CHAPTER 186
Michael cleared his throat. “You want me to run a prayer session?”
“That’s batshit crazy,” Clare interjected. “Weren’t you listening? We’re about to fight rank twenty monsters. We’ll need all the fate we can get.”
“The prayer session,” Michael continued reasonably. “Will mean we won’t be fighting monsters because it will enable us to evade them.”
“Clare has a point.” Tom said. “I don’t think it’s sensible to use all of our fate. Even with a fate shield, we’re not sneaking through the underground without being noticed. There will be battles.”
“If we time things right, we might manage it,” Everlyn disagreed. “At least avoiding the strong ones. As I said it looks like a circular system. We just follow along behind them.”
Jingyi looked at Everlyn, horrified. “Wait, are you suggesting we let some monsters pass and then follow them?”
Everlyn nodded. “Exactly that. We could probably do it without fate, if I’m being honest.”
The others groaned when they comprehended exactly what she was planning. Tom was tempted to do the same, but restrained himself. She would not have suggested this if she didn’t think it would work.
“Think about it, guys,” she continued. “We’d only be at risk if the trailing pack abruptly speeds up or the one we are following doubles back. We can manage that risk by retreating into safe zones if our margins begin to erode.”
“Safe zones?” Clare said in disbelief. “You can’t be serious. I think you’ve got confused … this isn’t a computer game.”
“I’m sure Evie didn’t mean official ones. Only safe-ish zones like this tunnel.” Tom said.
“Or actual safe zones.” Michael said. “They exist. I found a couple during my adventures in the tutorial.”
Clare glowered at him. “So did I, but they were rare. And hidden. We’ll never find them.”
“You’re correct,” Everlyn stated, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “What Tom said is what I meant. I wasn’t talking about official safe zones. They’ll be regular off shoots like the one we’re in or we can get creative and hide in the main thoroughfares behind some flora. I was thinking If Harry has the experience or auction credits, he can purchase a ritual of camouflage. Position ourselves somewhere they won’t stampede over us and we’ll be safe.”
Harry shook his head. “Rituals by themselves aren’t the answer, but they’ll help and I don’t need to buy anything. I already have two rituals we can use. One is a bread and butter type casting but the other… let’s just say it’s good. It’s both stronger and faster to cast than the normal version but burns thousands of credits’ worth of regents.”
“See, Harry can protect us.”
Clare threw her hands up in the air. “Everlyn, this is ridiculous. Is your plan really to find a big monster and then follow it for a while until we find somewhere to hide. Rest and sleep and then repeat. We’ll be discovered for sure.”
Everlyn nodded agreement. “That’s the basics, but we can make it safer. The main party will travel in the bubble of space between two alpha monsters. Jingyi and I will work as forward and back scouts to keep track of the bookends. If the one in front stops or turns or the trailing one speeds up, we’ll break a stone to let you know and you can either backtrack quickly or speed up and find a hiding spot to bunker down in. Then, even if the alpha beasts clash, we won’t get caught between them.”
Clare shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re actually suggesting…”
“Even if our hiding is not perfect,” Everlyn interrupted calmly, “We can fight off rank twenty monsters… It won’t be easy, but standard underground monsters.” She shrugged. “Those we’ll be able to deal with. Providing the travelling packs or boss monsters don’t find us we’ll be fine.”
“There has to be a better plan than this,” Clare said, sounding defeated. “I mean traversing a zone that is twice is your rank is suicide.”
Clare was the only one actively against the idea. Tom focused on her. She seemed… “Wait, what do you have against the underground?”
She studied the tunnel floor. “Nothing.”
“You almost died a few times down here, haven’t you.” Sven said suddenly. “You’re scared.”
“No!” Her eyes flashed. “I’m not scared. This is a rank twenty area we’re under levelled.”
Toni put a hand on Sven’s shoulder to stop him from saying anything. “I’m with Clare. I agree that this is terrifying, but it’s your deadline, not ours.” Her eyes quickly flicked from Keikain to Clare and finished on Sven. “If that didn’t exist I’m sure we wouldn’t consider this. We would retreat to the surface even if it would waste a week.” She shot a questioning look at Tom. “Right?”
