I am currently sitting on the stairs that lead up into the entrance to my Tower. We had lost track of Barry, not a single clue as to where he had gone beside what footprints he purposely left for us to find, along with a note right where his track ends.
First of all, good job with slaying that madness incarnate.
And two, just a friendly warning.
Don't even think about trying to find me. First that prison just because I stole a bit of food, then that crazy guy forcing me into a slave contract. I'm finally free! So, I'm off to find my family, we'll stay out of your way, please leave us alone.
I'll let you in on a little secret. Holly, the brains of our group, had come up with an easy-mode way to devour anything big at the cost of mana. Get yourself a shrinking spell. Take this as an apology gift.
Ps. I'll try to devour less, if that helps you stay away.
It feels incomplete and was barely legible due to messy handwriting. But the message got across just fine. We decided to let him be for now and further strengthen ourselves.
—
Monday, 31 January 2044.
It has been three weeks since.
The quest awarded me 10 levels and a spell called Shrink Touch, which is what Barry most likely referred to. As a whole, including the ten rewarded level ups, I had accumulated 88 free Attribute points. Waste not want not, I unhesitantly distribute them; 47 to Wisdom and 22 to Will to round them up to 100 each while the last few points I dump on Intelligence, placing it at 138. 'Inspect.'
Shrink Touch - Early. Journeyman Rank. Various mana cost. Bigger ain't better if yer gonna be liftin' it up! Touch and infuse a creature or an object with your mana to isolate and affect the area it occupies within Space. Infusion costs [target's mana pool + (volume / 250m²)] mana with an additional mana cost of [volume shrinked / MAtk] mana. The effect lasts for [MAtk] seconds or until damaged.
Unfortunately, my current level of 23 now prevents me from entering both the Chambers of Goblins and Antrum de Druidants which have an upper limit of 15 and 20 respectively. Instead, I made an uncontracted deal with The System, which is how I am currently only allowed to devour any creatures with a total level of no more than ten per day. Any more and I risk waking up the entity upon which we currently reside.
Which brings us to the question, what entity? Summarizing a confusing conversation with The True System—there are fake-ish ones—that spanned weeks. We are currently living within an entity whose details The System refused to elaborate. One that is slumbering to better conserve its resources. To grow, these entities require life, as in creatures who live and grow within it. As they grow, so too it grows. As for how exactly that happens, The System once again refused to elaborate.
So, to encourage growth, these entities needed a System. Which is a replica that functions by piggybacking on The True System, where everything is as usual. With the only difference being how the replicas would subtly guide their user to somehow act to the advantage of the entities, as well as alert them of any abnormalities. Apparently, I am one such abnormality. Fortunately, The True System had found me before the fake one did and had took it upon itself to integrate me or something... Honestly, its all too confusing and beyond me. True System agrees and simply requested me to grow stronger for now, much much stronger.
—
Speaking of something beyond my means, within the first week, I received a reply from Rascarna the probably-god or some multiverse-tuber or whatever.
Rascarna the God of Magic: I ain't not!
Zen: Sure~ you don't.
Zen: Are you really a God of Magic?
That was the end of it, no more reply since. While the only other out-of-planet recipient of my VICOS graced me with their reply by the third week.
Arya Wildebelle: "The spell's mana cost adjusts to manipulated mass and may affect a wider variety of 'stony' material."
Arya Wildebelle: What stony material did you use my spell on?
Zen: Oh~, you were asking about Concrete!
Zen: It's this mix of some chemical, sand, stone…
Zen: uhh, someone invented a mix of various things that would harden into a stone-like material.
Arya Wildebelle: Why?
This conversation went on for longer, I had to explain to her about cement and how it's a liquid-ish mix that would harden so it's easier to shape. And various other stone-ly discussions. At her request and suggestion, we tried to mix in magical materials and, after a lengthy process, managed to come up with a decent enough product to reliably sell in The System Store. Magical concrete! By mixing a variety if powdered materials into the wet concrete, we can create various magical effects. Mana resistant houses, super durable houses, the experiment will never end.
—
During the last few days of our second week, a big crowd arrived. Our scouts came upon a massive group of people who had just left their shelters, people who had lived nearby. After a month living in fear and all cramped up within an enclosed space, they have finally decided to risk it. Thousands of people protected, only, by about a few dozen low leveled soldiers and brave individuals. Chaos ensued. Mostly from organizing a sudden influx of people to gently integrate into Rumah, but also partly from handling entitled people who demanded special treatments.
These people are evacuated out of Rumah and left outside the walls overnight, no harm befell them, as our night watch's Magico Disks still found any sneaky larger-than-normal rats and mosquitoes that managed to get close. Unfortunately, they were very sneaky and thus managed to get a little too close. The guards were even kind enough to Unsoil the splatters of blood on anyone who asks.
