Adam watched the Crystal change from clear to crimson red and knew someone in charge wasn’t happy. Unlike Alice in the zombie-destroying corridor, ribbons of red energy with gaps in them didn’t start at one end of the room and work their way across the room. No, these assholes took that idea and multiplied it by 1,000.
For Adam, as the crystal changed color the world slowed down to a crawl. While Adam might not have been part machine anymore his mentality was still acting as if it were an array. Suddenly, he found he had plenty of time to analyze what was happening, which was a good thing because prompts had just started flooding his vision.
INTEGRATION COMPLETE!
Ability Interface now functioning at 100% with local Universe.
WARNING! You are being affected by a quantum-scrambling magical array
WARNING! All physical matter and magic that comes into contact with the array will be reduced to pure energy. This cubed array will shrink to a pinpoint in approximately 5 seconds
Adam considered the messages for a moment then tried to reduce himself to the size of a particle to take on the identity of ‘Nothing’ as that had worked before.
Warning! Ability activation unrecognized!
What? Adam quickly pulled up his Personal Information and looked over the information quickly. All of his attributes were still designated as Legendary so that hadn’t changed. Next, he reviewed his abilities to see if any changes had happened.
Perfect Memory” - Like Photographic Memory except for all five senses with an automatic recall of desired information.
No change there.
“Interface” – >>>Integration Complete<<< Interface has adapted to local conditions and connected to governing >ERROR<. Abilities have been modified and adjusted from existence within an energy matrix to the physical world. Personal Interface and Message Prompts will work as you are accustomed to.
And there it is, Adam thought, as he turned his attention back to his ability information. How much more was modified by his move into this Universe?
“Convergence” has been modified to “Astral Link” The very nature of your soul is Chaos. You are permanently linked to the Astral Plane. This permanent link automatically starts your mana regeneration at “High”
“Chaos Incarnate” – Your race has been permanently changed to Chaos Incarnate, default Human.
“Chaotic Core” has been modified to “Quintessence Chameleon.” You have an affinity with every Quintessence. As normal, you may activate a number of quintessence as determined by your Wisdom attribute and Cultivation Rank. Unlike normal cultivators who can not change their quintessence once activated, you may choose to reset your Quintessence channels and open new ones, provided you have the new Quintessence to do so. Note: Resetting quintessence channels returns you to the state of a Class M-Cultivator with no active quintessence channels.
“Immortal” – As a being with a Chaotic Core you are Immortal. Should you be ‘killed’ your soul is transferred through the Astral Plane to the nearest quintessence conduit, manifestation or node.
“Adaptable” – Modified. Your body adapts to any natural environment. Specific element-based quintessence will allow you to adapt to elementally active environments. Natural Environments are considered to be environments that are -100 degrees Fahrenheit to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Additionally, you can survive in airless or toxic gaseous environments. Corrosive environments will still affect you. This ability can be upgraded with Quintessence.
“Resistant” has been removed, Various quintessence will improve and weaken magical resistances.
“Chaos Storage” has been removed; Dimensional Quintessence must be present for dimensional storage-related powers to be utilized. All contents have been released into the Void.
“Chaos Step” has been removed. Dimensional and Movement-based Quintessence must be present for dimensional powers to be utilized.
“Chaos Shape” has been removed. Creation Quintessence must be present for conjuration-type powers to be utilized.
Adam looked over the changes. Well, at least one question had been answered, he was in a physical universe and not some holographic universe that mimicked reality. Also, there was an Astral Plane, which looked like he was about to visit firsthand. Unfortunately, everything he just reviewed meant that there was no way for him to survive this scrambling array wave.
Adam concentrated on the energy that had already reached his knees and noted that Cozbi and Dave were falling into the energy while he seemed to not be affected by gravity. He considered the problem for a moment then realized that while the energy barrier was vaporizing his body as it came into contact with him his body was also resting on the energy barrier just long enough that it appeared as if his body was still standing on the energy barrier that was quickly moving its way up his body.