“We would,” Tom agreed immediately.
Clare hesitated and shot a look at Keikain.
The earth mage’s face was grim.
Then she threw her hands up in the air. “Fine.”
“We’ve decided.” Michael declared brusquely. “Everyone needs to direct their fate to us being able to safely traverse the underground. Does that sound about right, Tom?”
Tom considered what Michael had said. The focus seemed too broad and not enough at the same time. It would only help them when they were moving for one. “And that we don’t leave any traces for a monster to track us.” Tom said out loud the moment his mind identified the core of what had been wrong with the healer’s initial suggestion.
“I knew that. Just testing you.” Michael said with a grin. “Everyone do it?”
Fate was released all around him. Tom did the same, contributing about a quarter of his pool to leave him half full. Not everything from the night before had regenerated yet.
Everlyn nodded and checked she had their attention. “Good. There’s a better staging area about fifty metres from the main thoroughfare where you guys can wait until we get an opportunity.”
Tom nervously cleared his throat. “I need to spend my experience.”
“What? You haven’t done that yet?”
“It’s not that…”
Everlyn laughed. “I’m teasing. I know you’ve had no time, but you’re right. Everyone needs to spend it now. We don’t have the luxury to wait. However, do it in the staging area. It’s a circular eco system, so I doubt a window will present itself straight away. After all, we want to travel with a gap of at least thirty minutes on each side.”
They moved quickly to the wider cave that Everlyn had identified and the moment they were there Tom settled into his system room. He had to finish this because he didn’t want to be responsible for them missing the opportunity.
He stood facing the wall. His mind focusing on his priorities. He wanted to purchase acrobatics, a taunting and the teleport skill with the rest going into levels.
“How much experience do I have?”
Experience: 192,198
Tom nodded at those numbers. Most of it was from defeating the wyvern, but they had also picked up small amounts since from their random encounters and another chunk from the goats and titles. Those gains, of course, were offset by the skills he had purchased to manage sleep issues.
First, he thought to himself. The easy purchases.
A description appeared on the wall.
Skill: Acrobatics – Tier 1
This skill marginally increases agility when attempting gymnastics, balance exercises and recovering after becoming unbalanced. Increasing levels improve the benefit. The skill will also impart a small amount of technical knowledge to facilitate extra body control.
Cost: 9000
It was as expensive as a tier one skill could be priced at. There was also no way that he was going to try to buy a higher tier version. This was the one that he had advanced in the tutorial and was the obvious one for him to buy. There was no reason to delay that purchase. While the agility benefits of the skill were low initially, every bit would help. The sooner he got it the faster he could develop his levels in it.
With a thought, he purchased the skill and as he expected, nothing at all changed. The first time he had bought it the flood of information had felt enormous even if the text said a small amount. Now nothing happened because he already knew it from his years of practise in the tutorial.
“Show abilities that will enrage and capture the attention of monsters.”
A wall of names appeared.
Tom tisked in annoyance. He didn’t need a tier nine skill that cost fifteen million to buy. While he had what felt like a fortune in experience. Tom knew it wasn’t that much, and this was not a core skill, and he had no desire to sink a lot of experience into it. “Limit it to tier two or below.” He ordered and then smiled. That would reduce the cost to no more than twenty thousand.
A new mass of skills appeared. There were still pages of them. Tom frowned and considered other lines of enquiry that could filter them. He guessed he should lean into his strengths. “Restrict to skills that leverage my lightning, earth, or healing proficiency.”
The number of options reduced to less than a single page, but over forty remained. Tom skimmed them quickly. The healing varieties were useless and probably wouldn’t actually help him keep monsters from attacking his companions.
“Sort by taunt effectiveness vs mana expenditure.”
The forty potentials rearranged instantly. His eyes quickly scanned the list and the first twenty were all skills of dubious efficacy but zero mana expenditure. Giving his sorting criteria, it was obvious why they had jumped to the top.
