CHAPTER 174

The fact the GODs had restricted the knowledge of the uses of fate had shocked them all. He was still struggling to get his head around it.

“Tom,” Keikain repeated urgently. “Did you receive a title? Are you the first?”

The earth mage, the ringleader of the killers was looking earnestly at him. He was acting nothing like a cold-blooded murderer and instead channelled the vibe of a scholar interested in judging the effectiveness of his species. Tom humoured him for the sake of their group’s cohesiveness. “No, I was fifth. Four others found the loophole before me.”

“Is that all?” Thor asked, sounding like he wanted to take his hammer and bash in the wall.

“Five?” Keikain asked in surprise. “That’s more. It’s a lot.”

“Five is five.” Thor shot back. “That’s nothing. We’re doomed.”

“No.” Harry said. “Idiot, over there is right.” Clare flinched at the open hostility, but Keikain thankfully didn’t raise to the bait. “It feels longer, but it’s only been five weeks. As we experiment, get skills like the one Tom got, then that number will increase. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s an exponential curve.”

“What the hell does that mean.” Thor grumbled.

“The number of people discovering the loop hole will probably increase every week.” Keikain explained. “Five this month, ten next.”

Thor shrugged. “What’s that? A hundred in the first year?”

Keikain nodded. “Something like that, but then three hundred in the second, a thousand in the next and so on till we all know the trick.”

“You’re just making those numbers up.”

“I did and we’ll see, but I think the situation is rosier than you fear.”

“Speculation won’t get us anywhere.” Everlyn interrupted. “Tom, you haven’t actually told us any of the details of the upgrade?”

Tom hesitated a moment before answering. He lacked hard numbers that would let him quantify the skill. How worthwhile was ten fate in battle? Was it worth twenty levels in Spear or forty in dodge? He didn’t know, but he knew it was significant. Thor had twenty fate in total. If they fought, then within the first thirty seconds, he would have generated more Fate than the other man’s total pool.

“And?” Michael demanded.

“It worked, obviously.” Tom smiled. “I have an expanded dodge ability.” He trailed off once more as his mind kept going through the skill’s details and future plans. With the large amount of experience he had accumulated, he would purchase a cheap dodge ability and a more expensive teleportation skill or spell and only then funnel the remainder into increasing his class levels. Though it would all probably wait till after he used the next evolution potion. He didn’t want that to get confused about which skill to target.

“What does a fate related dodge skill do, anyway?” Michael asked.

Tom explained the basics.

Everlyn nodded quietly. “That’s an impressive pick up. I assume extra skill levels will boost it further.”

“More than likely, but the text didn’t state that explicitly. I’ll have to wait and see what impact each level has. Of course, this causes an interesting conundrum for me. Do I use the dodge evolution potion on this skill and hope it takes it up to a tier three or four or on a more traditional version.”

“Why wouldn’t it?” Michael asked curiously.

“I’m not sure how the sideway evolutions factor into the cost. Trying it on this one might waste it because of that, while a normal skill would definitely work.”

“Yep, first world problems.” Michael declared.

“Stop that shit,” Everlyn said in annoyance. “We shouldn’t be taking any opportunity to grow so casually. Tom, your dodge skills, I mean the ones you can buy. I assume you advanced them a fair way in the tutorial?”

“Of course.”

“Then wouldn’t it be better to buy them normally? That will give you a chance to level them at a faster rate due to prior knowledge from the tutorial. If you evolve them now, you’ll lose that levelling benefit.”

“Wait a moment,” Michael drawled. “If we’re going to discuss this, we should know the structure of the potion because the wording of the evolution might influence your decision making. After all, if it considers your previous experience in some fashion…”

The healer was right, so Tom produced the box containing the potion and cracked it open momentarily so they could all use their own versions of identification.

Potion of Evolution for Dodge skills - tier 4.

This is a non-standard evolution potion.

The chances of successful evolution of existing skills are related to the technical skill the user possesses above the level of the dodge skill to be evolved.

If technical skill equals the dodge level, then the chance of evolution is as follows:

Evolve to Tier one 100%

Evolve to Tier 2 - 90%

Evolve to Tier 3 - 50%

Evolve to Tier 4 - 20%

Evolve to Tier 5 - 5 %

Evolve to Tier 6 - 0.1%

If technical skill exceeds that level of the dodge skill in these percentages are increased significantly. For every sixteen (tier 0 equivalent) levels that the user’s technical skills exceed the level of the dodge skill, then the chance of a successful evolution in each tier is doubled.

The level of the evolved skill will be updated to reflect technical skill.

They all read the description and then looked at each other.

“Tom, which dodge skill did you have?” Everlyn asked.

“Black Dodge.”

She burst out laughing. “Why aren’t I surprised? That’s my masochist doing his crazy stuff.”

“I liked the bonuses for the tier.”

“I know why you got it, but that’s irrelevant now. So you had a tier one skill. How high did you raise it?”

“Forty.”

Everyone did the mathematics.

“Five times,” Michael declared. “You have a hundred percent chance of boosting Black Dodge to tier four.”

“It’s never that cut and dry,” Tom protested.

