out instructions about Fate haven’t we?”

Michael nodded hurriedly. “Yes, on everything we post.”

“And my venom immunity?”

“That too… at least when there was room. Fate tutoring is considered more important.”

“See I knew about the second because we’ve got those missives back where we’ve been thanked. I’ve seen four responses referencing venom maturity, saving lives and none about fate.”

“Well, yes.” Michael agreed uneasily. “That technique really trivialises certain types of encounters.”

“Tell me which of those is more important. The fate techniques or the immunity.”

“The fate…” Michael stopped talking. “You have a point.”.

“You see, if you consider each of these outcomes in isolation you can waive it away but together. It’s a conspiracy. The GODs clearly set things up so for the competition at least human’s use of fate would be crippled by a lack of communication. There’s a geas in place both in face to face and across the auction house.”

A ding went off in his head, which he knew represented him being rewarded with a title.

“What’s happening Tom?” Everlyn asked, and he realised once more that he must have spaced out while he assessed the implications of that ding and the wider conspiracy he had been examining.

“I think…” Tom trailed off still assessing what a title might mean given the topic they had been discussing.

“You were talking about Fate being restricted.” Michael said. “And then you froze up. I sort of agree with you but…”

“The system acknowledged the theory…” he muttered to himself.

There was a babble of noise around him. Surprise, shock, annoyance.

“That’s the only reason I got a ding.”

“Tom, stay with us.” Michael ordered.

“I think I got a title for my theory… guys I need to check.”

He shut his eyes and stepped sideways into his system room.

The description of two titles was cast upon the metal walls.

Title: Complex Conspiracy Discoverer: Your highest cost contribution store item ‘DEUS’s Chosen’ has been \ upgraded to require only six days between question resets.

* Awarded for: Discovering that the flexibility of human racial gift was artificially hobbled in the tutorial and teaching others about it is restricted in Existentia.

* Legendary Title. Competition Rank: 1st, 500 Ranking points, 10,000 experience.

* Geas of ‘Fate Restriction’ Strengthened: Extra constraints around discussing or even alluding to the extended capability of fate has been placed on your soul.

Tom swallowed as he read the details of the title. Right there in front of him, the system was acknowledging both the potential of fate and that they had been hobbled for the competition from using it as intended. He was not surprised. It had been obvious from day one that there were no guaranteed happy endings for humanity and fate, as it was structured was too powerful of a gift. If every human used it to direct the fast advancement of skills as a species, they would become overpowered and, Tom suspected once the competition finished, the racial gift they currently had would be nerfed. DEUS had bet on humans having the initiative to stretch the ability to its fullest extend and the rest of the gods on human’s failure to improvise.

The reward, the upgrade to DEUSs Chosen, the legendary title status reflected the facts that what he had worked out wasn’t supposed to have been easy to discover and it was a boost. A significant gift because he knew exactly how much those extra questions would have cost in the contribution store. It was worth about half of everything else he had purchased, so the reward was indeed valuable.

His eyes drifted down to the second title he had received.

Title: Sage of Fate (Earth): All Fate used is ten percent stronger.

* Awarded for: For being in the first ten to find a creative use of fate with the potential to transform your species.

* Epic Title. Competition Rank: 5th, 50 Ranking points, 1,000 experience.

It was simple and to the point. The ten percent boost to fate’s effectiveness was a rich reward and was already equivalent to multiple levels of attribute points. With his Fates Agility trait and current fate levels, it basically corresponded to a onetime gift of fifteen fate points and an extra point of fate every four levels going forward. Possibly it was not as rich as some of his other titles that awarded an extra attribute point at every level, but it all helped.

Then he read the last line.

“Thank DEUS.” He said, lifting his head and looking at the empty metal room.

He was not the first. It was refreshing and inspiring. He was the fifth human to have invented a non-traditional way of using fate.

“I was fifth.” He screamed at the roof.

Fifth, he thought and wiped the moisture off his cheek. It meant others were thinking outside the box and that despite the Geas, humans collectively could end up using fate to its fullest. It had been a little over a month in a ninety-year fight and there were five of them who had made the discovery. He had spread his to nine more and if they did the same, the numbers could snowball. They, as a race, could win this. It was still a tiny percentage that currently knew, but the longer they were in Existentia the more obvious these sorts of methods would become, or at least he hoped so.

Tom opened his eyes. Everyone was staring at him. “It’s confirmed. The tutorial restricted fate use and there is a geas in place to restrict communicating knowledge on how to use Fate.”

There was a sharp intake of breath from Harry. Keikain’s eyes shot to the roof like he was praying or cursing out the gods. Michael sighed deeply and covered his eyes in disbelief.

Then a ripple went through all of them. A slight jerk of surprise from Everlyn, Clare’s eyes widened. Thor sat bolt upright and Michael’s hand dropped to his lap even as shock registered on his face.

Like it was choreographed animation left everyone as they all almost simultaneously ducked into the system room.

“One, two, three…” Tom said quietly to himself as he counted down how long it was going to take them to read and understand whatever message they had got.

“Four.”

Everlyn returned to full life first. “Interesting…” Her eyes flickered around, registering that everyone else was alert once more. “I’ll go first. I was granted the title Fate Broken. It gave me an upgrade to my most expensive contribution room purchase, maybe a thirty percent improvement, and assigned a Geas of Fate Restriction on me.”

“We all got the same.” Keikain stated confidently.

“The GODs take and the GODs giveths.” Michael said quietly.

“This restriction.” Clare said with a frown. “It’s not worth the bonus. If we could communicate this to everyone, humans would be unstoppable.”

“Which is the point of the geas. The GODs wanted a competition not one side dominating.” Michael said calmly. “It explains why no one re-posted any of the missives I wrote about fate. They couldn’t.”

“Can we decline the title?” Clare asked.

Michael chuckled. “I don’t think the GODs would allow us to avoid it that easily.”

Keikain patted the woman next to him. “It is a good idea, but I don’t think it’s possible.” He looked up. “Tom. How many other humans have made advances in fate use? Surely we’re not the only ones.”