I collapsed to the ground at the entrance of the cave, laying against the rocky cliff face despite how uncomfortable and sharp it was in several places. Beside me, Luke simply laid there in shock as though he couldn’t quite believe what was happening, since Sense Danger didn’t seem to pick anything up from him I just ignored him in favour of my newly increased levels.
Choose A Path Skill Static Field Grand Skewer
I’d been offered a Static Skill before, I think at Level 5, so I was hesitant to take it now. What would be the point in trying to specialise in something that I could have chosen right from the very beginning? I don’t think that I’d really be able to be quite as good at it as I could’ve been, and I honestly didn’t even care much for Static anyway.
What would it even do? For that matter, what does Static actually mean?
The smart option would probably be to wait until I can figure that out, but the last time I waited to make a choice it chose Willpower automatically, so I really wanted to choose as soon as possible.
Grand Skewer sounds like it should be pretty good. I mean, just the word ‘Grand’ makes it sound much more impressive than Static Field.
Skill Grand Skewer Chosen
Path Skills Lightning Generator 15 Lightning Bolt 14 Lightning Cloak 5 Charge 12 Chain Lightning 1 Grand Skewer 1
Choose A Stat To Increase Willpower Wisdom Strength Agility
Man, at this point there’s no point trying to come up with a good reason. I’m taking Willpower.
Robert Zeneki Lightning Adept 18 Level 20 Willpower 18 Wisdom 8 Strength 5 Agility 7
Path Skills Lightning Generator 15 Lightning Bolt 14 Lightning Cloak 5 Charge 12 Chain Lightning 1 Grand Skewer 1
General Skills MAX Lightning Steps 5 Breath Of Mana 5 Sense Danger 7 Channel Mana 8 Meditation 5
King Slayer
I kinda wish I was getting notifications for Stats and Skills increasing so that I could actually know what I did to level them, but I guess that’s just one of those things that you can’t do anything about.
A tiny spike of unease from Sense Danger warned me just a moment before Luke tried to grab me by the throat. Instinctively I swung my arm around and Generated Lightning across my fist, managing to smack him across the face with a satisfying thwack sound and sending him falling back to the ground.
“Y-you…” The hatred was clear in his voice but he didn’t manage to finish his sentence before he seemed to realise something and his eyes widened, though whether it was from rage or surprise was unclear to me, “You’ve ruined everything! I was this close to Level 20, do you understand?”
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I tilted my head and looked at him as though he was speaking in a foreign language, “Why should I care? You’re the one who tried to kill me. Maybe it’s your fault.” Regardless of his failed previous attempt, he scrambled to his feet and lunged at me again. This time, instead of blindly reacting, I bound his arms and legs with cords of Lightning and held him aloft.
He let out an incoherent scream of rage and thrashed about, managing to smack his forehead against the rocks to his side and causing me to lift him further away from anything he could use to hurt himself.
“What to do, what to do…” I held a hand to my chin and looked around in the hopes of finding some kind of inspiration but the only things visible were the rocks, sand, and wooden pier above me.
“Hey! Adventurer!” I looked to Luke, expecting the shout to have come from him, then realised that it sounded nothing like him and he looked just as surprised as I was. Though that quickly turned to indignant rage.
“NO! This isn’t fair! My control should have held for days longer! Why is this happening?” It was one of the villagers, peeking over the edge of the cliff. I looked up at them and waved.
“We have our fastest Runner going down the road to the nearest town with a Guard. Hopefully they’ll send someone to help within a few days, maybe a week. Bring him up here and we’ll see about finding some restraints.” Their voice took on a venomous tone as they said ‘him’, which was a pretty tame response given the circumstances. I wasn’t sure I’d have so much restraint in their place, although it’s hard to tell how you’d act in such unusual circumstances.
“Alright, I think I can keep him like this for another 10 minutes or so. Can you get something together before then?” As they nodded and ran off, I began looking around for a way to climb back up.
Should’ve thought of that before I jumped down, but you live and learn I guess.
----------------------------------------
Apparently collapsing the ground under the village caused a little bit of damage, and basically every building above where the church was had collapsed in the massive hole that it made. Thankfully no one was hurt, but that could have ended pretty terribly if I wasn’t so lucky.
It ended up taking 4 days for someone to arrive for Luke, and in that time the villagers ended up telling me a little more about how this all exactly happened. Apparently for the first few days he was just holed up in his room day and night, leaving the Lobster by the pier to fend for itself. No one quite knew what to do about it, but it was clear that something had happened so they decided to just wait until he came out on his own and ask him what happened.