Adam considered everything he’d learned since coming here. He’d seen the concept of cultivation and cultivators in various fictional books he’d read back in college, man that was a long time ago. He’d also seen the idea of Quintessence unlocking magical abilities in one of his favorite series from that time. Obviously, his nature hadn’t changed so he really had been exposed to Chaos inside SYSTEM Matrix 001. While it didn’t look like he had all of his abilities or benefits some of them were still around and the ability to be reborn seemed to be a good one. As did the ability to reset whatever magical abilities he activated. So, he’d have to rely on his high attributes to hold him over until he figured out how magical abilities worked and what he wanted to do. If he messed up, it looked like he could reset the clock.
It was also going to take a little longer to figure out a way to get Adaline and Pandora back. If magic didn’t work like he was used to here, he might not be able to create a bridge. Of course, if anything he’d seen so far was true it was that the Universe keep changing and the way magic worked here might not be the way magic worked everywhere.
Finally, he was going to have to shut down that battery plant and destroy everyone involved with that atrocity. Eventually, they’d happen upon the universes that contained the SYSTEM Matrixes He didn’t have Karmic Luck to fall back on but his Luck attribute was Legendary, maybe that would help. Though, losing everything he’d stored to the void was a bit unlucky so maybe luck didn’t work here as it did before.
Adam looked at the Crystal and sighed as the energy wave made it to his neck, and then quickly erased the rest of his head as if it had never been there. Unlike his time as a particle of Chaos, he had no sense of time or movement until he felt himself come to, lying on some grass completely nude. He knew he was nude because he could feel grass reaching into places grass had no business touching.
He quickly rose to his feet and noted that he was in a small glade surrounded by trees including a giant tree next to him that stood at least a hundred feet into the sky.
“Hold!” a male voice called out in elven as Adam finally took the time to look around himself and see over 50 elvish warriors, with bows drawn and ready to put their arrows into him.
Adam slowly raised his hands as he said, “Um sorry, my mistake!” in elvish.
“Mistake? There was no mistake, you reincarnated in front of the Mother Tree of the Kaljaharsi. If there is a mistake it is that you are a human,” the elven male who’d told the other elves to hold said.
Before Adam could say another word a male elf stepped forward with a brown robe and offered it to Adam. Adam looked to the elf that had spoken until the elf nodded as all the guards stowed their bows and all but 10 faded from sight. Damn, he was going to miss his True Sight spell. Adam accepted the robe, slipping into it quickly. Once he had clothes on Adam looked around and noted that only the leader and the ten guards were present.
“I am Elorotheal, Lord Protector of the Mother Tree. Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?” The elf asked as he stepped forward.
Adam changed his composure and took a more formal stance as he said, “I am Adamantadine, though my friends call me Adam. I thank you for the courtesy and hospitality Lord Protector.”
“If I may inquire, I note that you are a mortal. Are you a new soul, one that has never been born here before? Or, are you the product of a magical ability that allowed you to reincarnate or resurrect?” The Lord Protector asked.
Adam didn’t feel anything but general curiosity from the elf, so he answered honestly, “Technically, I am both. I am from elsewhere and one of my abilities has allowed me to reincarnate here?”
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“You have magical abilities as a Class M Cultivator?” The Lord Protector asked.
“I wouldn’t say that it’s a magical ability. I would categorize it as a race-based ability,” Adam said.
` “Ah. Do you have the ability to utilize magic then?” The Lord Protector asked.
“Now, no. I do believe I will be able to though,” Adam said.
“That is unsurprising as you just reincarnated. Some retain their abilities, while others must relearn them. If you’d follow me,” The Lord Protector said as he started walking away from the Mother Tree.
Adam followed and within moments he was surprised to find that he could not find the mother Tree anywhere.
“Do not be alarmed, I have utilized a travel ability to increase our pace to bring you to our city which is almost a day’s walk from the Mother Tree. For the next part of our discussion, I thought sitting down for a meal and some wine would go well,” he said.
Adam looked around noticing that there were buildings around him now but his mind must have been playing tricks on him because as his vision passed over the buildings they blended back into the forest.