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“Apply a minimum requirement of being able to enrage ten creatures of rank twenty or above.”
The forty options consolidated down into just six. “This is the problem with the experience shop. Too much choice.” He smiled at himself and acknowledged the ridiculousness of the complaint. The more choices, the better he just needed to be smart enough to filter the mass to get what he wanted.
With only six options, he could review them and choose the best. His eyes fell on the first of the abilities presented.
Skill: Obnoxious Sparks (Tier 2)
When toggled on, this skill will zap all creatures within range, whether they are friend or foe. The spark will do little to no damage but will infuriate anything with an electric based nervous system and enrage them into attacking the user.
Skill starting proficiency is 18 because of Lightning Ball
At current levels, it is effective on monsters up to rank 23, has a range of one metre and will generate four sparks per second.
Threshold bonus 16–Double the number of sparks generated per second.
Cost: 20,000
The skill was superb, although admittedly with two significant issues that probably precluded him from buying it. The first was the chance of friendly fire. If he was next to an ally and he used this, then they would almost certainly attack him. It wasn’t guaranteed, but under a strict reading of the description that is what would happen. His second concern was the low range of the skill.
Despite those drawbacks, it was useable. If he got a separation from his allies like he had done with the goats, he could force many creatures, over time, to fixate upon him. The problem was it was a situational skill. If he could physically intercept the enemies, then eight per second could be taunted. The question was what would happen if they were attacked from all sides or a line of monsters charged at them. He would only ever be able to enrage a few of them, and the rest would break around him to attack his weaker squishy friends.
It was not that it was bad it was just that Tom feared it wouldn’t work for the situations where he needed it to do.
His eyes dropped to the next set of options.
Spell: Lightning Enrage (Tier 1)
This spell will release a deluge of sparks up to a range of three and a half meters and infuriate anything with an electric based nervous system.
Requires 20 mana per metre of range to trigger.
At current levels, it is effective on monsters up to rank 24.
Spell starting proficiency is 36 because of Lightning Ball
Threshold bonus 32–Can exclude allies from tanking ability.
Cost: 8,000
This spell was better in that it would let him enrage everything within a large area. It would cost seventy mana to release it at a full range at the start of the battle, but it could defend against the fringe cases where Obnoxious Sparks would fail.
It was definitely worth considering. His eyes flicked over the next three options and discarded them before his eyes landed on the final option.
Spell: Grit Storm (Tier 1)
This spell will create a cloud of fast moving grit that will lash out to target enemies within six metres of the caster. One random monster will be struck every second, and it has a fifty percent chance of enraging any monsters at rank twenty-two.
Spell starting proficiency is 64 because of Stone Golem.
Requires 64 mana to create a storm which will last for sixty seconds and strike out at a range of ten metres.
Threshold bonus 32–Will automatically target any enemies already enraged who are about to break free of the rage state.
Threshold bonus 64–Rank of creature affected improved.
Threshold bonus 128–Range increased by fifty percent. (Title: Stage Advancement (Earth))
Cost: 8,000
It was tempting to take this because of the extra threshold benefits it gave, but ultimately it was not as good. Lightning Enrage had the advantage of instant enraging power, while this could only enrage one monster per second.
He had to choose one of the lightning abilities.
Tom focused on only the first two and considered them both and weighed them against each other. Obnoxious Sparks granting the ability to force monsters to attack him for free was a massive bonus, but it had similar drawbacks to Grit Storm. Its ability to taunt a host of enemies in a wide area and stop them from attacking his squishy companions was lacking.
Plus, even though it shouldn’t have mattered, the doubling of cost was a consideration.
“Purchase Lightning Enrage.”
Information on how to apply the spell filled his brain. The threshold benefit to avoid allies was the only truly complicated component, but given his general control of Spark Tom was pretty sure that even without the specific threshold benefit he could have hacked the spell to get the same effect.
Two of his three tasks were done, and he focused on the most complex of them. It was the problem that he had been chewing on while travelling.
