CHAPTER 297 – FUTURE RELATIONS
Tom glanced around the system room and when he looked back, the wall in front of him had changed to answer his unspoken question.
Available Experience: 2,126,143
For a moment, he stared blankly at the numbers and letters.
It wasn’t the right number… it was wrong and not what he was expecting.
He slapped his thigh and forced himself to focus. He was being stupid.
It was close enough.
But it’s a hundred thousand too much, a small voice whispered.
It’s positive. Why does it even matter if it’s more? Most of him argued right back. Plus, it was only a hundred thousand in a two million figure. That was less than a ten percent difference. Logically, it was nothing but the unexpected value. The variance from his mental calculations was disconcerting. He guessed, well he knew, he hadn’t been monitoring the value too closely.
With a wry smile, he focused on what was important. When they reached the next layer, the average rank of the monsters opposing them was going to increase by four. They all had agreed to keep pace with the creatures’ ranks, which by working backwards, it meant he needed to get two and a half ranks before the end of the next zone. That was eight levels in total.
“Where should I get the attributes?” he asked himself.
On one hand, boosting his physical capabilities had a certain allure to it given the amount of dodging he had to complete, but this zone had taught him the value of Harness Meteorite. Being able to cast that spell more regularly had to be considered. “All into Elemental Summoner,” he declared to the empty room. Unless he thought he had been particularly lucky in which case he might gamble with his new class.
Maybe not, he clarified mentally after a moment’s consideration. There was no reason to think any of his actions over the last couple of weeks would get him a favourable outcome. Once he killed the dragon, it would be different, but until then he would guarantee the returns on his investments by focusing on his core classes.
Eight levels would cost him a little under two hundred thousand experience, which left him almost two million to spend on development. There was a lot of experience to spend, which showed how lucrative cornering the rewards from an entire zone were. “Show saved traits.”
The wall changed, and a description of both traits appeared.
Trait: Crystallised Moment. Cost: 609,900.
When triggered, freezes time for 1 second. Up to three charges can be stored, and the charges regenerate once every 12 minutes.
Trait: Channelled Damage Mirror. Cost: 1,320,000.
This trait at the most basic level will reflect ten percent of incoming damage back to the attackers. Mastery of the trait greatly increases this. For ultimate results, you need to understand the nature of the damage that will be inflicted and focus on your opponent at the point you desire the reflected force to be transferred.
Can be used every two seconds and applies to a single attack from a singular source.
He didn’t frown as he saw the refreshed costs, but he felt for his companions. The levels he had got were ramping up the cost of acquiring abilities, and it was worse for them. Because of his titles he did not need to advance his levels anywhere near as fast as them to achieve the same rank. If the escalating costs felt this terrible to him, then it must be horrendous for them. Channelled Damage Mirror was now a hundred and twenty thousand more expensive because of those six levels he had got.
There was no point ranting about the system structure.
It couldn’t be avoided or arbitraged.
These escalating prices were baked into the system shop to prevent abuse. If you wanted a trait, you had to make meaningful sacrifices and if the cost didn’t increase per class level, then there would come a point when you would buy traits at the cost of singular levels, which made no sense.
These ridiculous increases with class level meant getting a trait would always only come after significant sacrifice.
“Buy the trait Channelled Damage Mirror.”
The trait settled into him, and the text on his last trait changed.
Crystallised Moment. Cost: 853,440 (+ 243,840 (40% increase)
He winced.
The inflation was exactly what he expected and was why he had bought the most expensive ones first.
Between the levels and penalties for the other traits, Crystallised Moment now cost almost twice as much as when he had first thought about buying it. It was hard looking at that number and continuing with the plan to buy the trait. Eight hundred thousand into levels was a massive upgrade in attributes, while being able to freeze time for three seconds every combat did not seem very powerful.
Tom swallowed forcefully and reminded himself of the long game. The reasons he had originally chosen this trait still held. It had never been about what it could do by itself. It was all about the synergies with the rest of his build and as he grew, gained more options. What a single second of frozen time could buy would continue to grow. Extra spells to throw around not to mention the flexibility that he would get when he constructed his domain.
If he had brought this trait in the contribution store and had it when he first came to Existentia, then in reality those three seconds would only have been time to think. Now it was the opportunity to use his magic and defensive abilities with far more finesse than would otherwise have been possible.
“It’s a good trait, Tom,” he told himself. “One you want to get.”
What it could do, for example in conjunction with Channelled Reflective Mirror was significant. An extra second of time would improve the mirror sufficiently to reflect at least ten percent more of the damage back. Its synergy with the other traits meant it would pay for itself.
That rising cost, however, was a concern. Hopefully, in the next zone, he would earn the two hundred and fifty thousand experience required to purchase the trait and the levels he needed at the same time. He did not want to have to buy levels and have the cost increase even further.
The others looked at him curiously when he emerged from the system room.
