All of Bell’s Skills, as well as her Levels and stats, had been reduced to nothing upon polyping. But Skills were inherent to people. Thus, she expected to relearn many as she got older and remembered her past. Theora gleaned at Bell’s sheet from the party screen — currently, it listed 21 Skills.
[Calcification], [Encapsulation], [Venorosity] and [Sheen] seemed useful in a scuffle, while the others were likely what Bell was using to uphold the barriers of the green dome. They’d found a wide crater in the outskirts, standing in the shadow of its ledge amid a little desert of blue rock. Keeping the surroundings and Bell’s Skills in mind, Theora could perhaps figure out a way for them to fight that wouldn’t end with her looking down at a sad puddle of Bell goop.
While deep in thought, she sidestepped a whiplash of three tentacles. Bell was clumsily casting a net — tendrils slowly inching closer, but carefully, for they were a part of her body. Could she regrow them? Or had the old Bell simply taken good care to protect them?
Theora tilted her head to avoid another tendril. A moment later, Bell touched Theora’s sleeve and activated a powerful Skill. Limestone quickly crusted over Theora’s clothes and skin. She stilled to let it. A fraction of a moment later, Bell used the opportunity to inject a charge of venom into Theora’s thigh.
Theora cracked her arm free to peel calcite off her lips. “This would work in offence,” she agreed. But it was rapidly draining Bell’s mana, and would likely fail against multiple strong opponents. Bell was a [Barrier]-Mage — using her protective Skills to perform offensive tasks was inefficient. Bell likely knew that. So why was she trying?
Theora herself was also specialised in defence. While she had access to an infallible offensive Skill that could destroy anything instantly, her true power lay in withstanding — in simply not losing.
“I need to inject the poison somehow,” Bell answered, and while Theora couldn’t see anything, her eyes skill closed by the calcite barrier, she could still feel Bell surround herself with one barrier after the next.
Ah — inject poison, then proceed with defence until the target succumbed. But — “You may not need poison,” Theora pointed out. The rate at which Bell cast Skills faltered, but she didn’t stop. A sign of confusion.
Theora had difficulty putting the concept into words — Bell was focused on winning when she might rarely have to. Because even going down the System’s path, she would be paired with people who could perform offensive tasks while she defended them.
And when Bell was alone, simply protecting her opponent’s targets may be enough, regardless of whether she could incapacitate them.
“You are being a little… ambitious,” Theora said, trying to word it diplomatically. It was understandable — after all, Bell was desperate to get somewhere, after losing all her power.
Bell was silently wrapping herself in protection for a while until she finally wrote a response in the party chat. “You’re saying I’m spreading myself thin.”
Theora nodded, accidentally breaking more of the calcite barrier. She opened her eyes against the rock, seeing Bell staring at her warily from behind countless transparent hexagonal shields inside a gelatinous blob of high density. That would certainly defend well against blows, and probably had magical protections weaved in as well.
It seemed vulnerable to cuts, but a restless conglomeration of ice crystals was forming in a circle on the ground around her, likely ready to converge and defend against such assaults on a moment’s notice.
“May I check your barriers?” Theora asked via chat and received a positive answer fairly quickly. “Alright. Brace yourself. I will see how much effort it would take me.”
Theora stepped out of the calcite and reached toward Bell. The ice jolted to intercept, scattering against her fingers. The hexagonal shields clattered apart. When Theora closed in on Bell’s forehead, something suddenly sprung into place out of nowhere.
Bell’s [Last Stand] activated.
The message rolled by in the party chat, like a cry for help. Bell had somehow managed to hide that ability from appearing in her sheet. Theora pushed a finger against it, and it shattered.
“A little bit of effort,” Theora acknowledged.
Bell’s eyes were wide. She stood there, horrified, sweating beads of acid.
“I won’t do anything to you,” Theora pointed out and retracted her hand.
“I—Yes,” Bell said, wiping mucus off her cheek with a tendril. “I know, but thank you for saying it.” She took a deep breath, and then sagged to her knees, her legs were giving out. “That Skill failing should mean death.”
“It drains all your mana?”