With a surge in population, our upkeep also experienced a significant increase. I had to spend two to three days hunting for food further away from Rumah to feed our population. But humans are definitely an adaptable bunch, soon we have people out hunting, tending to a patch of land and planting crops, or caring for animals. Not a week has passed and everything has once again turned into another daily routine.
A second, much larger wall has been made, encompassing the first. Now, children play on the streets while teenagers keep watch or tend to their chores, adults work their day job to bring food to their table. All seemingly normal everyday medieval life, until the carpenter lifts up a whole massive log on his shoulder, or the kids begin magically cleaning up their clothes before returning home.
Atop my Tower, I smile at the sight, before refocusing on my current task.
—
'Claim all sales please and thank you.'
** DING **
After procrastinating for three weeks, I claimed a total of 10,354,356,525 creds from sales of my spells. With what I have in mind for the future, which is currently to explore all of Pangea, that is barely enough for the next ten or so steps. First of all, 'inspect.'
LeyLink Tower Gate. Ranks 0 - 12. Manifests a gate inside of a Mana Tower at a location and with a design of your choice. The gate may temporarily connect to any other similar gate found within any other Mana Towers owned under the same owner for as long as the Towers has access to the planet's Leylines.
A rank four costs a little less than 1.6 billion creds, but its presence is important if I am to explore our super continent but still wishes to be present at Rumah. I also purchased a Virtual Realm—aka. VR—access, for exactly 1 million creds and was tempted to also buy a pair of Mono-Pylons, but eventually decided against it. A Mono-Pylon is some kinda tower-like structure that functions as a bridge that creates a connection between True Space and VR so as to provide everyone within range VICOS network to every other people within range, from anywhere in existence. The Virtual Realm is both infinitely wide and efficiently compact, which in turn provides any VICOS unlimited range within the realm itself.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Instead, we bought them as Territory assets. Between my dad, Henry as well as his new team of talented individuals, both Tenolos, and I. We introduced, via my relationship to The True System, the concept of our internet and everything in it, earning us its cooperation. This allowed us to purchase a little bit of VR land where we may assemble two infrastructures, all bought with a discount. One infrastructure to register our location of entry, the other a database of sorts. It is now a side-quest of ours to preserve as much old world data as possible, including but not limited to literature, video games, knowledge, important images and videos, and anything else we feel would be beneficial to humanity. Fortunately, parts of the internet were still available from the nearby shelter, so we did what we could.
—
Last but not least, I made sure to dedicate at least a few hours everyday for self improvement. Devouring and hunting excursions, mastering spells and skill grindings. I had stumbled upon more Dungeons during my excursions, these are registered on my map and will be explored later. For now, my main focus will be on developing Rumah and devouring.
'Devour and experience updates please, thank you!'
** DING **
Combat summary
Enemies slain:
Huge Mosquito lv 3 x 2
Big Rat lv 1 x22
Giant Rat lv 2 x 8
ShadowRoach lv 5 x 22
DarkRoach lv 6 x 4
AbbysRoach lv 8 x 4
210 syscred and 178 exp awarded
Strength + 160
Constitution + 226
Dexterity + 228
Intelligence + 104
Wisdom + 36
Will + 68
Charisma + 0
I decided to experiment with mobs that are more commonly seen everywhere. And managed to determine that for now; Rats, on average greatly boost my physical stats, while any roach variant would also add to my mental stats. Which is where I spend most of my 30 level devoured daily allowance., as well as provide me with a Monster Core One splash of Latent Coating would immobilize the target, who I would then reduce in size using Shrink Touch, before swallowing them whole. 100% devour rate!
'Skills updates now, please.'
