Torrent mountain range, local time [1793.10.21]
She gulped down for the third time and only then looked back at him, closing the bag. “Don’t worry, I know what I am doing,” she said, much livelier now. She turned to Makani. “Like I said, times and times again, the PE specialization’ don’t have to be weaker, especially because there are upgrades multiplying their effectiveness.”
Makani snorted. “Yea, worth so much that even a level 200 would cry.”
She shrugged and looked back at Zeph. “The Passive Enhancements aren’t fair. The Power is increasing your muscle strength, processing speed, and overall durability; but it only multiplies what already exists. If you find a biological upgrade or implant that makes your muscles better, your strength will be multiplied accordingly. The PE are a ‘Soul strengthening’, they are just influencing the physicality in a controlled manner. Don’t ask me how exactly, though. I have a long way to learn such nuances. Anyway, the AMD, or Ambient-Mana-depended, strengthening are not the only way, even if they are also multiplying the effects of PE. Don’t listen to this buffoon,” she said, indicating Makani.
Yea… No killing the giants of the same level, it seems… he mused, a little disappointed.
“You are only saying that because you are taking this very path yourself. We don’t have such people at all in our society,” Makani said dismissively.
“Yes, because you of all the people know with certainty how it looks at higher levels,” she countered.
“They never come back. Did you see any level 300 walking around?”
“Why would they?! There is nothing here that could give them enough Soul fragments! Not to mention they would have problems with moving around, the matter here is frangible,” she rebuffed him again.
Zeph had an inkling it was an old dispute of theirs, so he decided to interfere.
“Do you have some ungodly number of mountains here, or something? How can a huge chunk of your population live on higher altitudes?” he asked, trying to imagine the higher-level domains. If everyone had to live in mountains…
They both paused, their mouths open and ready to continue the argument. Their heads slowly turned in his direction. The confusion emanating from them was almost palpable.
“I will tell you,” started Aisha, “but it’s your turn after that. The more questions you spell out, the more ridiculous they sound.”
“Ye ye, I will tell you my life story in a moment.”
She nodded. “I heard Makani explaining to you that Mana is drifting upwards. Then, tell me, how much energy an upward Mana current the size of a country possess?”
That shut him up immediately. He felt stupid for not noticing earlier. Even calculating the energy of air currents could return an equivalent of megatons of TNT. How bad would it be for particles that are basically a pure energy medium?
“Hmm, you seem to understand. Then, what would happen when a similar amount of Mana fills a cave system of a certain rock formation? A Mana-resisting one?”
His eyes widened. “You have flying islands?!”
Makani chuckled. “More like flying continents. It’s one of the fields the Aeroplanners are studying. It’s too close to geology for my liking, but what can you do,” he shrugged, taking a sip from his bowl.
“After the rock formation takes to the skies, which is a long process, by the way, it just… slides on the existing Mana currents. The altitude depends on the rock composition and overall mass,” finished Aisha.
“That is one painful simplification, right here,” Makani said, grimacing.
She ignored him. “But enough of that, it seems your world is… quite different. Maybe you can tell us something more?” she asked, trying to be delicate.
“Grrrrrra,” it encouraged him. Aisha’s head immediately snapped to his torso. She was grinning creepily while her eyes were drilling through him.
“Ahem,” he started, trying to get her attention and make her stop staring at his chest. He was met with only partial success. “Don’t interrupt me until I am finished, ok? And… Ugh, Aisha, could you stop?” he abashedly asked.
“Sure, sure,” she said, still glancing down. “But why can I understand it?” she asked with fascination painted on her face.
“Grrrurrr,” it explained to him.
“It’s related to what I want to say. Gru is basically abusing the fact that you are Contracted to us… There is a Soul connection of some kind, and you have the empathy EE, too… Anyway, let’s start from the beginning,” he said, concentrating back on the important parts. “There was no Mana on my world—”
They both tried to say something, but Zeph raised his hand to stop them. His glare was enough to shut them up altogether.
“As I said, there was no Mana on my world. But some years ago, something similar… showed up? We called it Prana, and it’s incompatible with Mana… yes?” he allowed Aisha to speak, seeing her hand raised and a serious face.
“Can you produce it? I mean the… Paranna?” she asked, butchering the pronunciation.
“No. We were just… naturally adapted to live in such environment, I suppose? No one ever died from Prana poisoning, from what I know. My Interface points that out in my race Trait.”
