Two towers [an unknown location in the new world], local time [1793.05.10 8]
Changes will be applied during your sleep.
Please choose the leveling restrictions.
Note 1:
It is unnecessary to restrict a [Profession], as it doesn’t affect [Soul contamination] in a meaningful way.
Note 2:
Your [Soul contamination] [Space, type: B5001] is [Uncommon]. You can freely exchange other [Soul fragments] for this type during leveling.
Current exchange rate is 1 [Space, type: B5001]: 87.22 [Class 1, common].
Average exchange rate is 1 [Space, type: B5001]: 62.73 [Average from level 1-100 kills].
Well, I didn’t know it worked like that, he thought, surprised. He did choose the Space contamination because of its accessibility in nature, but he never did the math for how leveling up worked. Obviously.
This will speed up things slightly. I just need to keep this contamination above 5% until Garuan adapts to it and gets his own contamination above 5%. It should be self-sustaining from that point, if I understand correctly. I expected to have a long period without leveling at all, but it doesn’t seem that bad anymore.
After a moment, he decided to first spend his Universal Points in hope of speeding the process even further.
The [Exchange] is currently unavailable. Please visit the closest [System Shrine].
“Da fuck? Oi! System! You modified my body in many strange ways just two weeks ago, how come you suddenly are this impotent?” he asked the skies.
Cricket-like noises were his answer.
“This is unreasonable… I will have to leave this place sooner than I thought. This blocks half of my Class utility…”
He agreed to set his leveling restrictions. Firstly, his Profession would get 25% of Soul fragments, it was the most he could choose. Next, he selected his Space contamination to be kept at 5.2%, exchanging the Soul fragments when necessary. Then he set the priority of fragments, ‘race’ being the least important. He gave the Garuan the level-proportional amount of Soul fragments, with the same Space type as a priority.
Current [Class] leveling speed reduced by an average factor of 114. Around 4,23% of [Soul fragments] will be exchanged for [Universal Points].
Are you sure you want to proceed?
He confirmed. I don’t have a choice, he thought, hoping for better times to come quickly. I will at least have time to train my Will and Memory, but the chances of getting the achievements are miniscule. If it took two weeks to get one Intuition… Yea, I am not going to sit here for years.
He decided it was enough for now. The changes would take place tomorrow anyway. I will take a bath and just go to sleep.
He didn’t have any soap, nor basin, so the only thing he could do was to perfunctorily clean his body with water and bandage scrap. After preparing some food, he went back into the cave. His sleeping conditions got better. Instead of smooth stone, he now could sleep on a pile of dead vegetation. It guaranteed less cramps the next morning.
It was still early afternoon, but he hadn’t slept much in the last two weeks. He was in dreamland the moment he relaxed.
===============================
The sun was shining brightly through the bush. The singing of insects and birds could be clearly heard. He woke up much later than anticipated.
As always, fully aware from the start.
“I feel like shit,” he declared, looking at the ceiling. “No more training regime of this kind.”
“Grrrraau!”
“Ye ye, you told me,” he sat up. “Time to see what changed, I suppose.”
He could not wait to examine his new Interface. It was basically an accumulation of all the hard work he has done. Planning, testing, training… Accidentally experimenting. Gathering Soul fragments. It better be worth it! he thought, opening his Interface.
It was, finally, coming along.
My Mana capacity is directly related to the physical stats. Should I spend all of them there? he marveled at his progress, ignoring the level percentage altogether. I would like to have the next Willpower Perk as soon as possible, but the road to 100 is long… I just need another 16 to get an Energy Enhancement, though, assuming it works the same as Intuition. But what would that even give me? Intuition Enhancement was handy because of Garuan, but I don’t really need to increase my social abilities right now…
It took a while, but he decided to increase his physical stats. What he needed right now was survivability and Mana capacity. His Class and Profession weren’t useful for that at all, at least from the Passive Enhancement perspective.
Two to Power, one to Flex and Regeneration… done. A strange feeling passed through him. Something was changing, but his senses got confused for a moment. When he caught himself, he was halfway to the floor. The slight vertigo continued for a moment, until he acclimated to it. The sounds from outside were slowed down like a badly edited song. He could move normally, but soon he realized it wasn’t normal at all. Oh shit… this is intense… I have never felt so much energy in my muscles…
It took a while for him to process the changes and fully adapt to them. He was thinking faster, he was moving faster. He calculated the Doppler effect of the sounds by estimating the difference in tones made by cricket-like insects. He knew this sound very well, after weeks spent here.
Around 20%? I perceive faster, too? Holy shit, if it continues like that, I will be able to break the sound barrier with Power at 100…
Immediately, something told him it wasn’t going to work that way. He blinked a few times. This hunch was strong enough to feel like a guaranteed outcome… was that my Intuition?
