Six minutes later, Connor sighed, activated Flight, and stabilized his fall. It took a moment to recover from the queasiness, but soon, he was back to normal. If the two ships were following him down, he didn’t want to stop and give them an easy target. He adjusted his flight and emerged from the spray of water closer to the shaft wall. He was still being hit by mist, but it was a lot easier to breathe.
Now that he had a moment, Connor pulled up his HUD to find out how far he’d fallen. He’d been falling at a rate of about 20 miles per hour. After six minutes, he’d fallen just about two miles. Now he was wondering why he still wasn’t in excruciating pain when the last Notification he’d received said he’d be out of commission for 18.9 minutes?
Connor made sure the skips weren’t anywhere close and then pulled up his Status. He needed to look it over and see what changes had been made to him.
Name: Conner Orion Nash
Birthday: October 15th, 2007
Apparent Age: 22
Race: Human
Evolution: Master
Core: Master
Classes
Unfettered: Level 100 at Common, Uncommon, Rare, and Advanced.
Unfettered Level 53 at Master
Hit Points: 2,704
-Health Regeneration: 15
Stamina: 3,702
-Stamina Regeneration: 145
Mana: 3,248
-Mana Regeneration: 136
Psychic Energy: 3,248
-Psychic Regeneration: 172
Strength: 1,267
Agility: 1,277
Dexterity: 1,277
Endurance: 1,257
Constitution: 1,277
Perception: 1,267
Intelligence: 1,267
Wisdom: 1,277
Willpower: 1,630
Charisma: 1,267
Luck: 1,277
Chaos: 0
Order: 0
Skill Slots: 61
Spell Slots: 257
Running Speed
MPH: 800
FPS: 1,174
Flight Speed
MPH: 800
FPS: 1174
Abilities
?
?
Titles
Head of the Line V
Deflector
It's Not the Fall That Kills You, It's the Sudden Stop
Big Game Hunter
Resolved Pacifist
Last Man Standing I
Perks
Core, Master
Racial Evolution, Master
Regeneration, Master
Inventory Skill
Weapon: Fang: Common, Durability 40 of 100
Skills
Uncanny Perception: Master
Class: Malleable Skills: Common
Class: Stealth: Master
Class: Backstab: Master
Inventory: Uncommon
Flight: Common
Identify: Common
Eye of Eris: Common
Dodge: Common
Spells
Connor noted the changes to his status, especially the 15 points of Regeneration per Combat Turn to his Health. That was probably why he was able to act after six minutes instead of nineteen. He also noted that all of his Resource pools, such as Hit Points, Stamina, Mana, and Psychic Energy, were a little bit higher than he remembered them being. He opened his Event Tab to check what was going on and sighed. The numbers he’d seen before were his regeneration rate increasing his max hit points. It seemed that when his attributes and levels had been added all at once, the change in his maximum hit points didn’t automatically adjust. They filled to their new levels based on their regeneration rates.
Connor did some quick math. Yep, that was about right. If he had to regain 2,690 Hit Points from scratch, it would have taken about 30 minutes. Add that he hadn’t been paying attention…maybe he shouldn’t have set his hit points as a red line based on the percentage of his maximum Hit Points when the max total kept increasing. Doing so had shown him at 100% Hit Points since right after he killed the coyote, even though that 100% was constantly growing.
Connor sighed and adjusted his HUD so that it still had the red line to represent Hit Points, a green line to represent Stamina, a blue line to describe his Mana, and finally, a silver line to represent his Psychic Energy. Then he added the number that the line represented, which he had appeared in the middle of the line. So, he could see his percentage at a glance and focus on how many points of each resource were available if he needed to.
As he adjusted the visual representations in his HUD, a scene from one of the first LitRPG novels he read crossed his mind. Was there a way to get this information without needing to read it? Hadn’t there been this idea to allow the information to flow into him without resistance and just absorb it? When he’d read that scene, it made sense because not everyone could read. They would need to intuitively know what everyone they could see in their vision meant.
Connor checked his surroundings. Above and outside the waterfall a couple of hundred feet above him in the vertical shaft, he could see the two skiffs floating down with him, trying to keep pace with him, but no one on board was trying to attack him. Even so, he activated Stealth and started randomly changing his angle of descent, just in case they wanted to try something.