“Um, this can be somehow intrusive, but can you send us the Effigy? It’s quite important,” asked Makani.
“The what?”
They both facepalmed. “Obviously, he wouldn’t know about it,” Aisha berated herself. “Sorry about that. If we are in physical contact, you can instruct your Interface to send us… an impression of a part of your Interface. It’s a common measure to identify people when entering a city. We will be able to see the visual descriptions, but unable to read them,” she explained, using some Rui and Laiu expressions.
A screenshot? Well, that is… unimportant right now. “I will send you my full Effigy, but only AFTER I finish,” he declared, crossing his arms.
They both nodded, slightly shocked by his openness. Yes, Zeph would rather keep his cards close to his chest, but after the talk with Makani, he finally understood how large the holes in his understanding were. If he wanted to stay inconspicuous, he would need their full support. Which meant giving away all the information. He was sure Aisha’s goddess was counting on exactly that. He would need to ask if more ‘catches’ were pinned to this contract.
“We had nothing like the Mana. As a result, we also didn’t have a direct connection to our Souls. Furthermore, our world was secluded until Prana showed up. There was no, or only marginal, Soul transmigration between our and the external worlds. This caused the Soul wounds to accumulate,” he continued somberly. Aisha nodded in understanding; the Priestess evidently could understand the connotations. “Add to that the fact, that in the last few centuries our population skyrocketed in numbers… When the Prana showed up, around 8 billion humans lived on our planet.”
Their thoughtful postures evolved into something else after hearing that. The two had to hold their jaws to not lose them. Even if they wanted to, they were unable to ask questions.
“Anyway, we somehow evolved to counter the Soul problem. Our Will is able to interact energetically with our Soul… And, as it turned out, with Mana, too,” he quickly added.
The jaws hit the ground, and he could swear their eyes were only a few millimeters away from freedom.
“Every one of us, including the people that came here before me, should have severe Soul fragmentation. I was even above the threshold of 15%. That’s how I got my Soul contaminations, the System filled that hole with the fragments I chose. I still have 10% fragmentation, though. Besides that, you should know that I have finished HT Achievement for Intuition. It probably has to do with our Will usage… But I am not sure. Here, see for yourself,” he finished touching each of them and using the newly discovered functionality.
After that, he just sat down and took another filling of the soup, removing the pot from the rack above the fireplace because hardly anything was left inside.
He was eating in the silence, not even looking at the two dummies shocked into paralysis.
After a few minutes, Makani started to murmur, smiling widely.
“Greater Willpower… of course, of course! Haha, OF COURSE!” he finally exclaimed. Zeph was quite surprised, instead of breaking down into basic mental components, Makani started to laugh happily, as if finding a hidden meaning of life itself. “I am not going to compare myself to a Troll, haha!”
Huh. What?
“Just ignore him,” said Aisha, before drinking A LOT from her waterskin.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Haaaa…” she exclaimed loudly, drowning out Makani’s laughter. Then, she bonked the guy in the head with the shaft of her weapon, effectively smashing him into the floor.
In the silence that ensured, she looked at Zeph seriously.
“So, you have Greater Willpower… Never, and I mean it, NEVER disclose this information to anyone,” she started.
“Umm, something’s wrong with that?” Zeph asked, confused.
“You ignorant fool,” she said quietly, clasping her head with a hand. “Only the strongest of species have a Greater Passive Enhancement. For a human to have one? If you don’t want to take part in global politics, just censure this information and forget about it altogether.”
“I don’t understand,” he said, shaking his head. “My Will is the real game changer here, so why are you concerned about something I don’t even use? And what do you mean by ‘strongest species’?”
“Your Will cannot be detected. Your prowess in Mana manipulation can be perceived as a great talent. Like I said, PE are only amplifying what already exists, you don’t need 200 Willpower to do what you do. Such numbers are true statistically, but you are of an unknown Human type,” she explained, pointing at him.
“By the ‘strongest’ I mean peerless in their domain. For example, the inland colossi species typically have Greater Power to keep up the structural integrity of their bodies and stay functional. Greater Regeneration is the domain of Trolls. We also heard rumors of the Ryuu species from other worlds. They supposedly possess Greater Willpower,” she finished.
Dragons?! Wow… Am I a Dragonborn? Heh, No way. My Will should be quite different from theirs… The ‘Greater’ is a strange discriminant, he concluded, thinking some more about what she said. Sure enough, some parts didn’t add up.
