Before anything else, Jordan wanted to see just what his land drones had been killing to get him what would have been more than three thousand Experience Points in just one night. So in what could be considered just a small mistake, he willed for the stack of EXP notifications to actually be shown like normal. Jordan’s vision was immediately flooded by a whole list of screens. But as his eyes quickly darted between them, things began to make more sense.
Experience Earned!
+56 EXP
Experience Earned!
+56 EXP
Experience Earned!
+75 EXP
Compared to the forest around his Kingdom where the most common animal, the Bark Snakes, were only Level 2, the creatures on the other side of the portal were clearly a bit higher Level on average. He knew that the Grass Panther had given 75 Experience while being Level 5. Compared to that, it seemed that the average Level of things beyond the portal was 4, with an equally uncommon number of Level 3s and Level 5 mixed in.
So, with that in mind, Jordan knew just from a quick estimate that it would have taken between 50 to 60 Level 4 creatures to fill his Experience up. Between the three drones that were sent through and given what might have been several hours of time, that actually was pretty reasonable. Especially if it was a fresh environment, where nobody else had hunted the local animals yet for their own farming. And depending on what said environment looked like, if the land drones potentially had an easier time being able to spot and aim at their targets.
After dismissing the notification swarm and refreshing his request to have them minimized, Jordan decided to then check what his current EXP was looking like.
EXP: 237/5625
And when it came to his progression toward Level 7 so far, that wasn’t a bad chunk at all. Just under 5% of the way there, but considering he’d just gotten a new Level, still not bad.
As for the Free Points gained from his new Level? It almost didn’t even need to be said at this point, but the answer was to obviously dump them all into Wisdom. Though now it was even more incentivized than ever, since just focusing on getting one Stat power grinded up each increment of 25 would be the best for the Scaling of his land drone. So that Jordan would be able to raise the limit on the total number of them that could be out at a time.
So yeah, that investment brought the Stat up to an updated figure of 65. Which raised his total TP by one point to 27, and increased his TP regen to a new and sexy rate of 9.70 per minute.
But before Jordan made a decision about the thing that actually mattered right now, he decided to hold off on it. Just for a few minutes, as he stood up and went back down to the ground floor.
When he stepped outside, Jordan took a deep breath of the early morning air. The distant smell of smoke filled his nose, though there weren’t any signs that the wildfire actually passed by his Kingdom.
Right now, it was just around one o’clock, according to his watch. So there was still a full seven hours of daylight remaining until the next night came around. But even with plenty of time from a full day ahead of him, Jordan figured that breakfast could wait until after he returned from a quick trip outside his base.
After summoning three new instances of his land drones, Jordan sent out two while grabbing onto the last one. As his noble steed began to drive him off toward his destination, Jordan could appreciate that the return to its original speed of 50 miles per hour would get him there just a bit faster.
But nothing wrong with getting there even faster, right? The quicker I get there, the quicker I can see if I can still turn whatever’s left of the Crab into a Transmutation Crystal. And see just what the Hell is up with that wildfire, cause even around my base, it doesn’t seem to have touched this whole area? Jordan thought to himself as he glanced around, more than a bit confused.
In just the time he’d been thinking that while his drone had been moving, it’d already taken him hundreds of feet away from his Kingdom. Yet even while past the clearing, the leaves he hadn’t cleared out here had still remained untouched by the blaze.
Yeah, no, that’s weird. If my Kingdom itself had some magical protection from environmental hazards? Sure, I could get behind that and appreciate it if the System gave it that kind of bubble. But my territory is basically just the clearing itself; there shouldn’t be any reason why the wildfire couldn’t spread to literally everything else around it. Hmmm.
Now a bit concerned, Jordan began to hurry his drone by using Overcharge to make it go even faster. And since his TP regen was closer to 10 per minute, he could do so even more liberally than before. Especially as it seemed like that compared to before the Fundamental Evolution, the drone could take an extra stack or two of the Skill in a row before it started to become worryingly strained.