Now that he had a moment, he started looking at the side of the shaft and noticed that here and there, he could see caves scattered throughout. After he’d flown down another mile, he noticed what he could only describe as a landing area that extended out from one side of the path. It also looked like there was a covered path from the landing area, through the waterfall, and into a cave in the shaft wall.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
He could continue to run from these assholes, or he could take them out. Maybe he was being stupid, but honestly, being hounded by these pricks when everything the SYSTEM was sharing with him told him he had a lot more advantages than anyone else. Yeah, it was time to end these assholes.
Connor altered his course and flew down to the landing. The area was lit with glowing orbs of soft white light. He didn’t see anyone as he came to land and moved down the passage, which extended into the rock face at least 100 feet. At the end of the cave, he found a tunnel that went off to the left of the entryway and went down it. The path with the landing area looked like natural stone. Once he was ten feet down the side tunnel, the walls became tiled, and the lighting intensified a bit until he came up to a set of closed metal double doors.
Connor looked at the doors. They were plain and dull gray. They looked to be made of some metal. A simple push and then a pull revealed them to be locked. He was about to consider breaking his way inside when his perception picked up the sound of feet coming closer. It looked like his pursuers had arrived.
***
Azren had no idea how the third mage in their hunter crew had been killed, but his loss and the loss of their ship, which was a massive investment by Mistress Morana, would need to be answered for, and both he and his fellow mage, Zatar, knew this. Each used the tracking crystal they’d been given to track the inductee down the vertical shaft into the Rare portion of the Tutorial, which he had never seen before.
Azren possessed a Rare class, so he wasn’t too worried. With four other hunters on his skimmer and Zatar and his four hunters on the other skiff, they should be able to handle one lone inductee and any rare monster that appeared. No, what he couldn’t believe was that a newly indoctrinated Tutorial member had made it into the Uncommon area and then found the entrance to the Rare area in under 12 hours and then chosen to enter it. That was unheard of.
Just as they were getting close enough to try to capture their target, he killed one of the mages, which had caused the four hunters with it to disappear down the shaft with the dead mage and the skimmer. As soon as they’d looked at the tracking crystal they’d realized that their target had also gone below. They had followed and kept pace with their target as he hid in the waterfall. Azren had thought about taking the skimmer under the waterfall to get closer, but he was having a hard enough time controlling the craft in the center of the shaft. That was until their target shot off horizontally away from them and he saw the landing area.
The tracking crystal showed that their target had fled down the tunnel attached to the landing area. Azren waved at Zatar and signaled for them to both land on the platform. They proceeded toward the covered roof that kept the path clear under the waterfall and into the cave. The falling water made it hard to hear anything, but that was okay. Their target was running, which would make this a good hunt.
As the two teams came together a little further down the tunnel where they could hear again, Zatar called out, “As senior, I claim first rights.”
Azren nodded and held up a hand to his four squad members. They waited as Zatar and his squad moved into the tunnel. Once they were about fifty feet in front of his team, Azren motioned for his team to follow. Azren watched as two of the hunters entered a side tunnel. A few moments later, Azren heard two thwapping sounds just before the second hunter came flying out of the corridor. He slammed into the wall opposite the opening with a moist splat before sliding to the ground, dead.
A moment later, Azren’s tracking crystal pointed directly in front of him, but there was nothing to see. Zatar was looking down at his crystal, just like Azren, when Zatar’s eyes went wide. Azren heard a voice from directly in front of Zatar, “Force shield, figures.” If Azren could hear the voice from fifty feet away, he was sure Zatar also heard the voice.
Zatar started to look back toward Azren when the third hunter in his squad was grabbed by his leg and swung into the fourth member of their squad like a bag of potatoes. The force of the blow sent the fourth member of Zatar’s squad into the tunnel wall with a SPLAT as the third member of the squad’s direction was reversed, and he was swung around in a horizontal arc until he slammed into Zatar.
Zatar’s shield shattered. As the backlash locked him up, the third hunter was released, and both Zatar and the third hunter were sent into the wall right next to where the fourth hunter hit. Azren couldn’t be sure, but it looked like both were dead. The fourth hunter of Azren’s squad pulled out a hand crossbow and fired it in the general direction of where Zatar had been attacked. A moment later, Azren understood that they weren’t hunting prey anymore. They were the prey.