“Welcome to Tree Haven, the Capital of the Kaljaharsi,” the Lord Protector said as he lead Adam toward the trunk of a giant tree that had a set of double doors in its base and still had plenty of trunk to either side. “This tree is the headquarters of our defense force.”
“That is a really tall tree,” Adam commented appreciatively.
“Yes, well it’s over 1,500 feet high, though it’s not the tallest tree in the area. Ironically the Mother Tree is actually shorter than most of the trees that surround her,” He said.
“You just referred to the Mother Tree as her, is she sentient then?” Adam asked.
“Yes, and no.” Only those with certain magical abilities can speak with her. It’ll be a little while before she is old enough to speak to everyone,”
“She’s young? I would have thought that she’d be quite old as the size of this city indicates she’s been your Mother Tree for a very long time.”
“No, she is but a year old. Our true mother tree was lost just over 1 year ago. It’s one of the reasons I asked you to follow me in here?”
“Really? What would you like me to do?” Adam asked.
“We noticed that you do not have much in the way of resources when you reappeared. Also, as a Class M Cultivator, you do not have access to the resources you need to unlock your magical abilities if you can. We need every warrior we can get to fend off an army of Gnolls, a dog-like humanoid species, that has brought war to the forest,” he said when he saw that Adam was about to ask a question he continued, We’ll need to perform a few tests to see where you would best fit in with our forces. Once you’ve taken those tests I’ll be able to make a more intelligent decision concerning your placement.”
“That sounds okay,” Adam said.
“What kind of weapons can you utilize? The Lord Protector asked.
“Here? I don’t know. Where I came from I was proficient in just about every weapon you could think of, including bows and crossbows,” Adam said.
An elf that had walked up while the Lord Protector and Adam had been talking looked at Adam before he jested, “A human that’s proficient with a bow, I’d pay to see that?”
“And you are?” Adam asked.
“I am First Archer Baelor,” Baelor said.
“I should be able to use any bow you have,” Adam said firmly.
“Truly, any Bow?” Baelor said with obvious disbelief.
The Lord Protector reached out to his side and an exquisitely crafted black ebony wood longbow appeared in his hand. The Lord Protector turned down a hall as Adam and the First Archer followed. The First Protector stepped into a courtyard that was inside the base of the tree. Twenty feet away targets were placed haphazardly around the other side of the room. The Lord Protector turned to Adam. This is Dark Heart, an Artifact of my people that was created with the sole purpose of snuffing out the life of those she strikes in one shot. Any arrow loosed by this bow is imbued with a Darkness-based poison that quickly spreads through a body doing Epic-level damage in addition to strength-based physical damage. As the bow is set to Legendary Strength only those with Legendary Strength may use the bow,” The Lord Protector said as he held the bow out to Adam.
Adam accepted the bow. Immediately a message prompt appeared,
Congratulations! you have discovered Dark Heart, A Relic of ages past. Minimum Strength required: Legendary. The number of attacks per second is limited by Agility and Stamina as normal. Damage: Physical, Arrow based, maximum Legendary. Additionally, arrows may be imbued. Imbued arrows inflict Magical, High (Dark) to the health node struck and adjacent health nodes. High mana is required to utilize magical attack. Arrows may be fired without being imbued.
Adam minimized the prompt and picked up a quiver from a table nearby. He considered how to proceed and then decided he needed to figure out how combat, rounds, and timing worked. Allowing himself to fall into muscle memory. Adam quickly fired every arrow from the quiver then dropped the empty quiver to replace it with a full one before firing the next 20 arrows. He repeated this three more times for a total of 100 arrows fired. When he was done and allowed his senses to return to his surroundings he saw the Lord Protector and the First Archer looking at him like they couldn’t believe what they just witnessed.
Confused, because Adam hadn’t thought he was going all that quickly, Adam opened his combat log and reviewed it. The log was pretty bare, with only stamina consumption and replenishment listed. Then he looked at the time stamp and started reviewing the stats again. He’d fired 100 arrows in 10 seconds. It looked like he’d fired 20 arrows per second. He’d fired for one second, reloaded for a second then fired for another second, repeating the process for 10 seconds.