“And at least a twenty-five percent chance of hitting tier five.” Michael concluded.

“The question,” Everlyn said quietly. “Is whether that level of expertise applies to a fate dodge skill, because if it doesn’t.”

“It has too… doesn’t it?” Tom said uneasily.

Everlyn shrugged. “Technical skills for Lucky Dodge might be related to fate use not physical dodging abilities.”

“Well, that won’t hurt me. I imagine my ability to apply fate creatively outstrips most.” he said immediately with a smile.

“I don’t know. I think he should upgrade Black Dodge. If that turns into a tier four or five equivalent with the levels he had in the tutorial that’s massive.” Michael said. “Forget evolving Lucky Dodge upgrading Black Dodge is the way to go. With a skill like that and releasing fate every time something attacks you. You’ll be almost untouchable.”

“Maybe we should have a vote of how I should structure my build.” Tom joked.

Multiple people winced at the comment, which reminded Tom yet again that he seemed to have lost his ability to deliver jokes.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Right, tough crowd. No joking around.”

No one smiled.

“It’s a hard choice.” Everlyn continued unperturbed. “Evolving the fate version is probably strongest, but the standard skill immediately turns you into a juggernaut.”

Harry coughed. “More of a juggernaut.”

Keikain rolled his eyes, and half raised a hand before stopping himself. “Tom, we don’t even know if the evolution potion applies to Lucky Dodge. It might not consider Lucky Dodge to be an actual dodge skill. After all, it does nothing to physically help you avoid attacks.”

“Apart from releasing fate.”

Keikain shot him a withering stare. “We both know that Fate scales off probabilities. If you’re too slow, then the club is going to hit you no matter how much fate you invest.”

“Unless the fate makes the enemy trip and impale himself.”

“We’re only talking about a couple of fate points here not hundreds. My point is that Lucky Dodge may not qualify and even if you choose to target it for evolution, you need a more traditional dodge version in case it only applies to standard versions.”

“Or I could ask an Oracle question first.”

“If you’ve got a spare question, I would use it… But…”

Tom smiled. “Yeah, I know. I’ll sleep on it.”

He prepared for bed and considered what he wanted to do. He could buy his skills now, but Black Dodge would be better purchased just before he used his evolution potion. He wouldn’t want to accidentally level it up during the day tomorrow and lower the chance of the upgrade working. Other needs pushed into his conscious mind. He thought about retreating to the system room to research teleportation options, but his head was throbbing and he felt exhausted, so he decided to sleep instead. There was a babble of conversation around him, but he was too drained to sit up and engage with them.

It was important to use True Dreaming to its fullest and there was only a single topic he wanted to explore and that was that challenge trial and the two monstrously powerful killers that were intent on murdering everyone else from the other competition races which entered. He focused on the first of those creatures. The one that had destroyed a monster that would have crushed Tom’s entire group effortlessly like it was a buzzing mosquito and she had a full can of bug spray to hit it with.

Sleep claimed him.

True Dreaming kicked in instantly and despite his tiredness and his headache he was immediately alert.

The first thing he was aware of was the rigid alien thoughts of the body he possessed. It was the same mind that his skill had first brought him into. The one that had shown a complete disregard for a rank thirty-eight monster. The creature he had been actively targeting with the vague idea of finding out more about it.

This time, instead of flying the being was perched on a small hill and was watching the approach of a team of natives.

They moved like gorillas and had mammalian features but possessed eight appendages as opposed to the earth animals four. It was their gait and general shape that reminded Tom of apes from his homeworld, because even a simple application of logic revealed how different these creatures truly were.

The dragon, because that is what she thought of herself as being, studied the approaching species with interest.

The front and back limbs acted as their primary legs and based on their posture the front ones would convert into their chief melee delivery system once they shifted out of the lopping gait they currently deployed to travel quickly and stood on two legs. The middle arms were shorter. Two carried long knives and the other two had a variety of objects within easy reach, including bags that, if they were spatial versions could hold anything and several more obvious weapons strapped on the torso.

The mind he was in continued its assessment. They were the same native species that had been in that small town she had attacked earlier.

A sense of accomplishment filled her. Destroying that town had been fun and apparently successful. A single magic breath had scoured it from existence. She saw their young running screaming from the burning buildings and boiling out of the sewer tunnels. It was a breeding town, she realised.

There were young in the village so she changed her plans from hit and run across multiple villages to do a second pass over this already doomed town. When she flew over the second time, she flexed her aura and made sure she exterminated all the brawling young and especially the brave ones. The mature natives she had ignored. It was always better to snipe off the youth because one of them could grow to oppose her. The adults… they would never amount to anything. They had already completed their run at glory and ended up in an undefended breeding town, which told you how successful they had been.

Plus, the younger they were… the more fun they were when used as props and killed in front of adults. Adults of most species would break eventually under torture. However, the older they were the more resilient they became. At a certain age, they no longer broke… until… as she had discovered back home and confirmed here with natives… they were unbreakable, at least until you started butchering babies in front of them. Then it was perfect. They broke so quickly.

The other bonus of leaving some alive was they could escape to get help and that, after all was why she had made the run in the first place.