The bolt was plucked from the air. A moment later, the Crossbow wielder dropped to the ground with the bolt feathers sticking up out of his torso beside his neck between the neckline of his armor and his throat. As the crossbow wielder started to drop to the ground, he was swung like a sack of potatoes into the third member of his squad.
Before Azren or the other three soldiers could react, the crossbow wielder slammed into the squad member beside him. Both flew into the wall. The two squad members directly in front of him, still unable to move because less than a second had passed, met the same fate when the one on Azren's left was swung into the hunter beside him and released into the wall. This all happened within two seconds.
Azren saw all of this and considered that he should put up a shield to protect himself. By the time that thought crossed his mind, it was too late. They had severely underestimated their target’s abilities and combat skills. All of those thoughts passed through his mind as his right ankle was yanked. The world twirled as he was brought up in an arc over the invisible inductee before Azren was slammed into the ground. He survived that first blow, which did just shy of 800 points of damage. Azren was lifted into the air again and swung down to slam into the Earth where he’d been standing a moment before. He did not survive the second blow.
You have Died!
***
Puny God played through Connor’s mind as he released the foot of the last Slaver and wiped his hands. Good riddance. Also, He couldn’t believe that worked. He’d known he couldn’t use Fang; it was too damaged. Then it came to him: he could use his targets as weapons because it didn’t matter if their durability was destroyed. Connor did have some training in Aikido and Judo. Not anywhere near a Master’s level, but when everyone was moving as if they were in slow motion to him, it was horrendously easy to use the techniques he had been taught.
Another thing that helped was that his Flight skill allowed him to anchor himself anywhere he wished, which gave him another anchor point that seemed to be governed by his will. Connor was sure picking someone up and swinging them like a bag of potatoes when they had more mass than himself shouldn’t be possible, so he didn’t think about it too hard and kept it strictly within the category of “it’s magic, baby.” Connor quickly made his way back to the landing area and found two empty boats. Both were deactivated and sitting on the landing platform that hung in the middle of the shaft. He went through both of them and found a few water skins and packages of dried food. There was also a small box of slave collars on each craft. It looked like there was enough food to feed a five-man team for up to one week on each craft. In total, there were 10 water skins on each boat that were filled with water. That should last him a bit. He tossed all of it into his Inventory.
Once he was sure both boats were empty, Connor pushed each off the landing and watched them continue their fall down the shaft. Next, he went over to the second mage he’d killed and looked at him. Damn, what a mess, Connor thought. Could he put the body in his inventory and remove its items without making a mess? No time like the present to try. Connor touched the mage and willed him into his inventory, and it worked!
Connor opened his Inventory Tab and saw that one human mage took up 40 slots. The description had said each slot could only hold five pounds and that larger items would take up a number of slots based on the weight of the object. That was fine. He quickly moved all items off of the mage into the number of slots required. Clothes, Jewelry, and a dagger only took up three slots. He wasn’t carrying anything else, though. Wait, there were new items in his inventory that hadn’t been there before.
Skill Upgrade Crystal, Uncommon (8)
Skill Upgrade Crystal, Rare (2)
Well, shit, Connor pulled one of the uncommon crystals out of his Inventory into his hand.
You have found a Skill Upgrade Crystal, Uncommon. Unlike Tutorial skill Crystals, Normal Skill Crystals can be utilized to increase any currently known skill up to the rated rank of the Crystal as long as the skill to be upgraded is one Rank lower and your Core is of the same level or higher.
Would you like to use the Skill Upgrade Crystal, Uncommon now, Yes or No?
Connor chose “Yes” and directed the upgrade toward his skill Malleable Skills.
You have upgraded the skill Malleable Skills to Uncommon Rank.
Malleable Skills
This is a skill
Skills, like Spells, are typically acquired through discovery or training.
Not for you.
An unfettered individual may focus their intent and modify their skills as needed. To acquire a new skill, you must rest and focus on the outcome you desire for one day. If the outcome you desire is possible, the SYSTEM will assign the appropriate skill to an empty skill slot. To increase the power of any skill you already possess, assign another skill slot to it. Skills may only be improved until their power is equal to your Core Rarity.
The Unfettered may learn any skills in this fashion, including those that utilize Mana or Psychic Energy.