What teleport ability would be best to acquire?
He had identified two key skills, and both appeared on the wall immediately.
Skill: Battle teleport (tier 4)
This skill allows the user to teleport in any direction by exactly five centimetres every three seconds.
The entire body is affected and the base skill has no ability to adjust the positioning.
Levels will unlock extra flexibility.
Cost: 88,000
Spell: Blink (tier 4)
At the cost of a hundred and twenty-eight mana, the user can instantaneously move a distance of up to seven metres and make minor changes to spatial body positioning. Higher skills levels extend this distance, will lower mana cost and allow the user to change their orientation in space.
Cost: 105,000
Without his dodge ability, Battle Teleport was not something that Tom would have considered.
It had areas where it was extraordinary. A skill to teleport five centimetres every three seconds on face value was impressive. That sword that is about to slice off part of your head could be avoided in its entirety. That counterstrike after a miscalculation and now his fingers were about to be cut off… same thing. With a blink of skill, he would be beyond the counter’s range.
It was an illusion and nowhere near as good as it sounded. Your posture, orientation, feet positioning and little things like your momentum all those couldn’t be changed. All the skill did was move you five centimetres and was almost guaranteed to cost you your footing. Against a single opponent on a smooth hardwood floor, it would work perfectly. You could slip from one spot to another and your feet would still be on the ground after the teleport.
On uneven ground, that would never happen…
and if it was a free-for-all melee with multiple enemies…
The underlying data clarified you couldn’t teleport into things. It didn’t take many objects or enemies to be around you to stop the skill teleport working. If there were opponents within five centimetres of you… one up, left, right, back, and forward…. Five monsters or objects in your personal space then the skill wouldn’t work at all.
At least the base version of it.
Even in a one vs one battle, if there was irregular ground the particulars of the skill would cause trouble. Once you teleported, a single foot would be on the ground and it was unlikely where it landed would be stable. It just wouldn’t quite work. Avoid a killing blow… end up stuck in the air and be unable to do anything about the second retaliatory strike.
The base skill was too limiting to use. Tom could see uses, particularly if he was airborne. That ability to shift five centimetres in any direction would be invaluable, but that wasn’t his combat method. This skill in a sapient that flew… it would be unbelievable, but that wasn’t Tom. He liked to keep his feet on the ground and that was where this failed.
The second option he looked at was the opposite of that. Blink had all the flexibility he could need. He would be able to blink and every time he would reappear with his feet placed properly. The problem, of course, was the obscene mana cost it took to use it.
The worst thing about these two skills was that they were the best that he could afford. There were a couple of high tier four options, which were better than these but still far from perfect. He could purchase them, but that would use all of his experience, which he didn’t want to do. If he wanted one without baggage, he would need to buy tier five or even six, and that was firmly out of his price range.
Tom’s fingers tapped on his thigh, and he recognised he was procrastinating. He also knew that he had already made his decision.
His new dodge skill would hopefully allow his teleport skill to improve rapidly and while Battle Teleport’s base was shit, it wouldn’t take much to turn it into a powerhouse. If the teleport didn’t unbalance him, it was a deadly ability. If he could shape it more in terms of a movement to a new location instantly rather than lift and shift of his body then it would go from an occasional trump card to something that could be part of his battle repertoire.
Then later, if the teleport could add momentum or maybe shift the positions of his arms, the skill even if it remained restricted to five centimetres would be deadly.
“Buy battle teleport and invest everything else I have into the lightning tank class.”
His full attribute sheet appeared for him to review.
