Chapter 258 – Weighing Probabilities

Tom slept peacefully. His dreams were a single continuous story. He was exploring a lush, green, earth like environment and then every now and again he would spot a colossal monster. They were always a long way from him and he would launch his Harnessed Meteorites and they would be obliterated before they even realised they were in danger.

It was fun.

Tom lined up the angles to destroy another. This one was dinosaur like… and…

A pebble struck his forehead.

It clonked off him.

It hurt.

The dream shattered.

His mind was screaming that he had to fight.

He leapt to his feet with his spear in his hand. Logically, he knew that it was not an attack, but his heart did not share the same sentiments.

Adrenaline blasted through him.

“See that’s why I don’t shake his shoulder,” Harry quipped, taking on a wise tone.

Tom steadied himself and took a moment to absorb what was happening in the room. Everyone else was awake, the bedding packed away, the fire pit had been put out. It was time, to go. The pebble had been his wake up call. Annoyance flared in him. “It hit my face.”

“If you get too close, you’re likely to get stabbed.” Harry continued his pompous lecture. “Remote wake up techniques prevent that.”

“Harry! You hit my face.” He used Touch Heal and pushed power through it to remove the stinging point of pain. “Hard enough to almost give me a concussion.”

“Yeah, sorry, I was aiming for your chest.”

The ritualist did not look at all apologetic.

Tom threw his hands up in the air. “I’m tempted to purchase a truth telling skill just to prove you’re lying.”

“Oh, his definitely lying.” Everlyn said. “There’s no way Harry misses by that much.”

Tom shoved a spear threateningly towards the ritualist. The anger was intense enough that he wasn’t sure if it was a threat or an act.

Harry immediately waved his hands frantically. “Cheek, I was aiming for the cheek. Not the brow. That was a bad mistake.”

“The cheek! You don’t think that would have hurt as well.”

“Stop being a baby. It was just a light toss, if I hadn’t missed, so the pebble hit bone instead of…” he poked his own cheek, “A fleshy area you wouldn’t have reacted.”

“With all due respect, I think I would have. Do you know what’s like to be woken by being hit in the face?”

“Wouldn’t know. Every one likes me too much to do that.” Harry was laughing openly at him.

“That’s probably not a reflection of Harry’s personality. I’m guessing it’s because he doesn’t try to gut you when you wake him by shaking his shoulder,” Rahmat volunteered unhelpfully.

“It isn’t funny… and that was once. I thought we agreed to do it with the butt of a spear.”

The ritualist shrugged. “Yeah, I could have done that. But I didn’t want to get up and walk over… and.”

“Stop being a prat.”

“But you’re so easy to tease.”

“Screw you.”

Harry laughed harder.

Breakfast was brought over and as he ate he waved off the usual questions about his dreams and by the time he finished everyone else was ready to leave.

Completing the rest of the zone was almost anticlimactic.

They fought a series of simple battles while collecting the flowers. The final flower they needed was just a hundred metres from the exit that led to the four-way war. Immediately when Keikain harvested it there was a ding to communicate the completion of the quest.

“We’ll check notifications when we’re at the zone exit.” Everlyn said instantly over party chat. “I don’t want to see any break of discipline.”

Two minutes later, they entered a space that was very similar to the one they had arrived at. The primary difference was the stone was a dull red instead of blue, but the rest of it might have been identical.

“Boring,” Tom said as he glanced around. The dull red stone was also useless to absorb.

“Check in shifts.” Everlyn reminded them immediately. There was a pattern to how they did this. Rahmat first, Everlyn in the middle with him last and everyone else staggering their turns so only three people were ever out of action.

A minute later, it was Tom’s turn, and he stepped into his system room and confirmed the results.

Congratulations on completing the zone quest to collect 40 dagisy flowers.

As a reward, your team has received 1 million experience.

This has been split evenly between all of you.

A loot portal that contains the reward for kills during the trial and completing the quest has been made available.

Given the size of contributions individual loot is the only option offered.

“Give me a summary of all the experience earned in the zone?”

The text on the wall changed once more

111,000 from zone completion quest.

170,000 from boss kills.

140,000 from mini boss kills.

50,000 from miscellaneous enemies.

For a total of 470,000 experience.

