“The result of these observations is that some problems could be [translated] into others. And given sufficient [conscious] power, we thought that we could solve anything; it was just a matter of harnessing it.”
The first notifications were those that had appeared right after the vision.
Insight: Chitin
Grade: Tier 0-D
Chemical Formula: (C8H13O5N)n
Temperature: 52 to 97° F
Pressure: 0.7 to 1.4 atm
Energy Reduction: 216
Natural accumulation: Narrow
This one he would need to ask his Assistant to understand, but he had a rough idea of what it meant from the vision. He moved on to the next few. To his utter shock, he had gained not one or two, but five separate titles.
Title: Heaven’s Chosen – 1st
Description: First native on planet to achieve an Insight.
Effects: Energy reduction factor of Insights: +100%
Trial-Confined Title: Hirar Slayer – 1st
Description: First in trial to kill a Hirar.
Effects: Damage against Hirar: +50%
Title: Underdog
Description: Kill a creature that has a combat rating 16 times as high as you.
Effects: Effect of all attributes: +3.1%
Title: Archetypal Hero
Description: Kill a creature that has a combat rating 256 times as high as you.
Effects: Effect of all attributes: +6.2%
Title: Breaking a Grade – 1st
Description: First native on planet to achieve level 16.
Effects: Effect of all attributes: +6.2%
Alex was in disbelief. He knew that he had pushed himself far beyond any limits he had previously known, but to be the first in the world in all of these categories was almost incomprehensible. And the benefits of the titles were not trivial anymore. He took a look at his Status screen.
Player
Name: Alex Scarfeld
Race: Human (Tier 0)
Class: None
Level: 19
Energy
Energy: 129 / 512 Lucens (Tier 0)
Flow Rate: 112.8
Channel Period: 18.3 hours
Channel Condition: Poor
Attributes
Physical
Mental
Value
Effect
Value
Effect
Power
31 (boosted) | 30
+23%
16 (boosted) | 15
+20%
Resistance
31 (boosted) | 30
+23%
20 (boosted) | 19
+20%
Speed
18 (boosted) | 17
+23%
18 (boosted) | 17
+20%
Recovery
10 (boosted) | 8
+23%
10 (boosted) | 8
+20%
Free points: 125
Abilities
Scripts:
“Ingroup Hostility”
Decrease base sociality with same species
Increase base competitive aggression
Skills:
None
Insights
Insight: Chitin
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Grade: Tier 0-D
Chemical Formula: (C8H13O5N)n
Temperature Range: 52 to 97° F
Pressure: 0.7 to 1.4 atm
Energy Reduction: 216
Natural accumulation: Narrow
Energy Reduction Factor of Insights: +100%
Titles
Title Pool (6/9)
Ruthless Killer – 1st; First Steps – 6th; Heaven’s Chosen – 1st, Underdog, Archetypal Hero, Breaking a Grade – 1st
Trial-Confined Titles (1)
Hirar Slayer – 1st
Alex felt dizzy once again. He had gained an astonishing total of 8 levels from killing the Hirar. And the amount of free points that those levels provided him was insane. And, he noticed, he had gained an extra title slot.
As if reading his thoughts, his Assistant chimed in.
[Congratulations, Alex! Your performance has been truly remarkable. I just want to help explain some things. First of all, title slots. Every 16 levels provides an additional title slot. If you reach maximum capacity, you can freely exchange titles without losing access to titles you have already gained. They simply become inactive. This exchange requires energy, though. Trial-Confined Titles are unlimited, but they disappear once the Trial is over.]
[Next, your Insight into Chitin. Insights represent a depth of metaphorical understanding of the meaning behind certain physical compounds. It is possible that Insights are not just limited to physical compounds, but also more abstract phenomena. That is beyond the Tier 0 access that I have. Anyway, the function of Insights is to reduce the cost of manifesting materials. The cost of manifesting a material is specified by an equation I’m sure you are familiar with, E = mc2.]
[In the Game, a single lucen contains around 30 KJ of energy. For reference, that’s about the energy contained in 7 calories of food. This is enough to manifest what you would call one Planck mass of a material, which is around 1% of the mass of a mosquito. That is because manifestation of materials is already discounted by a base factor of 216. So you may be wondering: if it costs 100 lucens to manifest the mass of a mosquito, how is this at all practical?]
[That’s where Insights come in. A Tier 0-D Insight like the one you have gives a discount of another factor of 216. This may vary based on the material, but that’s generally the rule. That means that 100 lucens will now get you to over three pounds of mass. Of course, if you want to make it accelerate or perform other manipulations, you’ll also need to pay.]
It was a lot of information, but Alex felt like it made sense. The shard that he manifested earlier looked like it was about a pound or two, and it moved pretty fast. He had spent over 50 lucens on that, if not 100. He was lucky that he had been on the precipice of the next level, otherwise he certainly wouldn’t have had enough energy to manifest the shard.
Alex moved on to other parts of his Status screen, not wanting to make the newcomers wait for too long. There were a few things that were concerning. His channels still felt like they were burned, and the condition was Poor. More worrying, his flow rate had halved, and unlike channel condition, this was something he knew would not recover naturally. Also, he noticed that healing cost more now; it seemed that it scaled with level. When he was level 0, it cost a little more than 2 lucens per hour. Now, it cost more than 6 lucens per hour, and it was slower due to his low flow rate. With his higher level, though, Alex knew that he wouldn’t have nearly as much trouble making money. He just needed to restore his flow rate and increase his physical recovery in order to heal faster. Speaking of which, he had to allocate his free points.