Classes Level – Twenty Three
Lightning Tank: 14 (+5) - Expert
Elemental Summoner: 9 - Expert
Attributes
Strength: 110 (+15 Class, +3 Title: Strength Spring)
Vitality: 127 (+15 Class, +5 Title: Vitality font)
Agility: 97 (+10 Trait: Fates Agility)
Magic: 93
Fate: 164 (+10 Trait: Fates Agility, +5 Title: Competition Shaker (I))
Mana Pool: Magic * 2 = 186
Spells
Lightning–Affinity 83
Spark: 65 (+1) (Tier 0)
Lightning Spears (16) (Tier 3)
Lightning Ball: 18 (Tier 3)
Lightning Skin: 18 (Tier 2)
Lightning Enrage: 36 (Tier 1) New
Earth–Affinity 91 (+9)
Earth Manipulation 128 (Tier 0)
Throw Rock 65 (+ 1) (Tier1)
Stone Skin Partial 32 (Tier 2)
Remote Earth Manipulation 24 (Tier 3)
Stone Golem 16 (Tier 4)
Harnessed Meteorite 12 (Tier 4)
Earth Sense 16 (Tier 3)
Healing–Affinity 64
Touch Heal: 95 (Tier 0)
General
Summon Playful Wisp: 69 (+18 from class passives) (Tier 0)
Summon Lightning Elemental: 17 (+2 from class passives) (Tier 3)
Summoner: (23) (Tier 1)
General – Non Critical
Low Light Vision: 42 (Tier 0)
Clean Others: 5 (+1) (Tier 0)
Clean Teeth 7: (+2) (Tier 0)
Cut Hair: 3 (+1) (Tier 0)
Efficient Sleep: 1 (Tier 1) New
Instant Sleep: 1 (Tier 0) New
Precognition Support: 1 (Tier 2) New
Aura Mind Healing: 1 (Tier 1) New
Caffeine Jolt: 1 (Tier 0) New
Toxin Purge: 1 (Tier 1) New
Truncated Sleep: 1 (Tier 0) New
Instant Awareness: 1 (Tier 0) New
Skills
True Dreaming: 1 (tier 9) Evolved
Contract Binding: 1 (tier 5) New
Fate Weaponised Black Dodge: 3 (tier 5) Evolved
Battle Teleport: 1 (Tier 4) New
Acrobatics: 1 (tier 1) New
Pact Master: 23 (Tier 2)
Elemental Whisper: 38 (Tier 1)
Elastic Regenerating Skin: 19 (+1) (Tier 2)
Burst Cast: 62 (tier 0)
Plane Sense: 25 (tier 2)
Health Burn: 6 (Tier 3)
Mana burn: 3 (+ 1) (Tier 3)
Lightning Feet: 13 (+1) (Tier 3)
Lightning Dodge: 6 (Tier 4)
Strengthened Throwing arm: 6 (+3) (Tier 2)
Accurate Throw: 9 (+2) (Tier 1)
External Awareness: 1 (Tier 2)
Spear: 29 (tier 1)
Class Passive Skills
Class spell boost: 38
Lightning Tank Feet: 34 (+10 Class)
Traits
Free Class Slot, Epic Soul Space, Fates Agility, Child of Elements, Elemental Summoner Passives
Titles
Lightning Mystic, Friend of the Elementals, Strength Spring, Vitality Fount, Healing Sponge(III), Venom Resistance (V), Competition Shaker (I), Trial Dominator (II), Trial Speedster (IX), Expert Eight Double Advance Double Expert, Camouflage Piercing–Stone, Stage Advancement (Earth), Earth Friend, Stone Skin, Golem Master (II), Golem Prodigy, Evolution Master (new), Oracle Master (2) (new), Complete Conspiracy Discoverer (new), Sage of Earth (new), Unique Skill Creator (new)
Other
Soul Space: 24 slots (+5) and 0.54 (+.1) metres cubed
Experience: 6,198 (- 81,000 class purchase, -105,000 Spell and skill purchase)
Ranking Points: 2,934 (+1,095). Position on Ranking ladder: 1st
Tom assessed the changes. Five levels had gifted him with almost fifty attributes in the primary four and a further fifteen in fate. Which had taken him formally to the top of rank twelve. However, his tier five combat dodge with a starting level of three would be far better than any abilities his opponents would possess.
It was difficult to quantify, but he put his effective combat strength somewhere around rank twenty especially if he used his fate pool.
Hopefully, it was going to be sufficient for what was coming.