“Umm, but my contamination can be detected?”
“What contamination?” she asked incredulously.
“Will contamination…” he started, losing his voice as she hid her head in her hands.
“Ehh, don’t worry about that,” said Makani, standing up from the ground. He massaged his head for a moment before continuing. “It would be clear your contamination is of an exotic nature, but no one can tell what it is without prior experience.”
“That is only true for levels lower than 300,” Aisha mumbled into her hands.
“He has a lot of time to deal wit—” he stopped suddenly; his eyes distant. “Hey,” he turned to Zeph slowly, “about your leveling speed… You were to elaborate on that…”
Aisha looked up, her pale face almost glowing with anxiety.
“Right. Well, Gru is a kind of Soul specialist and has the same Will contamination…”
He explained the process of gathering additional Soul fragments from beings with a ‘positive’ Soul wound. He also mentioned the method involving the creation of ‘negative’ Soul wounds, but explained they both saw it as a dangerous and disgusting practice.
Aisha was becoming more excited with every word, brightening up. After the final declaration, she was back to herself.
“Ha!” she exclaimed. “Information like that is the reason Leilucia has paid the System and contracted us! You are the first person… No, the first creature,” she corrected herself, looking at his chest, again, “to successfully utilize those Soul fragments directly. I am sure she will be happy to pay you for some explanations,” she said, smiling widely.
“Grrrarr,” it proudly exclaimed.
“Also, you were right that the second method is dangerous,” she continued in a serious tone. “Traumatic ejects like that contain memories of the events that wounded the Soul. If you accumulate too much, you are at risk of Will depletion or even directly wounding your own Soul. I don’t want to explain this in detail – most of the theories about this curiosity weren’t proved,” she indicatively said.
Sounds like PTSD? I think people in ancient times weren’t that prone to contract this disorder? Or am I wrong, and it has nothing to do with the eras. Could be just Karma, he mulled over it for a moment.
“But I can say with certainty – this is one of the reasons the Soul wounds accumulated on your world. In critical cases, and I am speaking about witnessed instances, taking enough of such fragments can shatter your Soul instantly.”
That put him in another cognitive spiral, but he quickly noticed the silence and took a hold of himself. After she was sure that he was listening, Aisha plowed ahead.
“How high is your Tabu? I am asking you too, Gru,” she said, dead serious. Makani froze after hearing the question. “It’s not visible on your Effigy. Any entry that is colored doesn’t.”
Here it comes! The cat is out… Zeph thought with a small dread. He has hoped that she just ignored it after seeing his interface.
“Grrra,” it lightly stated, “Grunn,” and admitted.
Aisha nodded and looked at Zeph.
Well, if Gru doesn’t mind sharing it… he thought, composing himself. “It’s at 52 for me. We also have the Interface Skill, but it’s below 50 for both of us.”
She relaxed after hearing that. “Don’t worry about the Interface, but make sure to NOT advance your Tabu to level 100,” she said ominously with a straight face. “I can tell that you didn’t do anything wrong, but System Onji has implemented some automatized procedures; you need to speak to them at their Shrine to make sure you are safe on that side. I am sure they are not listening constantly to us, so just bear with it until then. Otherwise, your location and other private information could become very public in short order,” she explained, pointing at him. “There are Classes specializing in detecting such Skills, too. People can be VERY unreasonable when it comes to Tabu, but detecting the Tier 1 version isn’t easy at all. There should be no changes to your Soul just yet.”
She paused for a moment, drilling him with her eyes to make sure the message was received.
“To put it in simple terms, after gaining Tabu of Tier 2, a being becomes Onji’s experiment. You really, really don’t want that to happen” she added in a low voice.
Zeph gulped.
“Yea, I understand,” he weakly stated. He wouldn’t fully abide by the warning, though. He would rather risk being changed and hunted down than dying by the virtue of not utilizing all of his advantages.
It was a bad topic for him, so he decided to just change it. “But can we go back to my questions? You should have enough information about me already,” he proposed.
Both nodded energetically.
Ugh… “Makani, why are you so… lively?” he asked awkwardly. “I thought your psyche would leave you after hearing all that,” he confessed.
“Well, well, well. My fellow human!” he started, coming closer and sitting next to Zeph, then hugging him with one arm. “You, my friend, are a mythic creature,” he said with a smile. “Or rather, two mythic creatures encased in one body. I have no qualms to declare I cannot rival with you!”