“Gaaarrrrow,” his chest sang.
“So, it was my Intuition. But it didn’t change that much at all?”
“Grraaazzzz.”
“Class?” he thought and started to analyze. A framework was applied to his Soul. A framework of a Class depending on Intuition and Willpower. “It became more relevant?” He looked at his Interface again.
[https://i.imgur.com/RpqvmkR.jpg]
[https://i.imgur.com/gO3g894.jpg]
[https://i.imgur.com/JhDBJKx.jpg]
[https://i.imgur.com/KyGbjWI.jpg]
My Mana capacity is still the same? What a failure, I really need to check the Interface in detail, at some point. Doing math in my mind isn’t pleasant, though.
“Hey, Garuan, what can you see, exactly?”
It was evident that his Soul-bond was able to perceive something. Stupid as it was, its Soul-related skills were probably as strong as his Will powered ones. It even managed unauthorized Soul transplantation when having zero self-awareness, after all.
The image he got was unfocused and complex. But he was able to understand some parts. Magnifying structures were placed around… something that worked like Soul’s senses? They were powered directly by the Mana produced by the Soul…
He got a headache right after seeing that. This ‘image’ was too much for him. Mind you, it was just a short Soul memory. He had a feeling that playing with Souls without the System supervision was quite dangerous. Example in this case.
Congratulations! [Soul] [T1][L39] is now [T1][L41]! (+12)
Warning! [Interface] [General Skill] was added to your list.
[Tabu] is now [Level 3].
Warning? Let’s see… OH! Oh no…
[https://i.imgur.com/ATRk2Bn.jpg]
I understand now. Tabu and Interface are Skills monitoring me in case I cause some errors. The System is all about reliability, it’s trying to compensate… That’s why I was unable to read anything from Tabu!
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
“Yo, Garuan, I think you are definitely causing problems for me here,” he declared. Or I am totally mistaken and delusional.
“Gru?”
“Yes, I am not angry. It actually can help us. Be it my imagination, or a real thing… we are able to proceed on a new path from the beginning. From level 1, thanks to you.”
Garuan didn’t understand much of it, but it was happy. It helped its bearer, after all.
“I will find a way to abuse it. Every system has holes, and I am a specialist in finding them! Good job, Garuan!”
Pleased, low vibrations lasting minutes were his answer. He didn’t mind, it was actually quite relaxing. Similar to having a few purring cats on yourself.
It was finally time to check where he was exactly. ‘Descend’, Alana wrote. Time to plan how to get out of here, even if I don’t depart immediately. I want the Garuan to get his Soul contamination before that. It would be mightily inconvenient to be level-blocked in a hazardous environment.
Next, he scanned the list of available Skill Matrices. It’s bad… he thought while looking at the activation costs. With Mana capacity at 10, the only reasonable choices were the cheapest options. Cantrips basically.
Well, we all need to start somewhere. He spent the rest of the day checking the lists and doing chores. His Class paid some dividends right away, the list of Skill Matrices was ten times longer than for his Profession. He found three exceptions to the steep activation costs, and he took them all. His Soul contamination drastically decreased the required Mana. All of them took 2 of the Matrix space, but were at least useful.
The first was a ‘Primitive life detection’ Skill. Normally, it took 20 Mana to activate, but thanks to his Space contamination, the cost decreased to 9 Mana. The minus was that any living creature will feel it, basically informing them they were found. It also wasn’t able to penetrate fluids or solid matter.
The second, ‘Lesser metabolic enhancement’ was good for faster healing and getting more Power. It basically multiplied his Power by 1.1, giving him a 2% overall boost. Yes, it was 10% of Power boost, but with Power at 2, it amounted to just 2% overall strength. The cost was decreased from 7 Mana/s to only 2.32 Mana/s, surprisingly also using Mana produced by his Space contamination. It was more related to the life than he expected. The most important part – it influenced all of his symbiotic organisms, too, and he could have it active at all times.
The last one was from his Profession. ‘Mana highlight’ was basically useless. He needed to concentrate for a long period of time to build the construct, channeling his regenerating Mana until it reached around 1000, before releasing the Spell. Yes, it was a Spell, a true Spell. From what he understood, it would force Ambient Mana in the vicinity to transform into light, visually showing him the ‘elemental’ composition for one second. It was magically loud, quite useless, prone to not even working in high Mana density, and time-consuming. But it used his Will contamination and allowed him to learn. It was the ONLY Spell he could take, he needed to start from somewhere. Learning how to cast that manually would be the first step, he also hoped to learn more about his Will contamination.