“It depends on which mode I’m using,” Bell said with a wavering voice, and she was frantically putting up little shields around her as her mana replenished, as if she was in danger. “If the passive mode is active, it will protect me from deadly blows by damaging my mana instead of my health.” She took a steadying breath. “It’s not very efficient, though. The active mode lets me use it as a parry at the very moment the strike would hit. It’s my strongest defence but it only works if I time it right and if all my other Skills are on cooldown or out of resources.”
Theora nodded. “Do you use a lot of conditional Skills like that?”
Bell had almost coated herself top to feet with little transparent hexagonal shields. “It depends,” she muttered. “I have some emergency Skills that are easy and straight-forward to use for when I am mentally impaired, but when my capacity allows for it, I tend to use the complexities in Skills to achieve optimization.”
Impressive. “You’re fun to talk to,” Theora admitted, causing Bell to get a little flustered. She’d responded both on a factual level as well as a meta-level. “Do you always put so much nuance into your words?”
Bell swallowed. “It depends on—”
Theora smiled, and it was then that Bell realised she was being messed with a little. She scowled, but didn’t actually get angry. “You’re fun to talk to as well,” she admitted, looking down to the side. “I just get nervous.”
Theora knelt to catch Bell’s gaze. “Why do you get nervous?”
“W-well. I look up to you. You agreed to show me things for now. I don’t want to lose that by messing up.”
Theora said: “I’m teasing you to help you lose respect for me.”
Bell shouldn’t have to feel scared when Theora broke her barriers. Shouldn’t have to worry about replacing them — she wasn’t in danger. Bell should feel like she could make mistakes when talking to Theora.
“You don’t need to show deference to me just because I’m older,” Theora tried. “I wish to support you. I won’t withhold any of my teachings from you based on how you act toward me.”
Bell gave a shallow nod. While Theora was fairly certain that Isobel had not contributed to Bell’s insecurities, other people around might have.
“After all, I offered to do this with you despite how cheeky you’ve been,” Theora pointed out, causing Bell to hide her face between a swath of tentacles. Theora rose up to look back at the green dome in the distance.
“G-give me a moment to replenish,” Bell said, reading Theora’s intentions of wanting to return. “Also… would you be alright with me asking questions?”
Theora blinked, and nodded in reflex. She could certainly try. “About what?”
“Just—” Bell took a deep breath. “The theory behind it all. I know you probably don’t make use of it much anymore, but… you had to have gotten strong somehow, when you were younger. Right?”
Right. That sounded like it could be true. Not that Theora remembered much of it. She nodded anyway — and would have never imagined the gleaming gaze full of excitement Bell would grant her at this prospect. Theora smiled, and eventually they made their way back to their base inside one of Bell’s air bubbles.
“I want to get as strong as I can,” Bell said, holding pen and paper, after they sat down underneath an overhang. “Please teach me that.”
Theora pushed a cup of tea in front of Bell, down into the moss on a saucer. Her own cup, she rested on the side of her knee, sitting cross-legged.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
The truth was — Bell was already an accomplished hero, even at 16 years. She might already be aware of everything Theora could possibly share. However, that in and of itself would be useful knowledge to help guide her along the paths she wanted to take.
“Why get stronger?” Theora asked.
Bell looked away. “Do I have to say it out loud? You already know. Don’t make me say it.”
“Please,” Theora said gently. “Share it with me again.”
Bell sighed. “To protect others,” she muttered under her breath and scratched her temple with a tendril. “I want to shelter what’s important to me.”
Theora hummed and rested her chin on her hand, leaning onto the table. “What does ‘strong’ mean to you?”
“It means… that I won’t lose in a fight.”
“Yes,” Theora replied contemplatively. “But if, say, there was a sudden flood—”
“Fine!” Bell snapped. “It means I will succeed at the challenges I receive.”
Bell’s tentacles were waving in Theora’s periphery as she tried to collect her thoughts. What did strength mean? She was the strongest person around, and yet, it didn’t give her the power to simply do anything. She could win fights, she could retrieve Fragments of time. But Theora couldn’t grow moss out of nowhere, or figure out the intricacies hidden underneath the surface of the System. She couldn’t protect anyone, outside of her ability to outright eliminate threats. She couldn’t turn other people immortal, and it was difficult for her to make them laugh.