That was similar to the amount he had earned in the goblin zone… well a little less if he was being precise. They had been going for three and a half days and he had accumulated just over a million experience. If they could sustain that type of output for the remaining time in this zone… That was… he did the calculations… They had sixteen days in total… they were less than four days through… that meant four million was not unreasonable.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Tom whistled.

If he was super conservative and assumed that the more difficult inner rings did not give more lucrative rewards… then that implied, at a minimum that by the time this was finished he would have almost thirty million experience to play with. If that was invested all into levels, then it would propel him to level two hundred, which would boost his rank into the eighties. Probably not sufficient to beat the dragon and throwing everything into levels was not something Tom would do in any case.

If he received that type of windfall, then it would be ten million into traits and probably a similar amount into skills to create his build the right way. That would still let him boost himself to class level of a hundred twenty-eight and achieve a fourth class. At that point, his rank would be in the forties, but his effective combat ability would be far higher.

Briefly, he envisaged the situation where he emerged from this tutorial with that sort of power. It would be enough for him to complete his quest and was probably why the answer to the oracle question had been to enter here, despite the risks. It was because there was nowhere else where he could get this much experience this quickly.

When he opened his eyes, the loot portal was waiting for him right in front of the door to the next zone.

“What are we doing with that?” Tom asked immediately. “Are we going to influence it?”

Michael shook his head. “Patience Tom. First, let’s confirm contributions. I got three hundred.”

Every one shared their numbers one after another. Tom’s four seventy was the highest, but no one was under two hundred.

“Two and a half almost three million between us,” Michael concluded. “Yep, we’re influencing it. Wait,” he said, raising a finger when Everlyn went to interrupt. “I know we have to do random regularly.”

“Most of the time,” Tom interjected with a fake cough.

“We have to save interventions for particularly valuable occasions.” Michael continued with a glare at Tom. “But this is a valuable occasion. I doubt in this layer that we’ll ever get any more than three million. So we use it now and we do it with Selena’s technique because frankly that looks like the most efficient approach we have available.”

“But that worked because we were fighting near sapients with defined skills,” Everlyn pointed out. “Here it’s random monsters. What are they going to have in their loot tables?”

Awkward silence descended.

“But the concept’s good.” Tom said finally. “We want this loot portal to have a concept, and that’s what we focus on.”

“Yeah, but what?” Everlyn asked. “Skills, spells maybe learning stones?”

“Evolution potions.” Michael suggested hopefully.

There were sharp inhales all round… Everyone was dreaming of the implications. If they could pull that off. Michael and Tom had both shown that evolution potions were overpowered.

“I don’t know,” Rahmat said to break the silence. “It seems a bit ambitious. How likely is it that an evolution potion loot portal would manifest naturally? At best its improbable, at worst impossible.” He frowned. “Not sure it’s the best idea. If we had more fate… then maybe.”

“I agree. I think targeting such a narrow part of a random loot portal would be dangerous.” Tom said carefully. “Too much risk of our investment being insufficient and getting nothing.”

“Agreed.” Michael affirmed immediately. “Once we have more fate and a bigger pot, we’ll give it a go. What then?”

“Customised armour,” Tom suggested. “There will be lots of it in the loot tables and it is something trials already do. Which is a massive positive in terms of our ability to influence things.”

“Skills and spells? We already know those types of portals exist.” Toni said hopefully.

“Blood line upgrades?” Everlyn proposed with a cheeky grin.

Tom whistled appreciatively, remembering that dragon bloodline he had seen in the auction house. Then he remembered its cost. “If there were ten or maybe a hundred million in the pot it might be worthwhile,” he told them, “but the bloodlines we’ll get won’t be that impressive with only a few hundred thousand each to work with.”

Everlyn laughed probably thinking of the same thing. “True. What do we need?”

“Skills, spells, armour and most of us weapons as well.” Michael said with a pointed look at Everlyn and then Tom. “I need a good axe.”

“Trait stones.” Toni said confidently. “At worse we sell them as there will always be buyers.”

There was a pause as they considered that.

Michael was the first to speak. “Same problem with evolution potions. I don’t think the pot is large enough to get us stuff we want to use and nor do we have sufficient fate.”

“Armour then,” Thor said. “We can all benefit from it.”

