There were two problems with using hairspray as a weapon. First, unlike on TV, hairspray flowed freely when the bottle was full, the nozzle on tight. But if the spray had already been used, or if the nozzle wasn’t air-tight, liquid could drip down someone’s hand at the same time it sprayed a mist of chemicals.
Now, Logan wasn’t one of those guys who spent an hour in front of a mirror styling their hair, but he’d helped his nieces during Halloween with their makeup and hair. One time, Sawyer, his youngest niece, dressed up like a zombie and had him spike her hair with hairspray. A lot of hairspray. So, he had experience.
A leaking bottle wasn’t a big deal, but when you lit those chemicals on fire, you quickly had a hazard on your hands.
And Logan meant literally—there was a hazard of fire on his hands.
“OH FUCK,” Logan shouted as his fingers burned. That was his good hand, too!
[Idiot’s Paradox is Level 10!]
But there was no other solution. He couldn’t drop the bottle or let the fire out. It was his only weapon.
Grimacing in pain, Logan kept his finger on the nozzle, holding it down as a stream of fire flowed over the ants, the hissing sound of chemicals mixing with tree sap to create a soup of noxious fumes.
Ding!
[You have defeated a Level One Bark Ant!]
[You have defeated a Level Two Bark Ant!]
[You have defeated a Level Two Bark Ant!]
[You have defeated a Level One Bark Ant!]
[You have defeated a Level Two Bark Ant!]
[You have defeated a Level One Bark Ant!]
[You have defeated a Level One Bark Ant!]
Logan fried each ant like roasting a bundle of twigs. As soon as he sprayed them with the hairspray, they lit up, tree sap acting like an accelerant. Not catching on that they were marching to their deaths, the bark ants kept charging at him even as he fried each one like ants in a fire-production line.
Ding!
[You have leveled up!]
And they kept coming, pouring from the hollow, the amount streaming out impossible for the space. Soon, Logan realized that the whole tree was hollow, filled with nothing but ant after ant, hundreds of them.
Worried that he’d run out of hairspray, Logan angled his fire spray to cover ten in a row, roasting them alive.
And they kept coming, more and more, unending.
Ding!
[You have defeated a Level One Bark Ant!]
[You have defeated a Level Two Bark Ant!]
[You have defeated a Level Two Bark Ant!]
[You have defeated a Level One Bark Ant!]
[You have leveled up!]
Logan pushed away the feeling of euphoria, screaming, “Fry, motherfuckers!” and then finally resorted to spraying the whole tree with fire as his hairspray can sputtered and died.
Ants continued pouring out of the hollow, but the fire spread up the trunk as quickly as it fried the bark ants. Soon, the whole thing was on fire, pine needles sparking, an explosion of heat and fire engulfing the tree.
System Ding! after System Ding! sounded in his mind as bark ants roasted alive inside the tree.
[You have leveled up!]
[You have defeated a Level One Bark Ant!]
[You have defeated a Level Two Bark Ant!]
[You have defeated a Level Two Bark Ant!]
[You have defeated a Level One Bark Ant!]
[You have received the title, Mass Murderer! Just like a serial killer, you revel in mass killing, slaughtering over 100 beings in less than ten minutes. 20 bonus attribute points awarded! This achievement results in a 10% KarmaCoin penalty to all carbon-reduction activities. What, you thought there would be no consequences for lighting a tree on fire?]
Finally, the fire sputtered and died, the insides of the empty tree trunk still smoking. Logan collapsed to the ground, gasping and disbelieving as ash fell around him.
With the contamination of a few ants, his [Life Cycle Master] skill had created over a hundred monsters. No wonder he’d depleted his whole Karma pool; no wonder the System rated the skill ‘epic.’ Holy shit, what could he do with this thing once he upgraded his Karma pool?
He wasn’t thrilled with the new title. In what world did an ant killer translate into a ‘mass murderer’? He was even less thrilled about the KarmaCoin reduction. That meant he’d have to work ten percent harder for the same amount of money. At least the title had a reward. Extra attribute points could come in handy right now.
Logan glanced down at his hand and winced. People shouldn’t let him out in public. He had a missing toe, a missing finger, and scorched fingers on his other hand. Even with [Idiot’s Paradox] reducing his pain by ten percent, the agony was immense.
During the battle, he’d leveled up three times. With the extra twenty points from the title, that meant he had thirty-five free attribute points. That amount seemed immense.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Logan pulled up his stat sheet and focused on his attributes:
Intelligence: 45
Constitution: 26
Strength: 25
Agility: 17
Dexterity: 14
Endurance: 15
Perception: 17
Wisdom: 30
Luck: 35
He was tempted to throw all thirty-five points into his constitution to heal his burns in one go, but that was short-sighted. Strength, agility, endurance, and dexterity would keep naturally evolving each day if he continued his cheat exercises, so those were a lesser priority. Plus, he hadn’t encountered anything lately that was stronger than him.
That left his remaining physical stats: constitution and perception. For perception, he still cursed that he hadn’t found a way to increase it with a daily cheat method. Logan made the changes.
[Perception: 18]
[Perception: +]
[Perception: 20]
Logan’s eyes grew wide, his senses opening up like popping a balloon. He could hear farther, his senses becoming more acute.
As far as constitution, even though he’d decided against putting all of his free points into it, he could still make changes. Logan was a fan of tidy, even numbers, and the twenty-six rubbed him wrong, sticking out like a sore thumb. That decided it.
[Constitution: 27]
[Constitution: +]
[Constitution: 30]
He added four points to constitution, making it an even thirty. As soon as he confirmed the change, a surge of energy rushed through Logan, the vitamin shot of the upgrade making him feel as if he’d had ten hours of sleep. The pain in his hand lessened to a dull ache, the burn not as severe. It was still there, but now he could move his fingers without feeling as if he’d touched a hot poker.