“Strength is abstract,” Theora concluded. “It can be thought of as agency, as options. Resources.” Losing her plethora of Skills to [Obliterate] had almost certainly made Theora weaker, in a sense, even if none of her previous Skills would have quite offered that much in offensive power, even combined. If Theora could fly, she’d be much more ‘powerful’, in the sense that she’d be able to solve problems she currently couldn’t — arriving at certain places faster, accomplishing certain tasks with more finesse.
Similarly, having a higher Level meant having more stats as well as access to Skills and Classes. But their Level was not all that formed the strength of a hero. Items, potions and equipment were relevant too.
“Any resource forms strength,” Theora continued. “Someone who is well-prepared, say, with a stat-increasing tincture, could defeat someone else of far higher Level.”
Bell scowled. “But that’s pointless. I don’t want to have to rely on potions and items. What if I lose them?”
Theora shook her head. “Don’t rely on them, then. Still. Imagine yourself. Now, imagine yourself, but with a mana potion. Who is stronger?”
Bell stayed quiet, chewing her lip.
“You need to adapt the pool of resources you currently have access to a different pool that is more suitable to achieve your goals.”
Bell tilted her head. “Rather, shouldn’t I increase my pool of resources?”
Theora shook her head. That wasn’t possible.
“But why not…?” Bell stared, not getting it. “If I buy a one-time Skill from the shop, then I have access to more resources than before.”
“No,” Theora said. “You would have converted one resource you have access to — shop credits — to another.”
Finally, Bell took the first sip of her tea. She sighed. “Alright, fine. But I can just go out and farm more Credits. They are not that difficult to get. You can even find Afterthoughts on the moon, if you go out far enough. I do that, then I have more resources than before. Happy?”
“No,” Theora said. “You’d still only have converted one resource to another.”
“What?”
“If you went out right now to farm Afterthoughts, what would it cost you?”
Bell wanted to give an answer out of impulse, but caught herself. She stared at Theora’s cup for a while. “Oh.”
“It’s your most important resource,” Theora said. “More important than anything else.”
“Time,” Bell murmured. “Yes. Alright, I get that. But isn’t that just a thought experiment? Like, I haven’t looked at it like this before, but what does it actually change?”
“It helps find the perfect moment to do resource conversions,” Theora explained. “Let’s say you have one mana potion. From the moment you receive it to the moment it expires—”
Bell scoffed. “I know you’re not a mage, but you should be aware that mana potions don’t expire.”
“But they do expire,” Theora countered. “One day, you will either use it or lose it. Nothing withstands eternity. You will forget it exists, misplace it, or accidentally destroy it, and it will leave the catalogue of resources available to you.” She held up a finger on each hand. “You want to find the best moment to use it in the timespan that you can access it. For example, a day might come where you need exactly that mana potion to defeat an opponent threatening your loved ones.”
“So… I should keep it for when it really matters,” Bell said. She had started writing along with Theora’s words, focused on a sheet of paper in front of her, stabilised by a thin shale plate. “That makes sense.”
“Except that’s only half the intuition,” Theora admitted. “If you drank the potion right away and used the mana to level up a Skill, you would have access to that more powerful Skill over the potion, which might often be more helpful.”
Bell frowned, but kept writing. “Right, I get it. Because if my Skills had been higher in the first place, I might have never gotten into that emergency. Opportunity cost. It makes sense to retain some resources for bad times, but not using resources to increase your set of static powers as early as possible can be suboptimal.”
Truth be told, Theora didn’t live by these principles anymore, and felt almost bad for teaching them to Bell. Living your life governed by the rules of efficiency and strategic long-term benefit did make reaching some goals easier but… “You need to be wary of burnout.”
Bell looked up. “What?”
“I want to help you reach your goals, so I am sharing these thoughts with you—”
“And I appreciate it,” Bell butted in. “I want to learn this. Don’t back out on me. You said how I act towards you doesn’t matter.”
“I just want to make sure you know what you’re getting into.”