At Uncommon Rank, you may increase the rank of any skill you have acquired up to your Core Rank, provided you have the Skill Slots available to do so. You may also reduce any skills you have down to Common Rank to recover Skill Slots at will. You may only reduce or increase a single skill’s rank during a single combat turn.
“Hell yeah! Connor exclaimed. That was precisely what he needed. He could keep a skill at Common Rank and increase it as needed. That would give him a bit of versatility if he could learn the right skills. He was about to pull out another Skill Crystal and then stopped. He had a surplus of Skill Slots right now. Also, the Skill Crystals might be worth trading if they were required to increase skill Ranks. Connor smiled and then assigned some of his unused Skill Slots.
The first skill he increased was his Inventory Skill. Three more Skill Slots increased it to Master Rank and increased the number of inventory slots to 100,000. He did some quick math. If a body took up 40 slots, he could store close to 2,500 bodies now. That should be plenty of room.
Next, he increased Eye of Eris to Rare Rank for two Skill Slots. That would increase his range of perception to 1,000 feet. He couldn’t go further than that; his attributes were too low to take the strain, but 1,000 feet should give him enough of a warning if anyone came within range.
The last skill he increased for now was Dodge. He used four Skill Slots to increase Dodge to Master Rank. The ability to dodge up to five attacks per hour at no stamina cost was just too nice to pass up. That could come in really handy if he ran into situations like his current status.
Connor double-checked his HUD. Yep, he’d spent 3,250 of his 3,704 Stamina to make 14 attacks within the same Combat Turn. He’d only used four actions during the first Combat Turn, which cost 100 stamina. His Stamina regeneration replaced the stamina before the end of the Combat Turn. At the end of the second Combat Turn, he had just over 400 stamina left and was a bit out of breath. He was regenerating 145 Stamina per turn, so he should be fine.
Before he’d seen that there were ten of them, he’d planned to take things nice and slow and not drain his stamina. That plan went out the window when he saw the two slavers who looked like mages and knew that the only way he could win would be to flee or take them all out at once.
His epiphany that he could use his targets as weapons to kill other targets also made things much easier. He hadn’t had time to appreciate the irony of what he did because it was so outlandish, but it had worked, and now he had 10 corpses to loot, which he did.
With his Inventory Upgraded, he had plenty of space to store the other nine corpses. He put them into his inventory, and while he walked back to the entrance where the waterfall was, he removed all of their belongings and set them aside within his Inventory. Then, he looked for a way to automate the process, which was as simple as making his desire known. A moment later, he had 10 bodies in their skivvies in his Inventory. All of their gear and equipment was separated and sorted within other slots with his inventory.
Longsword, 8
Shortsword, 8
Rings, 5
Leather Boots, 7
Leather Boots*, 1
Leather Armor, 8
Robe*, 1
Robe*, 1
Crossbow, with shoulder strap, 4
Quiver, 20 Bolts, 4
Short Bow, 4
Quiver, 20 Arrows, 4
Small Backpacks, 8
Clothes, Various Sizes, 8 sets.
Lockpicks, 3 sets
One thing Connor noticed that he thought was weird, there was nothing that looked like money on any of them. Also, the * indicated that the item was in some way different than the other items that had been found. Did that mean they were magical? What he wouldn’t give for a Tutorial Crystal. He needed to pick up that Analyze skill.
As he thought about what he’d found, Connor made his way back to the platform in the Vertical Shaft. When Connor was back at the edge of the landing and looking down the vertical shaft, he held out his hand and summoned the first corpse in front of his hand. It appeared and fell into the shaft. Soon, it was lost to darkness below. He did that nine more times and then walked back to the two double doors he’d found. Luckily, he’d found a set of lock picks in the gear, and he’d recovered. When he came back with the range of the double doors, he discovered that the upgraded version of Eyes of Eris allowed him to perceive everything within 1,000 feet as if he was looking at the world with X-ray vision, though it was a little bit more nuanced. He could choose to see things as solid if he wished to but could still perceive everything behind a wall if he made the wall visible. It was weird to know what was there without being able to see it.
When he reached the double door, he found that the locking mechanism was in the wall beside it. He could pick the lock, which was very easy when he could see the tumblers within it. He summoned a set of lockpicks he’d just looted off one of the corpses and went to work on the keylock. With the ability to see the tumblers, it was simple to unlock. He already knew what was on the other side of the doors, but it was still nice to see when he opened the doors. He’d stumbled onto someone’s secret hidden lair.