A short time later, Jordan finally found evidence of where the wildfire had actually been burning. But man, was it weird. Because in his non-expert opinion, Jordan was still pretty confident that fire didn’t draw and arbitrary and unnaturally straight line for the limit of where it spread. Especially when the thick layer of leaves and such on the ground were the exact same past the line, as it would have been on the other side that actually got burnt.
“What the Hell…?” Jordan trailed off as he looked around. His brows were furrowed with puzzlement as a covering of ash surrounded him. The wildfire had certainly finished and died out, at least in the immediate area. But the way it did so was just confusing in a way that made him frown.
The blaze actually hadn’t gotten that much further from the river than he would have expected. Maybe just a half a mile or so out from the river itself, if he had to make a guess. But when he looked to his left and right, it seemed to stretch out for his eye could see. He really hadn’t just been going crazy when he saw the glow of the flames last night, and thought that it seemed strangely stretched out lengthwise.
From all appearances, it really did look like the wildfire had stubbornly burned only a limited and neatly defined area around the river. But then had refused to go even a single inch past that line.
Jordan continued to ride his drone the rest of the way toward where the Crab’s body should still have been. But even so, the strangeness of what he’d seen still didn’t leave his mind.
He eventually did return to the spot where he’d killed the Crab. Yet rather than an entire corpse, there wasn’t much left of the remains in question. The shell was cracked and broken in various places, and entirely scorched after being cooked at the center of the fiery blaze. When Jordan hopped off his drone and got closer on foot, he could see that the inside of the shell was practically hollow. It seemed that basically all the fleshy inside bits were just gone by now.
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Not sure if it’d still even work, Jordan placed a hand on what was left of his foe. But then to his mild surprise, a prompt still appeared.
Slain Initial Merger detected!
Traits Collected: 1
Titles Collected: 2
Class: Natural Juggernaut
Level Upon Death: 1
Grade Upon Death: E
Highest Grade Class Skill: E2
Transmute corpse into an Advancement Crystal?
Huh, guess a corpse could still be all kinds of screwed up and still be good enough to be turned into a gem. Hey… how come I didn’t notice this before? It can’t be a coincidence that the System says to transmute it, right? Like if it wanted to be separate from the Transmuter, then it could have easily gone with a different choice in wording.
Jordan also noted that the Crab had died with two Titles. He wondered if it was like him and also been one of the first to get a new Skill and evolution, and earned the resulting achievement. Or perhaps it’d managed to do something else that had prompted a new Title as a reward, that he simply didn’t know about.
In any case, the coincidence in word choice did make him think of something. As Jordan affirmed the screen and turned the charred shell into an Advancement Crystal, he questioned how it could potentially relate to his Industrial Transmuter.
Was the act of transmutation just a broad category that could apply to multiple things, that didn’t necessarily have to be related beyond that general purpose? Or was there a more direction connection, like something that could allow him to stuff a corpse into the Transmuter and turn it into a gem that way? The idea of that was pretty morbid to think about, but still, he couldn’t help but admit that he was rather curious.
Unfortunately, when he looked around, Jordan couldn’t find any equipment that should have been expunged from the Crab’s pocket space. He even thoroughly dug through the pile of ashes around him, but nothing turned up. Which meant one of two things. Either the Crab didn’t have anything on it as the simple explanation, or what it had owned was flammable enough to now be one with the ashes.
Well, there technically was the idea that someone had already come around to take the loot. But why would they have done so without also turning the Crab into a gem? Maybe there was a chance that this scavenger simply hadn’t known about that mechanic. However, he was just speculation at this point. Anyway, it was just after a few more minutes of looking that he decided that none would be found.
But Jordan now had a total of nine Advancement Crystals. What happened next would be rather obvious, since he’d already consumed the tenth yesterday as the first point of essence toward a new Skill. So, since he was already here, why wait until he got back to his base?
Between the choice from before and the nine gems he could consume now, he could get both a new Skill and yet another Skill evolution all in one go. He figured that would be the best way to go about things, since it’d add something fresh and potentially useful to his repertoire while also bringing Summon Land Drone’s Grade to E4.