Besides that, he took a cantrip. There was one for cleaning himself, but it wasn’t accurate at all. He would need to get naked, make sure to close his mouth and nose, and channel for a minute. It worked like a scrapping tool basically, just more precise. He would rather just take a bath in unclean water. Instead, he decided to learn some more magic, so he took a heating Spell. It was weak, but he was intimate with the thermodynamics and hoped to abuse that in his learning process.
He checked it already, but the Mana he was producing, high as it was, was leaking into the atmosphere immediately. Try as he might, it was impossible to use it without Ambient Mana Channeling, which immediately was giving him over-Mana and activated Garuan’s instinctual reaction of taking it away. There was no possibility of compromise with the Garuan, it wasn’t able to control the reaction, not to mention that with his Mana capacity he was getting Mana poisoned status with the smallest amounts. He feared long-term damage to his body if he were to get poisoned for hours every day. Civilization, he needed civilization!
He decided it was another exploit, though. If he managed to train himself in Ambient Mana Channeling to the point of regulating the input, he could theoretically have his Garuan in the constant Mana-gathering state. He didn’t really understand what ‘crystallize Mana’ meant, even after reading into it, but was informed that Garuan would tell him if something was needed.
After he used up all of his Matrix space, a new notification popped up.
You can change the [Skill Matrices] at any moment, but you will need to prove your mastery to set them at their previous [Level] again.
Your [Matrix space] will not rise until you finish all required [Level resets] of your [Class]!
Shit, he summarized. It’s 18 levels! I think I made a mistake…
But what was done, was done.
Thus, the second training session started, but this time he decided to keep a healthy approach.
===============================
The next day, first thing in the morning, he tried doing the math. A thing only a full clarity of mind and creeping uncertainty could persuade you to do.
He wasn’t able to get the exact info from his Interface and General Skills, though. So, he sent some questions about his leveling to the Interface and tried to estimate from the average values he got back.
It was dismal. His leveling speed was dismal.
If he didn’t want to spend the next 10 years getting his level resets, AFTER getting rid of the ‘penalty’ caused by the Soul contamination problem, he needed to change his tactics.
“Garuan, I think I am in deep shit.”
“Gru?”
“I should have done the math in the mental space… I never predicted it would be that bad. If we don’t find some insectoid nest, or something like that, I will stay on this level for years…”
“GRU!”
“No way! Hives give less Soul fragments?! How do you even know that?! My god… gods, should I change my Class right now?! It’s beyond my comprehension, this leveling speed…”
“Grrraa!”
“I know it will come naturally with time, and that I will live so much longer, but it’s 10 years to just get my Class to a true level one. 10 years… If I calculated it properly…”
He couldn’t agree with that. No, he wasn’t going to agree with that!
“You are a Soul specialist, Gru. There has to be another way! You were able to transplant a fragment of a Soul into me. You can See my Soul. Don’t you have any ideas?”
“grrrrrr…” the soft vibrations started. After a few seconds, Zeph was quite sure his Garuan was consulting the Interface.
He sighed deeply, “I really hope it won’t end with me spending years on the Class… I am not feeling ready to go into the unknown wilds at all. Speaking of it…” he looked at his arsenal. His guns were delegated to the ‘extreme cases’, he most probably won’t be able to refill the ammunition. His knives and crossbow were somewhat lackluster for an eventual melee fight. “I think it’s time to get a new weapon.”
He decided to make himself a spear and a few javelins. Maybe even an atlatl. Both were quite an easy affair. Find a sturdy branch, use the knife, and the weapon is ready. He spent the rest of the day making them and preparing new rations, Garuan was unresponsive through all of that.
He made the spear to be a little better. Instead of just sharpening the end, he split it and fastened a double-edged knife using flexible bark and sap. It was a primitive weapon, really, but the steel tip would make a difference. He used one of his three throwing knives, a suggestion from Alex for which he was very thankful right now. He could, of course, make a stone tip for his spear, but that would be a long process.
The Garuan was still quietly vibrating inside his chest, so he decided to just go to sleep. Tomorrow he will start scouting the major directions. It was time to get more information about the surroundings.
===============================
“Ridiculous…” he whispered, looking ahead. “This is completely ridiculous…”
He was scouting right now. He has gone west, as Alana suggested. Around the town’s ruins, seemingly endless grasslands were unfolding. The forest to the south was the only landmark here. The terrain was almost perfectly flat. It was an idyllic scene, but for some reason, he felt uneasy. He started to understand why after jogging for 5 hours. The closer he got, the more confusion he felt.