Connor stepped into a room that reminded him of the entryway at a museum. While not extremely large, only fifty feet square, everything within was exquisite and expensive. There was gold and silver trim everywhere. In the center of the entry room was a waterfall that fell into a pool. The water came from a catch in the ceiling above and drained down a pipe that led back to the vertical shaft. Two corridors exited the room on the other side of the pool. With Eyes of Eris, he could see that the hall to the right led to a small dining area that could seat six people comfortably with a small kitchen behind it and some storage areas for food which looked to be stocked.
The left-hand passage exited into a room with cushions along the floor and a raised dais with what looked like a gas fireplace, yet there were gas lines, so it was probably lit with magical fire. That room exited into an area that was obviously a lavatory of a design he was unfamiliar with and a bedroom with a large round mattress that would put anything on earth to shame. It also had a few furnaces of a small design. The bed had to be at least 20 feet in diameter. The bed was also covered with a good amount of pillows.
Connor looked around for a moment before he called out, “Hello?”
He waited for a few minutes just in case someone was taking their time to answer. When he heard nothing after a few minutes, he allowed the door to close behind him and locked it before he made his way into the kitchen to see what kind of food the owner had. There were various dishes with fruits laid out on the counters and even a cold box where various portions of meat and drinks were kept chilled, but nothing that looked like it was from a technological era, so it was probably not from Earth.
As he continued to look around the secret lair of whoever owned this place, he considered his next actions. He could continue down the vertical shaft into the next area, or he could rest here long enough to try to create a skill that would allow him to fly faster. He needed some type of force shielding so that the friction of flying quickly could be ignored. Creating such a skill would allow him to travel quicker and evade the Slavers for the full month. With the upgrade to Malleable Skills, he’d even be able to keep both Flight and the new skill at Common Rank unless he needed to move a lot quicker.
With Stealth and the ability to fly fast, he should be able to keep ahead of any more Slavers that came looking for him. Yeah, he was going to stay here long enough to rest and create that new skill. Connor made his way to the bedroom and lay down on the ground on the other side of the bed from the entrance into the bedroom; that way, if someone came into the room, he’d have a chance to wake up. He closed his eyes and quickly fell into a dreamless sleep. Unknown to Connor, Eyes of Eris remained active the entire time he was unconscious and would awaken him as soon as someone appeared within range which he learned about the skill while sleeping for the first time.
***
Morena looked at the notifications again. Zatar, Azren, and Delan were all dead. More importantly, the 12 members of the three squads that had been assigned to them, as well as their skimmers, were all missing. Worse yet, He hadn’t finished his quest.
“Zimmer!” she called out.
A moment later, a small gnome dressed in simple leather armor teleported into the room ten feet in front of her, “Yes, Mistress.”
“What do you know of the disappearance of three of my Hunter Squads?”
“The three squads in question were left in the Tutorial area to hunt down the last inductee.”
“Why wasn’t I informed?”
“Your standing orders require three squads to be sent out to support one another when less than 20 inductees are missed during the initial round-up; there was only one inductee, Mistress,” Zimmer said hesitantly.
“So I have,” Morena stated as she tapped her finger on her chin, “because in the last 10 Tutorials, we have never needed more than that to deal with individuals new to the SYSTEM. Today, we have discovered one human who can activate stealth and not be detected, and now three of our most promising mages are dead. Are the fates testing us, Zimmer?”
“No, Mistre…”
“It was a rhetorical question. The Fates are always testing us, Zimmer,” Morena said as she cut him off. “How long before we can open a portal to that Tutorial Domain again?”
“We can open the portal at any time; the SYSTEM will charge us, of course,” Zimmer said.
“Understood. Get six squads this time, and pay this expense out of my personal account. They are to hunt down capture if possible, but definitely kill the individual that has become a nuisance for us.
“Yes, Mistress,” Zimmer said as he teleported to the staging area. He let loose a very specific whistle, which drew activity in the clearing to a stop. Once he was sure everyone was looking at him, he continued, “We have new orders. I need six of our best Hunter Squads to head back into the Tutorial Dimension. Who wants to earn a bonus?”