It took Adam 14 more stops over the next 14 hours until he came to a landing at Whyte Islet Northwest of Vancouver. It was 11:10 p.m. Local on June 2nd. As he’d flown in low over the water he’d seen some lights off toward the city across Burrard Inlet but at least they appeared to either be torches or some form of magical spell perhaps. The electricity was off and as far as he could tell from the beach he came to land on, the area was clear. As he came in for his landing he spent the 100 mana and transformed into his human form with his jeans and t-shirt on.
His night vision was fantastic, and he had no issues navigating the beach up to Dufferin Ave. There were houses on each side of the street as he made his way northeast. At the 4th house on the right, he entered the driveway and followed back and then made his way out the backyard and up the hill about 100 feet to Marine Drive, the road that would take him into Vancouver.
As he made his way down Marine Drive Adam didn’t see any signs of activity, but he did see signs that people had been in the area. Some houses had been broken into and there were blood stains on the ground where it was obvious a predator of some kind had come by and snatched the bodies up. Some of the blood stains appeared to be from bodies that had been drug off behind the homes. Adam caught a scent that reminded him of dogs. The scent grew stronger as he made his way east.
As Adam made his way into a small roundabout where Marine Drive intersected Rosebery Avenue and Nelson Avenue he noticed a lot of blood stains in the area and heard a low growl coming from Tantalus Park on the east side of the roundabout. As he heard the growl he also noticed that more wolves were entering the roundabout from all directions. These weren’t average-sized wolves either. These wolves had mutated into full-blown Dire Wolves. At least that’s what he thought until they entered the roundabout and he noticed that their shoulders all came to his head while they were on all fours. Whatever type of wolf-dog hybrid these were, they were bigger than Dire Wolves had ever been. Adam remained calm and looked around until he found the Alpha who was the last to emerge from Tantalus Park and stood another foot over the other wolves at 8 feet high at his shoulders which put his snout at about nine feet.
Adam watched as it slowly walked forward with its teeth barred. Adam was pretty sure it was wondering why a lone human wasn’t reacting to it like everyone else who had died in this neighborhood, especially when the lone human was surrounded by a pack of 22 wolves that were the size of giant bears. Adam took this in, noticed the blood-stained snouts, and knew that this pack had acquired a taste for human flesh, which wouldn’t be good going forward. That was too bad for the wolves.
Just before the Alpha was about to pounce, Adam concentrated and sent a Mind Bolt into the wolf which did something Adam hadn’t anticipated. In the blink of an eye, fluid burst from the Alpha’s eyes, ears, nose, and mouth and it fell over dead. Adam received a notification and automatically minimized because the real combat was about to start.
Everything froze. Before any of the other wolves could react, Adam morphed into his Dragon Form, which was a lucky thing as the rest of the pack had only hesitated for a moment before they attacked. As Adam got his bearings, it seemed that he was a little disoriented immediately after transforming during combat, he noticed that he had been attacked multiple times and taken no damage.
Adam quickly checked his damage log and noticed that none of the damage the wolves were putting out broke through his 10-point Damage Resistance. Adam reviewed the damage while the wolves continued to attack and found the next biggest one and spent 10 more points of his Psychic Energy to Mind bolt it as well. Like the Alpha, fluid exploded from its ears, eyes, nose, and mouth before it crumpled to the ground. With 20 of his 23 Psychic Energy spent that was it until he could recover his Psychic Energy.
The wolves snared and attacked as they frenzied. They attacked relentlessly as they tried to kill the creature that had killed their Alpha and his mate. Even though they did no damage, they refused to give up. Adam analyzed their attack pattern, waited for an opening when as many as possible were lined up, and then spent 50 of his mana to hit 5 with a lightning bolt which stunned all of them. His attack did 63 points of damage which didn’t kill them, but they were rendered helpless. Over the next 30 seconds, Adam moved forward and systematically snapped the necks of each of the wolves he had stunned and killed them instantly with the help of his Title Apex Predator.
Apex Predator - You may now instantly kill any completely helpless target within your power.
Now that there were only 15 left, Adam started paying attention to the flow of combat. Ever since he’d arrived in this new SYSTEM something had been off with his timing, and he had a nagging suspicion that what The SYSTEM was counting as a Turn and what he’d been used to were not the same anymore. Before each turn had been 1 second long and he had been able to do a tremendous amount during any single second because of his high attributes and time dilation in some cases.