Thor lifted up and then waved what looked like a combat golem shaped like a twelve legged multi verticality wolf. IT was three times Thor’s size. “I assume you don’t want this.”
“It’s…”
“What it looks like.” Thor interrupted. “A rank twenty seven beast combat dummy.”
“I don’t think we have time to use it.” Tom told him diplomatically.
“Agreed.” There was a crackle of energy and Thor dumped it to the auction house. In other circumstances, having a non-humanoid combat dummy would be applauded, but they didn’t have time for it now.
“And you Tom?” Michael gave him a thumb up then down motion. “You good?”
“Yes. If I’m lucky, I’ll get the third trait at the end of this zone.”
“I’m so jealous.” Michael admitted. “Everything I’m earning has to be pushed into my levels just to keep up.”
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“Stop whinging.” Keikain snapped. “You’ll probably scrounge enough experience to get a couple of decent skills, possibly even a trait through the level penalty might put that out of reach. Unlike me. All of my excess experience is going to be pushed to becoming a priest.”
“Rough,” Tom agreed. “There’s no way I’ll be getting a fourth trait. The third one I’m planning on buying has almost doubled in cost.”
“And what, for the fourth one is it triple?” Michael shut his eyes momentarily, clearing carrying out some mathematics. For a stride, his face even went inanimate. “That’s harsh. For the fourth, the cost quadruples.”
“Not quite that bad, but close.”
“So, after this last trait. Will your focus be on buying skills or levels?” Everlyn asked.
Tom shrugged. He hadn’t really thought about that. “I won’t put it all into levels because I don’t want to out rank the monsters and everyone else. Maybe I’ll store it until we’re ready to fight the dragon and then pump up my attributes then.”
“You could use it to buy equipment.”
Tom frowned. “That seems like a particularly wasteful use of experience.”
She shook her head. “Nope. Invest in something like evolution potions.”
Tom hesitated. In his head, it didn’t make sense. “Wait, what? I thought they sold for five times their nominal value in the shop.”
“Yes,” Michael interceded. “You’re right, but the mathematics are favourable if you can get an extra one or two tiers out of it.” The healer told him. “A tier three potion sells for two hundred and fifty thousand. If you can turn that into a tier five spell, it’ll probably be cost efficient.”
“There’s a few ifs in that… even with our racial trait.” Tom thought about it. “The margins are too tight. It’ll be better to buy the spell or skill you’re targeting directly.”
Michael shook his head. “That’s what we thought and then we considered the ability to adapt the evolution in the way we want. We’re not getting a tier five spell we’re creating the perfect tier five spell.”
“I was thinking more about evolving trait’s not skills.” Everlyn interrupted. “Specifically your phase trait.”
“You mean intangible awareness.”
She rolled her eyes. “The name’s not important. But boosting that trait with an evolution potion… that might be cost effective.”
While walking, he ducked quickly into the system room. There were ten potions available, and he blanched slightly at the costs.
Tier 0 – Trait Evolution Potion – Cost 25,000
Tier 1 – Trait Evolution Potion – Cost 45,000
Tier 2 – Trait Evolution Potion – Cost 100,000
…
Tier 7 – Trait Evolution Potion – Cost 14,500,000
The description of them were all the same.
Tier 2 – Trait Evolution Potion
Contains the energy to evolve a tier 2 rated trait. Potions randomly give between a 5% and 300% boost to the evolution progress with an average of 20%.
There was no other information about the potions. He didn’t even know which version he would have to buy to progress Intangible Awareness. He was guessing from the trait’s price before the modifiers kicked in that he would require a tier six potion, which would cost a little over five million experience.
He swallowed at that thought. That was a lot, but the trait already allowed him to phase through attacks and greatly boosted his ability to sense incoming damage.
Yet he understood why Everlyn had suggested it. What benefit would an extra evolution bring to that particular trait? He guessed, given how powerful the trait was, it would be a lot.
He returned to the real world.
“And?” Everlyn pressed.
“I’m guessing that pushing Intangible Awareness up a tier would cost five million.”
“Exactly.”
“What do you mean by exactly? I can buy a completely new tier six level trait for cheaper than that.”
“But for how long?” she asked with a grin. “By the time we reach Phil a tier six will cost ten million. At that point, potions are going to be far more economical.”
“Only if we get the extreme one to three hundred percent outcome instead of the average twenty percent.”
She laughed. “Yes, if we were lucky enough to get that. It’s possible that when we’re ready for the dragon and have experience to spend our best option will be to boost our existing traits instead of attributes. The advantage of potions is that for now they’re cost isn’t linked to our levels.”
They chattered about specifics. How they thought the evolutions would work. Tests they could do on low ranked potions to better understand the dynamics. Traits wouldn’t always need a hundred percent to rank up. Did that matter? How about Tom’s title? How did that work into this? Knowing progress so far was important. It was possible that some of their better traits from the contribution store might only need a nudge to evolve. If you could buy a tier one potion to evolve a tier three trait, then that’s what they would do.