Every one was looking at him so Tom nodded and walked up to the portal. He envisaged what he wanted. A piece of armour customised to him that he would be able to use immediately. He was first in line, so spent eighty fate.

He thrust his hand in and pulled out a pair of gauntlets.

Gauntlets of the Spear – Tier 5

All spear skills used when wearing these gloves act as if the tier 0 level equivalent is 32 levels higher.

This item is self repairing and will restore itself, providing at least forty percent of the original mass is maintained in the primary piece.

“Wow,” Tom’s initial annoyance at not getting a chest piece faded. Curiously, he put them on and flexed his hands. The fit was perfect, and each finger could move freely, totally uninhibited. The dark metal didn’t reflect light. When his spear appeared in his hand, it felt natural to spin the weapon around.

“Happy,” Michael asked.

“I would have preferred something to…” he thumped his chest, which was covered only by the still intact blue skivvy. The fact it was still functional was amazing. Tom couldn’t count the number of times it had been reduced to rags before being restored. “But excluding not getting a chest piece the gauntlets are great.”

Everyone else moved in to collect their weapons. Everlyn got leggings, Harry fine linked chainmail, Clare a shield, and he watched as the fate each person invested was steadily reduced. Thor only contributed two fate and got a pair of armoured pants that he gushed excitedly over.

“Absolutely extraordinary.” Toni stated.

“But we’re not using the technique unless we’ve got a reason to think it has skills we want or if the portal value is over five million,” Michael said firmly. “We don’t want to abuse the mechanism on small scores. We’ll keep it for when we need it.”

Everyone put on their new armour and they moved into the next zone. There was an immediate ding as the zone quest registered.

He ignored it and concentrated on his surroundings with his weapon at the ready.

Tom was not at all surprised to discover they had emerged into what could only be described as the trial’s version of the safe room. This particular one was more artificial than the others they had been in. The portal door was against the wall and there was a dome stretching above them that must have been fifty metres to the far side where the exit was. The curved surfaces were perfectly smooth and left nowhere for monsters to hide.

He remained vigilant in any case with his eyes flicking around to ensure no enemies were attempting to sneak up on them. No threats presented themselves and at a word from Everlyn they checked their quest logs.

Naturally, he went last.

Quest - A Single Victor

Four species are currently caught in an eternal war. Your aim is to ensure that one emerges triumphant.

Ensure the defeat of three of the four forces to unlock access to all adjacent zones.

All strategies are permissible.

You may freely join any of the species and gain the following advantages:

* The species becomes friendly to you. Note: There are severe consequences for attacking your allies.

* You will be granted the rank of general.

* Each species has three native generals to add wisdom to the decision-making process and ensure you correctly understand the strengths and weaknesses of your chosen species.

* The generals and king are sapient and can be persuaded to support strategic plans that you present. When in disagreement a majority vote amongst the general with the king acting as a tie breaker will resolve the issue.

* If the species you are represented is defeated, you can nominate to join one of the remaining species to champion them instead.

Tom read the quest and shrugged at what it said. It was similar to the goblins vs sprite quest, with the added benefit that you could turn one of the sides friendly.

“Everyone seen the quest?” Michael asked straight away when he opened his eyes. “Great. This should be easy. Our hardest decision will be picking which of the races we want to survive.”

Harry scratched his head. “From the tiles, I didn’t think any race was specifically stronger. I don’t think the choice matters.”

Tom coughed. “I believe the sword devilish’s are the closest to us. So they’re going to be our pick.”

“That’s not a good criteria.” Michael disputed him immediately.

He shrugged. “Seems solid to me. If we chose the closest, we can integrate with them straight away and then commence raiding with local support. If we go for someone else, it’ll be longer until we can start fighting with support. I guess choosing another lets us go on the offensive against the devilish’s straight away, which might be useful.”

“That’s not how we’re going to fight this.” Michael told him quietly. “There are much better strategies than brute force.”

“Agreed, Keikain said. “Our aim is to have one side survive. This is a scenario where a willingness to back stab is valuable.”

“Exactly.” Michael said.

“What?” Tom asked not quite understanding what was being suggested. “It specifically says we’re not allowed to attack our allies.”

Michael smiled at him. “Then let me explain how we’re going to do this.”