Adam started reviewing his combat logs, looked at the time stamps, and immediately noticed the change. The SYSTEM was utilizing a combat mode that recorded everything in 10-second turns. With a little more digging he was able to determine that he was acting twice every 10 seconds and that the amount of times he could act was directly related to his Agility attribute. He’d been attacking twice per turn. With an 18 in Agility, if he was getting an extra attack for every 10 points of agility then he should get a third attack when he hit 20, though it seemed to him that the system for extra attacks was a little more nuanced than that. He’d have to keep that in mind when he distributed attributes as he leveled.
His regeneration rates were all over the place too. They still seemed to be working by the second if they regenerated that fast as his Mana and Chaos Attribute showed. Through his Chaos Link, he was regenerating 1 point of Mana and Chaos per second. His healing rate wasn’t so great, but he did have a healing spell now so that wasn’t a problem. Stamina was regenerating at 2 per 10-second turn. Psychic Energy on the other hand. He was a Mentalist and his Psychic Energy was only regenerating at 1 point every 2.5 minutes or every 15 turns. Damn, it would take him 25 minutes to replace the 10 points of Psychic Energy he’d spent to cast one Mind Bolt. One of the first things he was going to do when he found a SYSTEM Shop was check and see if there were any skills or spells that helped increase his Psychic Energy regeneration. He had a feeling a skill like meditation would be exactly what he needed.
Now that he knew his regeneration rate, he knew that in 5 seconds he would have enough mana to use his breath weapon again but that would zero him out. Luckily he’d already regenerated the mana he’d used to transform at the beach. He’d spent 100 Mana to shift into his Dragon Form and 50 Mana to use his Breath Weapon once. In 7 seconds he’d have 50 mana and could use it again. He could regenerate 10 mana per turn so every five turns he could use his Breath Weapon. Adam was going to let his mana build back up while he used his physical attacks to get a handle on the timing and use of those attacks. To do that Adam needed to know how much stamina it took to attack. As Five of the wolves rushed in and attacked Adam grinned.
Claw Attack: Stamina 10: To Hit +4 Damage: 13 (4 (Base) + 9 (STR Bonus)) Versus Defense of 23.
Attack Chance (Base) 50 + (Bonus) 20 – (Defense) 23 = 47% Chance to Hit
Attack misses.
Well, that was a waste. He’d have to check his logs after this combat to find out why his Breath Weapon and Mind Bolt had hit easier. He was betting it had to do with the fact that natural defenses didn’t matter to certain attack types. Also, his Intelligence of 114 was probably making it easier for him to hit with those attacks. He was going to have to min/max the hell out of his attributes until he figured out how to undo the limitations the SYSTEM was imposing on him.
There was nothing he could do about it now though, so Adam settled in for the long haul as five different wolves attacked him. Their attacks were pointless, they couldn’t break through the hide of his Dragon Form as he ignored their attacks and took his time learning how to use his Dragon Form attacks. He wasn’t very accurate but he was hitting almost 2 out of three times. None were doing killing blows but he kept the wolves at bay. Adam did learn that his claw attacks required 10 stamina and a bite required 20 stamina. To conserve his stamina he utilized his claw attacks 10 times over 5 turns or 50 seconds. At which point he’d try to line up as many wolves as possible for a Breath Weapon attack.
The next time he used his Breath Weapon he was only able to stun three wolves. The other wolves tried to stop him as he moved forward and ended each of their lives with the benefit of his Apex Predator title. Eight down, Fourteen to go. He’d spent 100 stamina over the 10 turns before the Breath Weapon attack and regenerated 10 stamina during that same period. The Breath Weapon attack hadn’t cost stamina and he’d replenished 2 more. Currently, he was sitting at 217 of 301 Stamina, 3 of 195 Mana, 3 of 23 Psychic Energy, and 100 of 100 Chaos.
His claw attacks hadn’t been very deadly to these wolves because they seemed to have more Hit Points than he could kill easily unless he stunned them. That is, except for his Mind Bolt attack but that was something…You know what, he’d check that now. Adam ignored the wolves, pulled up the combat log, and searched for the data concerning his use of Mind Bolt. When he found it, he was a little surprised.
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Mind Bolt: PE 10: To Hit +52 Damage: 60 (Base 8 + 52 INT Bonus) Versus Defense of 0.
Attack Chance (Base) 20 + (Bonus) 260 – (Defense) 0 = 280% Chance to Hit
Attack Hits
60 Points of damage applied.
NOTE: Mental Damage exceeds Willpower by 316% Chance to Hit.