“I won’t burn out,” Bell promised. “That’s exactly what happened last time. What got me here. Polyping is not efficient.” She patted the sheet of paper. “Time is a resource. Don’t worry, this time I’ll be scheduling sufficient breaks.”
Theora squirmed internally. That was not exactly what she’d been trying to get across, but fair enough.
“Plus,” Bell continued, “I’ll make sure to fill those breaks with low-effort resource conversions, like reading magic scholarship,” and at that point, Theora knew it was a lost cause.
She sighed. She hadn’t exactly pushed it that far in her earliest years as far as she remembered, but she did very much understand the constant urge to climb higher, faster. “Well, I’m here for you either way.”
Bell nodded. “Sure wish I had someone who had recent experience with levelling up efficiently…”
“That would be ideal,” Theora mused.
“But… I know you probably can’t help, but would you hear me out? There’s one thing I’m puzzled about.”
Theora nodded. “Of course.”
“So, there is this hero achievement that says ‘Clear 200 Quests’,” Bell started. “And I am around half-way through that. It seems like a pointless achievement — it only gives me five Skill points as a reward.”
“That doesn’t seem like a lot,” Theora agreed, running her fingers along the rim of her teacup.
“Exactly!” Bell said a little louder than she planned to, wincing at herself. “Well, that’s what I thought. So I was just going to passively complete it while doing meaningful quests, rather than picking many quick small-fry tasks just to pad the count and bruteforce it early.”
“Right,” Theora said, taking a sip. “I can feel a wrinkle coming.”
Bell sighed. “Yeah. The ‘wrinkle’ is that when I compared what I was doing to old logs, all the other polyped Bells had gone for this achievement as early as they could. But it doesn’t appear like anything else is conditional on clearing it first. I wonder if I’m missing something.”
Theora tilted her head back to look at the sky, but only found the ceiling of the overhang. She grazed her fingers through her hair in thought, trying to recover long-lost knowledge. Her gaze slipped to the side, to a band of stars visible between rock formations. “Occasionally, clear-requirements for advanced unlocks can be difficult to reverse-engineer,” she mumbled, still perusing the stars while silently asking [Head in the Clouds] not to help — she wanted to figure it out on her own this time. Bell would have likely done her due diligence combing through the unlock conditions of other System components. “Other than that — I assume you’ve checked the descendents?”
“The what?”
“Ah, sorry,” Theora said apologetically. She kept making up her own terms for things she rarely discussed with others. She looked back down at Bell. “I assume the achievements are staggered. Have you looked at the rewards for future quest count achievements?”
With a blink, Bell’s eyes turned unfocused as she checked the System UI. A few moments later, she said: “Oh.” She let out a soft laugh. “Oh, you’re right, that’s it. One of the later rewards is a radiant upgrade stone. That’s why they went for it. I really need one too.” She scratched her chin with a tendril. “I’d assumed the rewards would just stay more or less the same. Most achievements feel like worthless chores, but I should make a habit of checking ahead for gems like that.”
Theora had no idea what an upgrade stone was, but at least it seemed like she helped. Then, she cleared her throat. “W-well—If you have issues like that…” She trailed off before speaking again. “You could start keeping a journal of choices you make this time and your analysis on them. That wouldn’t help you now, but—”
“Oh, that’s genius,” Bell blurted out, and pulled out a new sheet. “Once it’s done, can I leave it with you for safekeeping? Will you give it back to me when I polyp again?”
Theora grimaced. “I would certainly hope it will never happen again, and—”
“Neither do I, of course—”
“—I want to keep you safe,” Theora closed. “I will do my best to keep you safe, as will the others—”
“—But—”
“—But yes,” Theora said, “I will. I will keep it for you, and give it back to your descendant if she wants it.”
Bell let out a deep breath. “Thank you. You’re being really helpful. Again, I appreciate it.”
Theora still felt like she was making a mistake, but then Bell shot her the smallest of smiles. Oh, this was unfair. Fine. “What else do you wish to know?” She pointed at a smaller sheet of paper to Bell’s side. “I see you’ve got questions prepared.”
Bell’s smile widened.