First things first, Jordan began the process of improving his drone again.
Selected Skill for evolution: Summon Land Drone
New Skill evolutions available!
Pick from one of the following:
Evolution: Size
Description: Significantly increases the size and weight of the drone. Additionally results in a high increase to the drone’s overall durability. However, this comes with a moderate decrease in its maximum speed and a minor decrease to its maximum range.
Evolution: Speed
Description: Significantly increases the maximum speed of the drone. Additionally results in a high increase in its general mobility. However, this comes with a moderate decrease in its weight and overall durability.
Evolution: Strength
Description: Significantly increases the maximum strength of the drone’s weapons. Additionally results in a high increase in its firing rate. However, this comes with a minor decrease in both its durability and speed.
Huh, well, that’s a little… samey? Jordan thought as he scratched the back of his neck. It was just a tad disappointing for the first two options to be exactly the same as before, if he was being honest with himself. At the third one was different from then, at the very least. However, even this was still rather informative.
It appeared that this was where the use of the Advancement Crystals actually mattered. That for normal evolutions that didn’t involve their consumption, there was a default set of options. Something that was fairly supported by the nice use of alliteration in the names of the evolutions presented.
Man, even bigger drones are super tempting. Imagine if that would actually get it up to the size of a tank, or at least close? But before the Fundamental Evolution, I did think about wanting more firepower before I decided to go with the firing squad method instead of more guns. But while the Crab was definitely a dedicated tank build, I don’t know how tough they naturally are as a Species. It’d be pretty wild for creatures that are so different to end up with the same total number of starting Stats as us, after all.
Jordan just couldn’t see a world where that would make a ton of sense. Not if the Crabs had both the Strength and Endurance to actually match their size. Or Dexterity too, if the last one had naturally been that fast without investing into the Stat. Something that a tank-focused build would be unlikely to do, if he had to imagine.
Granted, that did leave a few other Stats that could be lower than what Humans started with to compensate. But just how low could Stats like Intelligence or Wisdom really get, for something that was also sapient and capable of speech?
Anyway, he knew when his train of thought was starting to get derailed. So before it could get too off-track, Jordan made himself return to the matter at hand.
Considering that the other evolutions so far contributed to the toughness of the land drone, I don’t think they necessarily need to be even more durable. And since the trade-off for the firepower is listed as just a minor decrease in that and its speed, I think it’s a good trade to make. Since depending on when the next Level-based chance is given, it might be a while until I can upgrade it again until E5. So rather than give into my more childish way of thinking that bigger is always better, I honestly should play it safe and go with the more reasonable option of better guns, shouldn’t I?
At the very least, that would make the firing squad even more effective against any durable foes he came across in the future. Especially if all Crabs did turn out to be pretty tough as well, aside from just the one that’d also been a Natural Juggernaut as its Class.
Once that was settled, Jordan quickly affirmed his choice to the System and finalized it. Then from his pocket space, he pulled and started to consume all the remaining Advancement Crystals he possessed. For each one, the essence naturally went toward gaining a new Skill. When it came to this, he was curious to see just what kind of choices the influence of the gems would provide.
Finally, all ten points of essence were then allocated.
New Class Skills available!
Pick from one of the following:
When Jordan looked at the three options provided, he read through them one a time. However, the first two were quickly tossed out the window and into an open dumpster. Not because they were necessarily bad. But because the third option would be perfect for his plans for the rest of the day after returning to his base. Plans that, ideally, would become the foundation for not just having a firing squad from his Skills, but a true army that he had built.
Passive:
Skill: Mental Blueprint
Grade: E2
Scaling: Intelligence, Wisdom
Description: Increases the user’s ability to accurately recall the details of any machines worked with. This also improves the user’s recollection of how these details of a machine’s makeup relate to its general functions.
Oh, and as a rather important detail that probably should be mentioned, these new Skills also started at a higher Grade than before.