Mind Shattered, Target Killed.
Mind Bolt was a tad powerful, maybe even overpowered. Also, now that he’d seen that attribute bonus twice he could deduce that he was receiving a flat 5% bonus to hit for each attribute bonus point if it applied to the attack. All he needed to do was figure out which attribute affected which attacks and then he really could min/max the hell out of his character build, as they called how he was going to maximize bonuses and minimize disadvantages.
As he reviewed the information it looked like physical attacks had a base 50% chance of success while mental attacks only had a 20% chance. Adam wondered how spells would work. Area of Effect Spells probably had a higher chance to hit…
Adam brought his thoughts back to the situation at hand. The Wolves were still attacking. Instead of wasting Stamina, Adam reduced his attack rate to once per Turn. That way he’d attack five times for 50 Stamina while earning 10 Staminaback for a net loss of 40 while he waited for his mana to get back to 50 so he could catch more wolves with his Breath Weapon. Each of those attacks only cost 5 stamina in addition to the 50 Mana. During those Turns, he did act twice to speed things up a bit.
The only downside to his plan over the next 5 minutes was that he was only able to get two wolves with his Breath Weapon each time he used it. He also had to reduce his number of claw attacks to make sure his Stamina remained above 50 which meant that during some turns he wasn’t even attacking. He didn’t know what running out of stamina in this SYSTEM would do and didn’t want to find out. As it was, bottoming out his Mana to 0 and his Psychic Energy to 3 had given him a bit of a headache. He hadn’t had a headache in a really long time. The excruciating pain when his mind was overloaded and he blacked out, yeah that had happened a couple of times. Headaches though? He hadn’t had a headache since before he found the adamantium ring so long ago.
Adam realized that without his normal power level or nanites if he’d been in Human Form he’d have had a problem with these wolves. Luckily he had his Dragon Form and the 10 points of Damage Resistance blocked the wolves' attacks, though not by much. The Wolves were doing 9 points of damage normally. He was lucky he was still in a basic monster zone and that these wolves were so low-level. Of course, that hadn’t helped the residents who hadn’t fled. These wolves would be more than a match for normal classless humans.
When only two of the wolves were left, they turned and tried to flee. Adam leaped into the air and pursued them for 20 seconds until he had enough mana to hit them with his Breath Weapon. He landed and killed both with a coup de grace by using his claws to rip their necks out. When they were dead he dragged both corpses over to the Alpha and lay them beside it.
Adam went around and quickly collected the other 19 wolf corpses. He could easily tell that they were going to take up more than his 10 pounds of storage. He looked around to make sure nothing else was trying to creep up on him and then put his back on a concrete wall while he pulled up his notifications.
Congratulations! You have defeated a Pack of Basic Vacnee Dire Wolves. (1) Level 40, (2) Level 37, (3) Level 36, (6) Level 35, (4) Level 34, and (6) Level 33. Total XP Earned after Rarity Difference Modification 36,500 XP
Rank Disparity Modification? Adam pulled up the Alpha's specific reward line. It took some digging but he found it.
Basic Vacnee Dire Wolf, Level 40. Base XP award 4,000 (100 XP per Level) Rank Basic. Rank of Victor: Rare. Rarity Disparity: 2. XP modifier ½ XP. Total XP award 2,000.
So, he’d only earned half the XP he normally could because of the rarity of his Class. Sure, he knew that was going to happen but damn did that suck! Adam checked his surroundings again and then went back to checking his messages.
Congratulations! You have earned Levels 2, 3, 4 and 5. Total XP 46,300. XP to next Level 16,700.
The following changes have been made automatically: HP +16 / Stamina +4 / Mana +20 / Psychic Energy +40 / Spell Slots +4 / Psionic Ability Slots +8 / +1 Perception / +1 Intelligence / +1 Willpower.
You have 48 Free Attributes to distribute would you like to do so now, Yes or No?
Adam chose “Yes.”
When he was done all of his attributes had come up by at least 4 points. The biggest change was his Psychic Energy, it had increased from 23 to 70 and he could regain 1 point of Psychic Energy every minute. While the regeneration rate wasn’t great, he could now attack 6 targets without whipping himself out. His movement rate had also increased from 21mph to 24 mph and his Dragon Form flying speed had increased a nice bit to 121 mph. He also noticed that his hit points had increased a bit as well. In Dragon Form, he had 192 Hit Points while In Human Form, he had 44 hit points. Adam only had Damage Resistance in Dragon Form which still only blocked 10 points of damage.