What they didn’t expect was for him to emerge a completely different person. He hardly seemed to be upset by the apparent death of his father, and had become much more comfortable among people with whom he had previously avoided. Obviously people thought it was strange, but they decided not to do anything about it. It was better than him being unable to cope, they thought.
Then he began talking to people about his ‘God’, the strange creature that was very clearly a tamed Monster. At first, almost no one actually took him seriously, but he was undeterred and continued to preach to anyone that would listen. At some point people began to actually agree with him, and then soon after that they began to become… indistinct. They didn’t stand out too much, blending into the background easily, and choosing to talk less and less.
By the time anyone realised something was wrong, they were unable to resist as they were forcibly converted.
It was quite a sad story, and I couldn’t help but wonder if anything similar had happened anywhere else. Also, I asked a few people about his Pact, but no one knew anything about it. He was always hesitant to answer questions about his Path and Skills, and the idea of having something other than a Path was completely alien to them.
Of course, the man himself was no issue. He absolutely refused to talk to me, calling me sacrilegious and a Godkiller. Though if I was, I would have surely gotten a Feat for it, just like I did for the Rat King, so I didn’t really take any of it seriously.
When a group of Guards came to take him to the dungeons of Ironhold, I was glad to finally be able to go back home and get some rest but decided that I may as well see if I could find Kaelan first, since it’d been a while.
It wasn’t much later than noon by the time I arrived, so I headed to the Training Fields to find him and Absolute Render having a conversation close to the entrance.
“Hey! Kaelan! Render.” I waved as I walked over to them, and Kaelan looked pleasantly surprised at my arrival. Render turned to look at me and politely waved before standing stock still, like a statue.
“Hey, Rob! I didn’t expect to see you here, you’ve not been at the Hall lately, have you? Did anything happen?”
“No no, I was doing this Job to hunt some Giant Crabs at Saltrock. I was gone for like the past two weeks.”
“Really? I think I know that one. How much did you end up earning, if you don’t mind me asking?” Earning?
Oh… right.
My head fell into my hands and I groaned.
“What? No way. Did you forget to ask for the payment?” I just nodded, somehow in the four days that I’d been there after the fact, it had just never crossed my mind. Nor had, now that I thought about it, my new skill. It was kind of hard to keep track of that when I hardly believed that I’d gotten two new Path Skills in under a week in the first place, “How far away is it? If you don’t ask for payment within a week they don’t legally have to give you anything, but if you hurry back you could still get paid!”
Wait, so I was there for 4 days to keep an eye on Luke, that doesn’t count towards doing the Job, then I didn’t do anything on that last day because I forgot… It took a day and a half to get here. Dang it.
“No, I stayed there for a few days after I finished the Job. I won’t get back in time.” It’s not like I desperately needed the money, but it still sucked to miss out on the rewards of all my hard work like that.
“My condolences, Robert Zeneki. Your physical reward is gone, however remember that you still have your mental one. The knowledge and experiences you have gained are more valuable than any currency.” My face lit up at his words, this was the perfect time to remember this, since I was already in the Training Fields.
“You’re right! I got a new Path Skill! I haven’t even tested it yet, so I don’t know what it can do either.”
“Congrats man, do you wanna figure it out right now? What’s it called?” Kaelan leaned in slightly now that the conversation had turned to something that he could properly help with, and I saw no reason to decline his help.
“It’s called Grand Skewer. It’s probably the weirdest name for a Skill I’ve gotten so far, apart from maybe Breath Of Mana.”
“That is likely because it is more powerful than average. Skills with difficult to decipher names tend towards being difficult to decipher themselves, but it is often worth the effort.” Kaelan looked a little surprised at first, but then a thoughtful expression crossed his face as though he’d just realised that was true himself.
“I think it’s probably something passive, because I can’t figure out how to activate it. Actually, there’s this thing I did once with Meditation to figure out a different Skill, so I can probably get an idea by using that.”
“Wait, really? I’ve never heard of anyone using Meditation like that, but I guess the Elder did specifically mention something metaphysical. I guess that could be what he meant?”
“You should come and Meditate near us as we train ourselves. Once you have learned more of your new Skill we will be able to use it in practice immediately, should you wish.”
“Yeah, sounds good. Let’s get started then.” I followed them to their field, where Kaelan began casting various magic spells that Render attempted to either block or dodge. Sitting down, I soon blocked out all other sensations and attempted to recede into that metaphysical space.