As he dug into the messages further he released that he’d almost used up all of his legendary stamina which had refilled immediately. It looked like 21 attacks was about the limit of what his stamina could handle. That’s when he made a startling discovery. If he’d been a mortal with Low Strength he might have been able to get off three arrows in a second based on his stamina. But Agility also played a factor as well. The number of arrows one could fire per second was directly related to their agility attribute, though how exactly was a bit elusive. For him, it looked like if he’d fired a 21st arrow per second he’d have run out of stamina.
“I don’t even see the arrows.” The first Archer said
“It’s a Relic, the arrows went through the target. They’re probably in the sandbags behind,” The Lord protector said as he walked over to inspect one of the targets. Twenty targets had an “X” pattern in the center of them. One arrow in the center and one at each spoke. “Adam, why did you make an “X”
“I didn’t want to destroy the arrows. They should be in the sandbags,” Adam said as he pulled one of the sandbags free and pulled five arrows out.
“Are you saying you could have put an arrow in the center every time?” The first arrow asked.
“I’m saying that the arrows hit the targets exactly where I wanted them to,” Adam said.
“That’s…”
“What is your Archery skill?” The Lord Protector asked cutting off the First Archer.
“Let me check, I’ve never utilized a skill menu before,” Adam said as he pulled it up and then saw the messages he’d received.
“When I started my Archery skill it was at Low. Now it’s at Medium,” Adam said.
“And you said you can utilize melee weapons?” The Lord Protector asked.
“Yes,” Adam responded.
The Lord Protector held out his hand and Adam handed him the bow which disappeared into his spatial bag or holding ability, “Please follow me,” The Lord Protector said as he led them down a hallway to a sparing area.
“Zanger, front and center,” The Lord Protector called to a male elf. As the elf hurried over the Lord Protector said,” You did say you’re versed in hand-to-hand combat?”
“I am,”
“Show me. Zanger try to grapple with Adam and put him on the ground,” The Lord Protector said.
“Yes Sir! If the esteemed guest would join me on the grass,” Zanger called to Adam.
Adam stepped onto the grass, which seemed to cushion the area, and approached Zanger. When he was about seven feet away Zanger bowed, which Adam returned, then started.
Over the next couple of minutes, Zanger tried every trick he could to grapple Adam into submission to no avail. Adam quickly noticed that it had nothing to do with skill, he could see that Zanger was very skilled. Instead, it seemed that the term Legendary in his attributes truly made a difference as he very easily overpowered every grapple tried or simply moved out of the way. He almost felt like Neo, from the Matrix, which is technically what he’d been, now that he thought about it. As he grappled with Zanger he realized that this level of power wasn’t what he was used to, but he still seemed to have an incredible advantage.
The Lord Protector raised his hand and Zanger immediately withdrew. The Lord Protector turned to Adam as he asked, “How did you beat Zanger?”
“I’m not exactly sure at this point, I’ve checked my skills and my grappling skill is at Low while I am pretty sure Zanger is at Medium or High. I believe my attributes are compensating somewhat,” Adam said.
“Truly,” The Lord Protector said before he asked, “What are your attributes in Strength and Agility?”
“All of my attributes are at Legendary”
“What?” The First Archer exclaimed
“How?” Zanger said
The Lord Protector only nodded and pulled out a dagger from his belt, “If what you say is true there are a lot of secondary attributes that most of us can’t see that are affected by such high attributes. This is a normal dagger, may I cut your palm with it?”
Adam was curious about how damage to the body worked in this world as well and held out his hand, “I guess that would be fine,” Adam said.
The Lord Protector stepped forward as Adam held out his hand and drew the blade across his left palm. The blade drew a thin red line that seemed to close as soon as it was made. Not even a drop of blood escaped. That’s not what excited Adam. In Adams’s interface, two body outlines appeared side by side. The one on the left had arms and legs while the one on the right only had the torso. Every major organ had a box. As he looked at the diagram it looked a lot like the ship sheets for Star Fleet Battles where damage was indicated by boxes by section. His sections were Head, Torso, Arms, and Legs. With an additional diagram for his back. While the Lord Protector had been using his dagger on his left palm, the box for that location on his body had flickered for a bit.
