Chapter 80 - Super Maisan

*DING*

Notification 1/3

You have slain - Monster - Shizen - Level 72

You have received 720 XP plus an additional 40% from Perk: Quarter Centurian.

You have received 1008 XP

Notification 2/3

Quest Update - The monster hunting Tree-o

Objective: The girls have stumbled upon the Tree monster before you. They could probably do with your assistance, you know if you aren’t too busy with your mindless slaughter of innocent trees.

Quest Complete

Quest reward - A Lumberjack box (Rare)

The box appeared in front of him; he immediately touched it and added it to his inventory without much thought before reading the rest of his notifications.

Notification 3/3

Level up.

You have reached level 31

Stat points allocated.

It was the first time that a Perk had given so much extra XP; it was a lot, but it still didn’t seem like enough for all the effort he had just gone through. The level-up was nice, every little helped.

Perk: Quarter Centurian

Effect: When defeating opponents who are at a higher level than you, you gain 1% more XP for every level above you they are.

Covered in blood and sweat, he stood over where the Shizen had fallen, panting. He had wondered whether the shapeshifter would naturally revert back to its original form when it died; now that it was nothing but a few smears of sap and a pile of sawdust, he would probably never find out if it even had an original form.

The fight had been the closest one yet, and he only managed to beat it due to a combination of the accidental explosion, his summoning of the giant and pure luck. Looking around, he saw the giant had disappeared. Hopefully, it just went back to its own world; he’d feel bad if his summoning it was the reason it died.

Standing, he saw his boots covered in the Shizen’s blood sap—which made the situation even worse! The boots had been with him a long while and were extremely comfortable.

Reward – Boots of the Lucky Bastard (Uncommon) – These boots were once worn by a leprechaun who travelled the world stealing gold and treasure until he one day met his end at the hand of a king who didn't appreciate having his treasury plundered.

Effect - while incredibly comfortable, these boots also make you marginally luckier. That may sound like a shitty effect, but when whether or not getting hit by an arrow comes down to luck, you'll be sure to appreciate them, you ungrateful bastard. They also slightly increase the amount of coins you find when looting.

He had received them on his first day here and had never even considered trading them in for something better. As well as being comfy, anything he got that improved his luck would be worth keeping, no matter what. He had no luck stat, so he had no idea if the boots had ever actually done anything, but he would rather have them than not.

With such high Vitality and Stamina, it didn’t take him long to catch his breath and mentally recover from the battle. He hadn’t seen his HP bar so low in a long, long time. He had been mere seconds away from losing everything. If he died, it wouldn’t just be his life that came to an end; it would be his friends, too and after the gods returned in his absence, it would also mean the end to countless other lives.

Once he had checked on and fully healed his companions, he sat down. While they recovered, he bought out his Chaos orbs and started to pull from them.

He felt the tickle in the back of his mind and braced himself for what he knew was coming.

The pain increased as he let more and more power flow into him; gritting his teeth, he forced his body to relax. He was determined to absorb as much as he could manage. If his death would lead to the death of multiple planets worth of people, then he would make damn sure he was not put down easily.

He welcomed the pain with open arms and let it take hold of him. It surrounded and filled him like a sponge thrown in an ocean. For anyone else, pain like this might have driven them mad or even killed them, but for him, it just served as a new barrier he had to break through in order to get stronger. Each time he thought he was at his limit, he held on for one extra second.

A pained roar was torn from him as his muscles swelled, and every cell in his body was infused with the Chaos Essence. The air around him crackled with energy as his power grew, illuminating the surroundings with an otherworldly glow.

With each passing moment, Mason's transformation grew more intense, his determination driving him beyond his limits. Then, with a final surge of power, he unleashed a deafening roar that echoed through the air, a manifestation of his newfound might as he broke through to the next level of power.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Holy shit,” he said to himself as he opened his eyes and found himself with his head in Mayry’s lap. “Did… I just go…super-…no.” He pulled a mirror from his inventory and was slightly disappointed to see his hair was still black. In the moment and in his pain-induced delirium, he had been convinced his hair would turn blond.

*Ding*

Achievement Unlocked - Super Maisan

You have risen beyond the limits of this world and into the realm of legend, a legend that is feared! A legend is known throughout the entire universe as the greatest warrior to ever exist. You, Mason, have become a Super Mason!

Reward: You can now infuse your body with any available Chaos Essence temporarily boosting all stats.

Really? We’re just copying things off of an abridged anime series now? That’s what we’re doing? Too tired to really care that his system could possibly be violating copyright law, he passed out, missing the other notifications.

***

Mayry

The fight had really taken it out of them, they had both been injured and were exhausted. Mason staggered over and, without a word, healed the two of them, perking them up immediately.

Mayryr let out a sigh of relief until she saw the look on his face. Where she had expected to see anguish or even pain, she saw a lack of anything. His expression was completely blank. He wandered away from them and sat cross-legged in a patch of grass that had miraculously survived the fight unscathed. He held something in his hands and closed his eyes.