His next priority was increasing his Karma pool and Karma generation rate. Wisdom was at thirty points, which meant he generated thirty Karma a minute. He could make that an even forty instead. As for his Karma pool, each additional intelligence point converted to an additional six Karma points. If he added ten points to intelligence, he’d upgrade his Karma pool from 270 to 330.
[Wisdom: 31]
[Wisdom: +]
[Wisdom: 40]
[Intelligence: 46]
[Intelligence: +]
[Intelligence: 55]
That still left eight free attribute points.
Logan started with his last lagging stat, raising dexterity to an even number:
[Dexterity: 15]
[Dexterity: +]
[Dexterity: 20]
With the two remaining free points, he threw them into endurance. Even though it was one of the stats he could upgrade daily with his cheat method, it was falling behind. Endurance wasn’t a stat that should lag.
[Endurance: 16]
[Endurance: +]
[Endurance: 17]
Each upgrade made the world open up. He still hadn’t gotten used to the feeling of euphoria that surged through him after each level increase. Throw in an upgrade to almost every stat, and he felt ready to take on the world.
After so many changes, Logan felt the need to review his full stat sheet in detail:
Name: Logan Hart [Hidden Name: Idiot]
Rank: 99,042 out of 7,219,812,913
Level: 13
Class: None
Grade: F1
Species: Human
Skills:
* Deepwater Idiot Lv. 1
* Idiot’s Paradox Lv. 10
* Idiot’s Inspect Lv. 2
* Life Cycle Master*
Titles:
* Eager Beaver
* Mass Murderer
XP Progress: 10,800/26,000
Karma: 330/330
Intelligence: 55
Constitution: 30
Strength: 25
Agility: 17
Dexterity: 20
Endurance: 17
Perception: 20
Wisdom: 40
Luck: 35
Free Attribute Points: 0
KarmaCoin: 35
The first change he noticed was his ranking. It had gone up again, back into the five digits. Logan felt a rush of pride as he reviewed how far he’d come. He’d only gotten to level 13 through blood, sweat, and missing appendages. And there was no rest, not if he wanted to get to Lara. He needed to grow enough trees to raise enough for the length of rope, and this time, preferably without bark ants.
Surprisingly, he must have earned KarmaCoin from the mutant tree, even after burning it to the ground. With 35 KarmaCoin, that meant he needed to raise an additional 185 KarmaCoin to afford the length of rope.
Logan got to work.
***
Logan had been super cautious to start, parsing out everything around him, even removing a few earthworms from the immediate area before he launched [Life Cycle Master]. The first tree took forever, but he finally had it. An immense tree. Of the tree variety. No contamination to be found.
He’d grown it so high that he had to crane his neck to see the top.
Logan had done that.
Him.
But after growing over twenty trees, Logan’s awe lost its lustre. There were only so many times he could stare at a towering tree and feel connected to earth before one tree began to blur into the other.
As his latest tree creaked and rustled in its new home, he reviewed his KarmaCoin tally for hopefully the last time today.
230 KarmaCoin.
Finally! That was enough to return to the tree fridge. Logan left his new forest behind as he navigated back to the shoreline. His family’s cabin had always had sporadic trees around it, but now it was surrounded by over twenty immense pine trees. So large they could even be considered old growth. If only his grandfather could see the property now.
Once Logan approached the willow, he slotted his hand into the lodestone and navigated to the weapons menu.
[F GRADE WEAPON MENU:
1 length of rope: 200 KarmaCoin
1 paperclip: 400 KarmaCoin
1 ballpoint pen: 800 KarmaCoin
1 large fork: 1000 KarmaCoin
*unlock further options at higher grades]
With only 230 KarmaCoin, he had enough for the length of rope with ten coins to spare. For a minute, he debated not spending it until he’d managed to raise more, but if he left, who knew when he’d return to the tree fridge? It’s not as if he could store the willow tree in…
In his spatial collar?
Hold on! Logan glanced down at the collar around his throat. If it could store a supply room, why not a tree? Excited, Logan removed his palm from the lodestone and backed up until he had the full tree in view. Then like flipping a switch, he willed the tree into the collar.
[Error! You cannot store Mythical beings inside spatial storage devices!]
Ah, man. So much for that idea. Still, he’d learned something new. He had no idea what a mythical being was, but it sure sounded good. This fridge of his was proving increasingly valuable.
Logan returned to the lodestone and pulled up the menu again. "I’d like to purchase the rope,” he said, staring up at the canopy of leaves.
[Please confirm purchase of (1 length of rope) at a cost of 200 KarmaCoin plus a 10% processing fee.]
[Yes.]
[No.]
Logan concentrated on the [Yes] in front of his eyes. Underneath his hand, the lodestone grew warm, light flashing like an x-ray as it scanned his palm, followed by a rush of cold.
[….Confirmed. Enjoy, Idiot.]
Logan turned around and looked down at his feet. Just like the bean seeds, the tree had deposited his purchase on the ground. At first, he peered around, expecting something more. But no, the thing at his feet really was his purchase.
It was a frayed, woollen length of rope, about six feet in length. Brown in color, it looked old, like something you’d find in an archeological dig site.
It looked like rope.
Logan groaned in exasperation. Had all that work been for nothing? He wouldn’t put it past the System to entice him with good shit just so he’d work twice as hard for a crappy reward.
He used [Idiot’s Inspect] to make sure he wasn’t missing anything.
[A Cursed Length of Rope. C Grade. This rope’s fibres secrete acid that eats organic flesh. It will bond to its wielder. Beware. It has a mind of its own.]