“Any ideas as to what to allocate?” Alex whispered, trying to move his mouth as little as possible to avoid drawing attention.
[You can communicate with me mentally, by the way. Just form a sentence in your mind and form the intention that it gets communicated to me, similar to how you interact with System prompts.]
Alex did as he was told, and to his surprise, a distinct feeling of having sent a message arose in his mind.
“Wow, you waited until now to tell me that,” Alex communicated.
The Assistant ignored his jibe, and began to explain the Attribute system.
[The most basic principle is that Power and Resistance scale linearly, while Speed and Recovery scale logarithmically. So having 16 Physical Power gives you twice as much strength as 8 Physical power, while 16 Physical Speed only makes you ⅓ faster. That’s because 16 is 24, while 8 is 23.]
“Thanks, Professor. So maybe I’ll get all of those attributes up to around 25 for now, so I can have around 50% faster recovery and speed. After that, it’s somewhat diminishing returns.”
[Yes, normally you would need to get them up to 23 in order to have an approximately 52% increase. But here’s where Titles are extremely powerful. The actual effect of the attributes, not just the scale, is increased. So right now, you’re already getting a 67% increase to mental speed, and a 70% increase to physical speed.]
When the AI pointed it out, Alex realized that it was right. His mind was indeed processing information significantly faster than before, even after the boosts had worn off. He had just thought that the newcomers spoke slowly, and he hadn’t really heard anyone talk after his increased mental speed came into play, so he didn’t have a baseline. But everything was a lot faster. It seemed that a 20% increase in the Effect of Speed and Recovery was better than doubling the value of those attributes, and Alex was elated at this advantage.
“Is there any way to turn off the Mental Speed increase for normal conversation?”
[Yes, I can do that for you if you would like. But especially around strangers, it is good to have increased Mental Speed in order to process threats. Later down the line, though, you’re definitely going to need to learn how to control the Mental Speed increase on your own. You probably haven’t noticed until now because you were busy fighting, but using Mental Speed consumes energy. It’s smaller than the energy for healing, but it becomes a significant expenditure at higher Mental Speeds.]
Alex would keep that in mind. He needed to learn how to control his energy better, anyway, so that he would be able to absorb lucens from kills and heal at the same time. “How much would I need to invest to get double Mental Speed? For now, I think I care about that more than Physical Speed.”
[You just need to bring it up to 32. If you’d like, I can add another column that displays the actual effect.]
“Yeah, that would be great. Also, what does Mental Recovery do, exactly?”
[Mental Recovery decreases the Channel Period, which directly improves your effective rate of channeling energy, but more importantly increases the speed at which your channels can recover from being overextended. Also, it has tangential effects on mental stamina.]
“Hmm, okay. One more question. Can you tell me more precisely what Physical Resistance does? I have a general idea, but I’m not sure.”
[Sure. Physical Resistance toughens your body holistically. It’s simply a multiplier of your base toughness, including how hard your skin is, how difficult your bones are to break, and so on. So if you have 80 Physical Resistance, then your entire body is 10 times as tough. It’s not a good idea to have high Physical Power without Physical Resistance, because then you’re likely to hurt yourself when attacking.]
Alex had heard enough to make some decisions. He proceeded to spend around a third of the 125 points on Speed and Recovery. Immediately, he felt time slow down even further, and the rate of energy flowing into his body for healing increased. He also noticed the trickle that the AI had talked about, which was used to maintain his high Mental Speed. His mental exhaustion also dissipated a bit.
His biggest investments were into Physical Power and Resistance, but he didn’t neglect Mental Power and Resistance, either. A massive burst of strength entered his body, and his skin gained a surreal hardness. His mind was sharper, and he felt like he had gained further mental resilience.
Physical
Mental
Value
Effect
Actual
Value
Effect
Actual
Power
61 / 60
+23%
9.4x
36 / 35
+20%
5.4x
Resistance
51 / 50
+23%
7.8x
26 / 25
+20%
3.9x
Speed
26 / 25
+23%
1.9x
33 / 32
+20%
2.0x
Recovery
22 / 20
+23%
1.8x
24 / 22
+20%
1.8x
The table with the multipliers elucidated a lot. His strength had increased almost tenfold, which meant he was probably stronger than even the greatest bodybuilders before the Integration. He would be able to move at double the speed, and he could think twice as fast. His recovery, already accelerated to an extreme degree by the energy-based healing, was now even faster. Apparently, his pleasure was noticeable, judging from the strange looks the others were giving him, so he forced himself to remain impassive.
Alex reviewed his Status screen to see if there was anything else he needed to do. Perhaps one of the most exciting pieces of information besides his improved power was that he had managed to kill a Hirar, which was the objective of the Hunting Trial. He peeled his gaze away from his screen and looked at the Hirar at the edge of the glade. Until now, he had been so focused on the newcomers and the notifications that he didn’t even look in that direction. But when he glanced over, to his dismay, it looked completely different. It looked more like a blob of white and black goo, with gyri or folds covering the surface, vaguely resembling a human brain. The shell was nowhere to be found.