There was a moment where she considered saying something reassuring to him or even going over to him, but before she could make any decision, his face changed. It started as a slight crease in the forehead that developed into a grimace. His teeth clenched, and she began to feel a wave of force coming from him. It emanated from him, and as it hit her, the link they shared allowed her to feel the emotion that was fuelling the power. Determination, at first, was all she felt, but under all that, there was fear and doubt and a lot of anger.

The force of the wave pushed her back, but she fought against it, trying to get to Mason’s side. Her human form slipped away as her body transformed in order to give her the strength she needed to reach him. Nina, who had been sitting beside her, was struggling against the wave as well, but her power did not seem to see this as a fight and so did not activate. “Go! Get away!” She shouted at the younger girl.

Reaching Mason was almost a fight that her ability almost wasn’t enough to win, but the moment after she reached out and touched him, the wave pushing against her suddenly stopped. He was muttering nonsense things about death and the end of the world, face still showing the agony he was still going through. She crawled over, put his head in her lap, and stroked his hair. It was painful for her to be thins close to him while he was going through whatever it was he was going through, but she ignored the pain and told him it was going to be okay.

Moments later, his eyes opened. He muttered some more stuff she didn’t understand; he sat up, checked himself out in a mirror that appeared in his hand and, with a look of disappointment, passed out.

It was no secret that Mason was strange. It was even one of the things she loved about him, but usually, he was just a dependable kind of strange. This, while strange, was entirely out of character for him.

By the time she had managed to fight through the wave and get over to him she had figured out what had happened. He had been scared by how close to dying they had come and, on a desperate bid for more power, had absorbed more essence from the Chaos orbs. Never in her wildest dreams would she have thought that the orbs contained that much raw power; it was insane to think Mason had drawn all of that into himself.

“Is it over?” A small voice called from a distance.

“It’s over!” she called back.

“Okay, good, because I think we might have company.”

Nina

It had all happened so fast. One minute, she was relaxed, believing the danger was over, and the next, Mason had become the epicentre of a weird ACT that was pushing everything away.

Mayry had told her to get away, and, as much as she liked Mason, she had listened. She had left the clearing they had created and didn’t stop until she no longer felt the push of power. The ground under her still rumbled, but no longer in danger, she looked around.

Tired, scared and worried about Mason, she waited, hoping that whatever was happening would be over soon and Mayry would be able to stop whatever was happening. She liked Mason; he had been nice to her, and he was fun to be around, but she just didn’t know enough about everything to know whether she would be any help.

Mason had healed her, but she was still feeling some of the fatigue that came with using her ability; with nothing else to do, she leaned against a tree and let herself slide to the ground. Try as she might to avoid it, sleep slowly took hold of her and dragged her into unconsciousness.

***

She was woken up by muffled voices, “Are you sure It was coming from this way? I don’t feel nothin’ no more!” One voice said. The voice was definitely feminine and sounded very unsure.

“I’m sure! The power readouts say that there was a massive burst of Chaos Essence around here somewhere; if we find that, it’d be a fucking gold mine! We’d be back home to Ganehfrel in no time and finally be out of this shit ‘ol.” The other voice, male, called back, sounding excited and as if he was ahead of the other voice.

Ganehfrel? This wasn’t good. She and Mayry hadn’t really been friends during their childhoods, but there was one story every child knew, the stories about the others who came from Ganehfrel. Ever since she could remember, there had been an almost religious debate as to whether they were real. Some believed that they had lived and the stories were based on actual events, while others argued that they were completely mythical. One thing that most did agree on was that they were not around today. That was until one showed up in Sparksford.

If she had overheard this conversation only a few weeks ago, she would have assumed the pair were playing a game or perhaps rehearsing for a play, but after hearing the (mostly) full story from Mason and Mayry of what had happened, Nina knew that the people she could hear most likely were others. Panicking, she turned and ran back the way she had come. She had lost track of time and had become disorientated when she had fallen asleep, but luckily, she was able to follow her tracks back to the clearing with the now-dead tree monster and her two friends. She stayed a safe distance away as she could still feel trickles of power in the air, calmer but still very noticeable.

“Is it over?” she half shouted, half-whispered over to the two.

“It’s over!” Mayry’s voice called back.

At least they were both okay. Bracing herself, knowing that the day was far from over, she started to walk towards them, shouting. “Okay, good, because I think we might have company.”

***

Mason

He didn’t regret doing what he had done, though he did regret making his friends worry, not to mention the danger he had put them in. Even now, he could feel a noticeable difference in every aspect of his power. He had taken much more chaos essence from the chaos orbs than should have been possible. It had filled his system to the brim, but he kept taking more and more. He wasn’t entirely sure what he had done, but he had a suspicion that once the essence had nowhere else to go, it began to infuse with his mana and body, making it stronger and denser. According to the notification he had gotten, he could now use any essence he had to boost his stats, which was likely only possible now because of the forced essence connection his system, mana and body now had. It seemed the boosting ability was the system’s way of taking advantage of what could have been a very stupid move.

He had been desperate for more power, and the universe had obliged him, though he wasn’t sure if he would have gone through with it if he had known the amount of pain he would endure. He was still quite out of it and barely acknowledged Nina had returned; he snapped to attention, however, when he heard what she had to say.