Adam knew that if he hadn’t had Damage Resistance he’d have been done for. that Alpha Wolf had been no joke. Adam looked at his next message
Congratulations Vacnee Wolf Pack awards 766 Copper for defeat, would you like to convert copper to SYSTEM Credits?
Adam decided, that yes, he wanted to convert the Copper to SYSTEM Credits and also changed his settings so that this would happen automatically. He’d received the notice of the treasure award but the conversion would be automatic going forward.
766 Copper converted to 7 SYSTEM Credits. Conversion Fee 5%
Total SYSTEM Credits: 200,007.
Adam had to admit that the treasure system was very clean. He didn’t have to worry about carrying around coins if he didn’t want to, still though, it looked like monster kills automatically awarded a specific amount of treasure. While 766 copper might not seem like a lot, Adam was pretty sure he’d have been able to purchase enough food and supplies to survive for a little while if he’d been in a town or near a SYSTEM Shop.
Additionally, the carcasses weren’t dissipating, just like the dragon hadn’t, which meant they could be harvested for materials. That probably meant that if he had a way to store or carry them he could find a merchant, leatherworker, or maybe even be able to sell them in the SYSTEM shop. Maybe the monetary loot was the bare minimum amount of treasure he could receive? Damn! If that were true that Red Dragon carcass could have been worth quite a bit. He’d have to look for a storage device of some kind or a skill that increased his Personal Storage area capacity.
Adam waited for this mana to get back to 200 and then shifted to his human form before he walked into the house and made his way upstairs. He barricaded the door so that anything that might come in after him would have to break down the barrier first and then sat down opposite the door to give his mind time to recharge his Psychic Energy. It had taken just over 3 minutes to get back the 200 mana, but he only regained 1 Psychic Energy point every minute. It would be almost 70 minutes before his Psychic Energy was maxed out again.
When he’d earned the new points from leveling his Hit Points, Stamina, Mana, and Psychic Energy hadn’t automatically filled to the new level, which was fine. His mana came back rapidly enough that he should be able to heal his missing Hit Points in a couple of casts. His healing used mana instead of Psychic Energy so his mana would be back in only 10 seconds. He used his Heal Wounds skill two times and was fully healed.
That didn’t seem right. Adam double-checked his logs. When he’d been a dragon he’d had 133 hit points before he shifted back to human form. His new maximum due to his level increase had been 192. The increase in both of his forms didn’t seem to be exactly linear. At first level, he’d had 23 hit points in Human Form and 133 in Dragon Form. Now he had a maximum of 44 hit points in Human Form and 192 in Dragon Form. The difference was not linear.
Adam did a little more digging and noted that he had 69% of his 192 Hit Points. When he converted back to his Human Form. His Hit Points had lowered to 30 which was also 96% of his maximum hit points. That didn’t explain why his Human Form went up by 22 hit points but his Dragon Form went up by 59.
Adam did some more digging and realized his weight was a factor. In Human Form, each hit point was worth less because he weighed less. If his math was right, it looked like his weight in Human Form was factored by a value of 6 while it was factored by a value of 43 in his Dragon Form. How the equation worked seemed similar to this Superhero game he’d played in college, but it wasn’t exactly the same. It was interesting that weight and mass were being considered concerning how many hit points he had though. The SYSTEM could have kept it simple but no it had made sure to give bigger creatures more Hit Points.
While he waited for his Psychic Energy to regenerate, Adam looked over his Status Screen one more time. He had 15 Skill Points, 19 Spell Slots, and 32 Psionic Slots to fill. It would be interesting to see what he could fill those slots with when he made it to The Shop. Now that he had a little time, he opened up his map which showed the 100 feet around him that he’d seen in a basic map format. Across the top was the title
The City of Vancouver,
Adjacent Zones: Levels 1 – 50.
City Core: Claimed.
Services Available: SYSTEM Shop, Merchants, Entertainment, More…
Adam looked over the map but with only a range of about 100 feet, there wasn’t much on it. Just a few houses and cross streets. He closed the Map and tried to meditate using the techniques he’d learned previously to see if he could open up some new skills or perks. Nothing happened. It looked like this SYSTEM wasn’t going to allow him to fast-track those abilities. Whatever was blocking his access was getting on his nerves. Fine, he’d play by the rules of this SYSTEM for a little while longer. First things first, he needed to Find a SYSTEM Shop.