That part had been a success. As she had hoped, help like these creatures that were heading toward her had been summoned, which should provide some additional entertainment. Especially since they were all of a far higher level than the town had been.

One by one her gaze swept over them, assessing what they were carrying.

Tom, in his own mind desperately categorised what he had sensed. The dragon did not have an assessment of strength in the same way a human possessed. Even the supposed advanced senses that True Dreaming could channel did not help. They were a moderate threat to the dragon. A little weaker, but not much, and had a rank of… It was only when it assessed the fourth that he had a reference frame from her thoughts to link the separate pieces together to form an opinion on their power relative to him. They all had three classes. That meant they were over level one hundred and twenty-eight. Tom had a long way to go till he was anywhere near as powerful.

She was pleased.

She loved being in Existentia. It was invigorating to have a world with real challenges within it as opposed to her planet where she had grown to where nothing could rival her. This place, a world where wildlife could challenge her, was amazing.

Here, all she had to do to generate some fun was to fly around. Slaughter a couple of towns and there would be a response like the one coming towards her.

The younger the creatures she killed then the quicker the response. That was the pattern she had discovered. It was why she would fly over the native borders and those heavily defended towns to attack the inner softer villages. It was wasteful to destroy the fortified towns because even when successful there was rarely a response like the one coming toward her. Target a breeding town on the other hand and then… well, a response like the one below would happen.

It would bring prey to her. In the open, just her against five on neutral ground. That was good enough.

This latest group, thankfully, did not descend into a monologue or try to talk to her. It was so boring when they did that, and it was not like she could attack while they spoke. Often they were so fragile that if she attacked first, they would die before anything fun happened. There was no joy in these encounters if she killed her prey before playing with them. So she had a rule to always let them make the first move and if that meant she had to sit through some stupid monologue then so be it.

These were different. They snapped out commands in a language she couldn’t understand, which was interesting. She had been under the impression that everything spoke in common. They were obviously relying on some internal dialect to hide their communication from her. She could, of course get some sort of translation skill, but as if she would bother. If she wanted to torture them, then screams were good enough and if they wanted to beg for their lives, they would do that in common, anyway.

The group had spread out and was obviously ready for the fight.

It was time to test them.

With a cry of triumph, she leapt into the air, intending to test their ability to fight her in her preferred medium… If they couldn’t she would probably descend and fight them on the ground rather than flying above and attacking them from afar. But… it wouldn’t be as fun as a proper aerial battle.

They followed her, rising into the sky. A variety of magical spells infused them and lifted them up off the ground.

There were five in total.

She laughed in glee and prepared to unleash a blast of flames.

She sucked air in.

There was no reaction, which was refreshing. She knew the weakness of her signature magical attack. There would be telltale wisps of blue flames covering her mouth. All of her opponents back home would have been watching for the attack, and then they would have immediately prepared their teleportation spells to escape the blast.

These natives had no idea about her capabilities.

She unleashed the blue globule of magical plasma at the spell caster she had deemed the most directly threatening to her. The blistering fiery mass screamed towards the creature she had targeted.

The native, to its credit attempted to use its magic to jerk rapidly to the side and if the spell was a dumb projectile, it would have been successful. But her signature attack was more than that. Teleportation could disrupt it, but simple lateral movement… that did nothing to stop it striking.

The blue flame followed the desperately evading body and struck true.

She showed her teeth in amusement as multiple shields flared and broke one after the other in a cascade, and then the magical attack was ripping into the native.

It fell with a scream to the ground. Black smoke billowing up around it as it tumbled through the air.

Then the noise the creature was emitting cut off as the lungs got burnt out and then a moment later she felt the rush of experience as it perished.

The natives made a variety of alarmed sounds and she ignored them.

Stupid prey animals, she thought scornfully.

She had hoped they could do better.

Just to test their abilities, she prepared another of her special attacks by sucking in her breath. While the fight had not met her expectations after so long of being unable to use her major attack in battle, it felt nice to run into creatures that were so ignorant they didn’t even register the danger.

A second blob of plasma was unleashed.

More of the noises were exchanged.

The native she targeted surged with magic and a silvery portal appeared, which it promptly threw itself through. The magical fire shot futilely through the empty space where the portal used to be.

No, she screamed the curse out internally. They weren’t supposed to run. Where was the fun in that?

There were still three, but another one of the silver portals appeared. A second started warping the world around it with a more traditional portal spell, and the third just vanished.

“NO!”

She would not let them escape. She focused on the one warping existence around it.

“Prey! Stay!” she roared.

Her aura stretched out, and she infused magic into an attack to wrestle with what was clearly a long-range teleportation spell. She contested the portal magic and opposed it with her will while mentally she cursed herself for reacting too slowly. If she had known that they were planning on running she could have impeded the escape of all of them.

The prey’s magic completed and there was a pop and the native disappeared.

She had done just enough. Instead of it teleporting a thirty-minute flight away its destination was restricted to nearby.

It popped back into existence within her sightline. Only ten flaps away from her. Happily, she flew towards it.

Three might have escaped, but she could play with this last one for a while and then if she was bored she could always burn down a few more villages and then more prey would come.

Existentia was great.