** DING **
Skill obtained Harvest Flora
Skill obtained Medium Armor Proficiency
Skill obtained Light Armor Proficiency
Skill level up, Thrown Weapon Proficiency 18 > 19
Skill level up, Polearm Proficiency 16 > 17
Skill level up, Heavy Armor Proficiency 19 > 23
Skill level up, Medium Armor Proficiency 1 > 18
Skill level up, Light Armor Proficiency 1 > 9
Skill level up, Harvest Flora 1 > 4
Skill level up, Harvest Fauna 2 > 6
12 skills fused, evolved and lost
Skill obtained All-Weapons Proficiency 10
3 skills fused, evolved and lost
Skill obtained All-Armor Proficiency 5
2 skills fused, evolved and lost
Skill obtained Harvest Flora and Fauna 1
Skill level up, All-Weapons Proficiency 10 > 13
Skill level up, All-Armor Proficiency 5 > 9
Skill level up, Dodge Roll 14 > 17
Skill level up, Evasion 17 > 20 > 21
Skill level up, Fire Resistance 1 > 9
Skill level up, Harvest Flora and Fauna 1 > 3
Skill level up, Heat Resistance 7 > 14
Skill level up, Inspect 17 > 21
Skill level up, Intimidate 11 > 12
Skill level up, Mana Manipulation 24 > 25 > 29
Skill level up, Mana Sense 21 > 24
Skill level up, Pain Resistance 10 > 13
Skill level up, Parallel Thoughts 2 > 3
Skill level up, Parry 14 > 19
Skill level up, Poison Resistance 9 > 16
Skill level up, Shield Proficiency 12 > 15
Skill level up, Sneaking 15 > 16
Skill level up, Soul Sense 16 > 19
Skill level up, Spatial Intuition 1 > 2
Skill level up, SYMPHONY 15 > 18
Skill level up, Taunt 17 > 20
Skill level up, Tracking 14 > 15 > 18
Skill level up, Unarmed combat proficiency 14 > 15
Skill level up, Visualization 24 > 26
I made sure to grind as many of my skills as possible and figured that if there was an All-Weapons Proficiency skill, there would be one for its armor counterpart, which was proven to be true. The same applies to the Harvest skill. A few skills broke through a threshold or simply gained some bonuses; for one, Evasion now might guide me to evade in such a way that my attack is left in an awkward position, ripe for a counter. Mana Manipulation required me to take full control of the ambient mana as far as ten centimeters from my skin, this area of mana became a part of me, allowing me to form and cast spells anywhere within the domain as though doing so from my hands. Lastly, my Tracking can now follow after the trail left behind by the targets Mana.
'Spell updates! thank you.'
Journeyman spell learnt Supersonic Physique
2 spells/skills fused, evolved and lost
Expert spell learnt Haste
Spell mastery rank up, Light Intermediate > Peak
Spell mastery rank up, Mend Intermediate > Advanced
Spell mastery rank up, Unsoil Advanced > Peak
Spell mastery rank up, Soften Basic > Intermediate
Spell mastery rank up, Condense Water Basic > Peak
Spell mastery rank up, Lesser Heal Intermediate > Peak
Spell mastery rank up, Conjure Trilattic Swarm Basic > Intermediate
Spell mastery rank up, Conjure Weapons Early > Basic
Conjure Trilattic Swarm - Novice Rank, Early mastery expanded
Supersonic Physique is the body's counterpart to Accelerated Thoughts, while Haste is simply the combination of both that cost 150% the mana cost of its un-combined form. Besides that, my excursions into the wild provided me with the chance to further master and understand a lot of the basic utility spells I know. Light may now be directional, and through application of mana circulation, will last almost indefinitely. Unsoil when used in a sweeping motion, now cleans a much larger area for the same cost.
Condense Water I mastered out of necessity and repeated use, it works by creating an area of cold water-attracting mana which manifests in the form of a fog. Since there were never enough to drink during laborous jobs; I forcefully kept the spell active when unused, then I learned to send it further away from me to collect moisture from the unaffected atmosphere further away. Until finally, due to being always present, it gained a slight bit of conciousness and became a Fog Pseudo-Elemental who may be summoned for the sole purpose of collecting water.
Soften I now understand is a very versatile utility spell, camping out and the ground is hard? Soften it. Eventually, I also noticed that it may be used on armored enemies and may be focused into an orb and be shot at a target. Next, I stumbled into the knowledge that Mend can repair magical items, it just takes much more mana, a longer time, and is very demanding in Mana Sense, as we are required to reconnect its enchantments following the leftover mana traces. I thank the farmers and their broken Dungeon dropped tools for that.
During a misfortunate accident where a few teams encountered a very large nest of Vespas, resulting in deaths and badly injured patients, I ended up getting taught the deeper masteries of Lesser Heal while at the same time helping the healers treat the injured. This and after my encounter with Simon, I was once again reminded of the importance of defense and why I even made Conjure Trilattic Swarm in the first place, who needs an armor with a pocket space when there are plenty enough spells of that category around. So instead, the armor now automatically manifests its own Coat to further increase its durability. Though that did not stop me from upgrading the Latent Framework to be capable of creating a bridge that connects True Space with a storage friendly subspace, this allows me to store and withdraw any excess swarm into and out of a spatial storage.
Regarding my offensive capability. Conjure Weapons, like all other weapon conjuring spells, was easily upgraded by manually guiding the conjuration process so as to increase the weapon's lethality; barbed whips, spiked hammers, reverse thorned arrows, you name it. After the first fifteen or so modifications, the modification process became automated by the spell, though I may assume control anytime.
Not much for three weeks of effort. But one cannot forcibly gain understanding and mastery of anything—unless I use FP, which I won't! On a side note, my ring now has 50 total mana and I am close to consolidating a new offensive spell that will hopefully be of the Expert Rank. This I will develop in conjunction with attempting my personal goal of exploring Pangea, and maybe even the multiverse.
With my family safe and quite easily accessible, Rumah developing well and strong, my arsenal of skills and spells upgraded. The preparations are ripe.