“You do have very high attributes,” The Lord Protector said interrupting his thoughts.
“My damage chart, I think that’s what it’s called, just popped up, What does it represent?”
“Are you asking what each box represents or are you asking how much damage a filled box represents?”
“A filled box,” Adam said.
“The damage you just took should at most have caused the box that represents your hand to flicker. If you were a normal person with normal attributes, in this case, Low, one cut would have filled up one of your boxes by a third. Three strikes would have made your hand useless. I do not know how many strikes it would take to damage a legendary box on your health scale but I do know that it takes over 20 Low-level strikes to fill up one box for damage,” The Lord protector said.
“Do skill level and attribute level synergize?” Adam asked.
“Yes, but there is also another factor. Weapons cannot do more than three times their rated damage. For instance, I have a sword that does High damage. If you truly have legendary attributes you would still only be able to perform Mythic level strikes with my sword. It’s also why you didn’t shatter the arrows before. Even with your Legendary ability and a Legendary bow, normal arrows could only do High damage.”
Adam thought about what the Lord Protector said then considered all the various damage systems in all the various games he’d ever played. This seems a lot like the Shadowrun damage system where different types of attacks had a different value for the damage done. A light attack did one box of damage, a medium attack did three boxes of damage and a heavy attack did six boxes worth of damage whereas the damage track only had ten boxes. It looked like the health and damage system here was an abstract system but there were numbers involved, even if the users couldn’t see it in the interface. Adam thought for a few more minutes then said, “So for the most part three attacks of the same level will affect a health node of a creature, and one attack from one level higher will take out one box of a level lower?” Adam asked.
“Yes,” The Lord Protector agreed.
“So if a critical box is hit and destroyed?” Adam asked.
“If you destroy the box representing the brain the creature dies, and the same for the heart. Other boxes simply cripple them. Some creatures like blobs and slimes do not have critical locations to strike and you’ll just need to do enough damage to all the boxes to destroy it,” The Lord Protector said.
“If I truly have Legendary attributes are you saying that I’m unkillable?” Adam asked.
All three men Adam was talking to laughed, “Of course not Zanger said. Skill and attributes can make attacks more deadly. Also, magical abilities and magical items can stack damage levels increasing their effect as well. As I said my sword starts its damage at High. I have a skill of High with the sword and my attribute is considered high. If I use my sword I strike as if the item were Epic.” He said.
“Do all three have to be the same level to stack,” Adam asked.
“The first determiner of damage level for the attack is the item or ability. Then the skill and finally the attribute. If someone had a low-ranked dagger but a medium skill and attribute they would do a strike that was worth 3 strikes worth of medium damage. If they had a medium-ranked dagger, skill, and attribute they would do one strike worth of high-level damage per strike. If they were using my high-ranked sword with medium skill and attribute they would do one strike’s worth of high damage. Of course, one strike in the right area could end the fight if you can destroy that box in a single blow. It’s kind of confusing I know but a simple rule of thumb is that it will take three strikes of the same level as the defense to break it,” The Lord Protector said.
“It looks like I have a lot to learn in this new world. If I wasn’t mistaken you were about to be attacked. I’m more of a figure-it-out-as-I-go type of person. Show me what to fight and I’ll get to work,” Adam said.
“You do not wish to negotiate terms or payment?” The Lord Protector asked.
“It would seem that fate has brought me here for a reason, I do not charge money to help good people. I would ask that I get to take some of the loot off those we repel so that I can start equipping myself here though,” Adam said.
“Acceptable. If it is all right with you, I’d like to place you in the infantry, I would like to see how you fight without restraint,” The Lord Protector said.
“Without Restraint? Oh, I can absolutely do without restraint,” Adam said as he started to grin, ear-to-ear.