Still debating the nuances they passed the doors at the bottom of the tunnel and started heading upwards.
A short time later their conversation had finished naturally, so as they walked up Tom explored his new toy Channelled Damage Mirror. He could already feel the nature of the trait. It was a strange mixture of passive and active and if it did nothing it would trigger by itself whenever a charge became available. That passive activation was frustrating. A fly could land on him and that was the damage he would channel back rather than it reacting to the hammer that struck a millisecond later. There was, of course more to it than that.
The passive reaction could be switched off and then the trait would require manual intervention. In fact, the active component went beyond that. To let it reach anywhere near its potential, it had to be consciously controlled with a high level of skill.
He sunk his focus into the trait in order to feel out the orientations. The mirror could be as small or as large as you wanted it. It didn’t just plaster onto your skin. There was a sense of orientation. A requirement to point the mirror to where it needed to be to guarantee the damage reflection. Then a toggle on the hardness of the reflective surface. It could be adjusted in accordance with the incoming blow. Get it right then success, but if you made the surface too hard or too soft, then abject failure. None of that was declared in the trait description, but nevertheless it was there. A requirement you had to master to let the trait deliver something close to what was necessary to justify its tier six rating.
More and more subtle twists became apparent as he explored what he could and couldn’t do. It was not mentioned, but if you took the trait with a lack of ambition all you would get out was an ability to reflect melee damage back on the creature inflicting them. You would lose the rest of the trait’s potential. Theoretically, it worked against ranged attacks, but the targeting was wonky and if you lined things up wrong the counter strike would fail to trigger.
That was where active control shone. If you did it properly not only could you intensify the amount channelled back and to allow it to act on creatures that were casting magic at you from range. The key wording of this trait was that ultimate results were achieved when he understood the nature of the damage coming in. That loose description covered direction, origination, energy type, density, force vectors, multi-dimensional components, rotational co-efficient basically everything that governed how hard it was going to hit.
In the heat of battle, for Tom or pretty much anyone understanding all that would be impossible. Occasionally, they would get it right. For example, if you were struck with a basic attack like an axe crashing against your shield, you had a chance of innately understanding the components of the blow and allow the mirror to reflect fifty percent of the attack. However, the same relationship would not hold for a slashing claw of a monster, especially from stronger monsters which might sheath their claws with decay magic. Tom, if blindsided would miss that extra and misunderstand physical components of the strike. He would instinctively treat it like an axe blow and totally miss how it flexed at the last moment to increase the speed. The damage reflected by that sort of attack would be at the minimum ten percent mark.
Luckily, Tom, with his mix of skills like black dodge, his pseudo spark domain and intangible avoidance and its interactions with everything else knew exactly what the claw was doing. He would know about the decay energy, he would understand the way the nail was about to flex would gouge extra damage out of him and as a result of all that information he would be reflecting fifty percent back at the attacker and if he got his predictions perfect, then possibly even a little more.
The trait also referenced incoming damage and not delivered. He would need to test it, but there was no reason that a blow avoided via teleportation couldn’t be reflected in totality. Tom imagined achieving that outcome with the dragon’s breath.
She would shoot him, he would teleport away and this trait would cripple the dragon when a weaker but still potent version of her own attack struck her. It felt wrong and an exploit, but Existentia functioned in a world where a million exploits all moved to mostly cancel each other out.
If he could reflect the breath… he wasn’t sure it would work, but at the very least it was the start of a plan to destroy the monster.
The surrounding stone changed, and they emerged into one of the safe rooms. Its atmosphere was substantially different from the tunnels they had been. Hot, cloying, dense air. There were multiple exits, including a couple high up in the cave. Yellow sunlight pierced through the thick plug of green vegetation that filled each of the holes.
It was a new zone, and sweat was already beaded onto his skin. There was a ding to indicate the quest was registered.
Everlyn started cursing up a storm.
“What?” he asked in surprise not used to that sort of behaviour.
“Check.” She ordered grimly.
He closed his eyes and stepped into the system room.
Collect 5 boss stones to gain access to other zones.
Singular bosses give one, mini-bosses two and major bosses five.
Tom read that his mind racing. The number of stones awarded for each kill was not high. There were eight of them and six chosen for fourteen of them in total. That meant they needed seventy stones.
He glanced at another wall, and it was populated with information from his memory. The zone map appeared complete with the bosses and a running tally being displayed as the room tallied them up.
Three major bosses, nine sub ones and forty-five singular bosses for a total of seventy-eight available stones.
He understood why Everlyn had been cursing so much.
They didn’t have to kill everything, but it was close. They needed the rewards from two of the three major bosses, which was disappointing. They guessed they would be classed sapient and given their power and the lack of the humans they had all been hoping to avoid them. Who knows what clarifications the mini bosses would receive but even if they were semi-sapient, they would still need to be killed because they need the boss stones.
He opened his eyes.
Everlyn nodded grimly. “You see what I mean.”