“Makani is considered a genius of his generation,” Aisha elaborated with a crooked smile. “You were crushing his pride, but he is no Greater existence,” she said, using the Rui word.
“Should I continue with strengthening my physical PE?” he asked instead, trying to get rid of Makani’s arm.
“With your Mana capacity? That is not even a question. You need access to those Matrices!” Makani said immediately, abandoning his buddy-buddy approach.
“Before that, I hope you have some idea what the PE are doing?” after getting an uncertain nod from Zeph, Aisha continued. “The rule of thumb is that every order of magnitude doubles the respective natural parameter, so the diminishing returns are no joke. After 1000 in a PE, you won’t be able to see a difference. Normally that happens around level 300. Also, there are some PE balancing problems, but the System should give you a warning, so I will abstain from explaining it.”
Yea, the Intuition warning, he thought. He could remember the notification that showed up just after he woke up on the mountain.
They spent the next few hours discussing his PE and Matrices. The cheapest Tier 1 Spell required 50 Mana capacity. The number of accessible Matrices was staggering, at around 120 from his Class alone. Makani had to agree that it was a huge advantage. He was also surprised by how many points the Force Generalist gave. People preferred Classes granting 6 points, the maximum, but Force Generalist wasn’t that much behind with the 5 points. HT Intuition achievement increased that to 7, but Makani was still lamenting the missed opportunity. If Zeph had a Class that auto-allocated 5 points in Intuition, he would become a specialist like none other.
He could achieve 1000 points in Intuition at level 90, which was utterly ridiculous for a Human.
During the discussion, Zeph continued to pump his points into Power and Regeneration, finishing the allocation before they went to sleep. After getting to 50 Power, he excitedly read the new Power Energy Enhancement.
Congratulations! One [Passive Enhancement] milestone achieved!
You gained one [Energy Enhancement] from [Power] milestone!
The enhancement was ridiculous.
[https://i.imgur.com/bCL2xiZ.jpg]
It was, basically, a true but restricted telekinesis. He understood why this Enhancement showed up. Trying to move on a loose ground while your muscles were producing three times more force? It would be a hell. Similarly, hitting something without this ‘cushion’ could as well break all your fingers, even with the ‘hardening’ effect of Power Enhancement.
He could feel the invisible tattoos covering his body. They were powered by the Mana expelled from his body, and he could easily deactivate the Enhancement by directing his Mana away from them.
But the ridiculous part came from somewhere else. Zeph could analyze how it worked. Telekinesis independent of Magicules was a breakthrough! He would abuse it to his heart's content.
Above 150 Mana capacity, he thought happily. Now I just need to finish my resets to unlock my Matrix space. That will be awesome! His hopes were high, indeed.
He also learned from his companions that the next, very important milestone was at 500 in a PE. The Energy Enhancements had ‘themes’, different on each magnitude. Also, they were slightly different for each species, but the theme was universal.
The first EE at 50 PE had a ‘theme’ of ‘survival’. The second at 500 was ‘power’, and the third at 5000 was ‘control’.
No one knew what would be granted at 50000, but it was impossible to achieve such numbers in the first place. It would require an aggregate level above 5000, in the case of an absolute specialist. Or, a min-maxer, as Zeph preferred to call them.
Nine points per level, all funneled into one PE. It wasn’t even doable, because the imbalance would kill such a person. At least according to Aisha and Makani.
The theory-crafting session was a pleasant surprise for Zeph, though. He relaxed a lot, feeling almost like when analyzing complicated RPG systems. He was a natural in it.
Finally, after the sun showed up again, they decided to rest. The camp was in a good place – they could stay here for a day or two to recover fully. No one was in a hurry.
Before resting, Zeph changed the ‘Body fluidity auto-training’, the Flexibility Perk, to the Power Perk. He was hoping it won’t disturb his sleep, but the additional 25 points were well above the amount suggested by Aisha, so he had to do it.
As a result, he had to spend a few hours spasming uncontrollably before darkness managed to take him.
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Interface:
[https://i.imgur.com/JHoLEgH.jpg]
[https://i.imgur.com/00oiGhR.jpg]
[https://i.imgur.com/5eSkTBa.jpg]
[https://i.imgur.com/wmrpdKd.jpg]
[https://i.imgur.com/99xY0gB.jpg]
[https://i.imgur.com/TRy0JID.jpg]
[https://i.imgur.com/XQf4V16.jpg]
[https://i.imgur.com/cwwayDO.jpg]