The ground ended suddenly, dark clouds taking its place a few hundred meters below. The cliff was almost vertical, composed of black rock. He was on a mountain, similar to a few others he could see in the distance. All of them had flattened tops, all of the same height. It looked almost like a deed of some titan who had cut off the mountaintops. The clouds below looked stormy, he even could see a sporadic flash of lightning. It was truly a ridiculous view.
He spent long minutes trying to comprehend how it was even possible. Not only the shapes of these mountains, but the lush vegetation, the weather, the… everything. Nothing reminded him of any mountainous terrain he knew of.
He wasn’t sure how high he was, maybe the clouds were actually a fog. A lightning fog… yea, for sure… If those mountains are only 1 or 2 kilometers high, why can’t I see any land? This doesn’t make any sense.
He found no answers, though.
After getting a hold of himself, he resumed his search of the mountain pass. It seemed like he would spend his whole day on this scouting mission. Even the fact that he managed to get here in just 5 hours was a small miracle. Because of the restoration sequence and his new physical attributes, he was able to keep up a fast jog for the whole time. It was around 50 kilometers to the cliffside, he just got an average marathon time without even draining himself, which spoke volumes of how much the System was helping.
He was using the ‘Metabolic enhancement’ all the time, of course. He was, sadly, unable to learn anything from it during the jog. He wasn’t able to see Mana, his internal perception was as hazy as his pressure sense. He would need to experimentally learn how it worked, but he wasn’t sure it was possible to do this in the wilderness, without any equipment. He could get used to the feeling all he wanted, but it wasn’t as easy as learning to move a new muscle. Not at all.
On the plus side, he also noticed why it was called a ‘Metabolic enhancement’. He was sure Power didn’t help with muscle soreness, he even checked that in the Interface. Healing is one thing, but with this, I can just train all I want, he thought, moving leisurely alongside the cliff. My muscles were keeping the maximal output for the whole jog, this sure is an incredible upgrade. A stamina cheat, basically.
If he was to spend the whole day on scouting, he could as well do it thoroughly. He was looking for traces of any animals, especially birds. Some species liked to nest on the cliffs, and he now knew how much carnage he needed to do to level up.
He found nothing until the pass showed itself. Are those… bear tracks? It sure looks like bear tracks… He hesitated. Should I risk it? I have my guns with me…
He contemplated for a moment. From what he understood, the level disparity wasn’t a deciding factor below level 100. On the other hand, he was basically a spellcaster without any offensive spells.
He placed his spear and a small backpack on the ground and took out one of his pistols. I will need to get through here either way, better to know the enemy, he thought slowly stalking ahead.
The pass was a work of an intelligent race, for sure. Natural ledges were carved into long steps and connected together with an unnaturally smooth stone. He could see a good distance ahead. The steps had a width of at least 3 meters and weren’t steep., but the lack of handrails gave him chills either way.
He was moving slowly, making minimal noise and looking for tracks. After half an hour, he spotted a cave. It was big, around 2 times higher than him and wider still. He paused.
Besides a very distant, constant hum of thunder, it was quiet. He stepped near the cave to see slightly inside of the entrance at an angle. Traces of old blood, bones, and scat indicating the inhabitant was alive and active. He reevaluated his position again. It was one thing to shoot at an enemy on the stone stairs, it was another to do that in the cave.
He started to step back. It would be easier to set some traps instead, I should—
He wasn’t able to finish his thought.
With a roar, something heavy charged at him from the cave, he immediately threw himself against the cliff wall. The beast was fast, digging its claws in the stone to change directions on the ledge. Zeph fired in the general direction of its head, but wasn’t able to react to the extremely fast paw sweep. He rolled down the steps, almost losing his gun in the process. The beast was on him before he even managed to stop, its claws cutting deep into his left shoulder. The armor on his abdomen managed to stop the other paw, barely, but he lost his breath.
The Garuan stopped vibrating and something moved, the animal stopped in its tracks. Zeph didn’t wait and put a gun to its head with his right hand. Two shots later, and he now had a few hundred kilograms of meat crushing him. His broken ribs made it that much more painful.
You have killed [Giant Talpa – lvl 49].
You have earned [Soul fragments]!
You have earned 2 [Universal Points]!
Shit! he summarized while slowly scrambling from under the beast. I am bleeding too much! Why did I think it was a good idea, again?
He was in a bad shape. His left arm was unresponsive, his ribs wreaking havoc inside his chest. He looked at his shoulder after slowly sitting up.
“Huh! What… is that?” a green substance was slowly covering his wound; the bleeding was stopping before his very eyes. Then, his ribs moved.
He screamed, leaning to the ground and curling up. He spasmed a few times from the pain, then it stopped.
“Gru… what did you do?”
“Grrrraah.”
Warning! [Parasite] behavior detected! [Garuan] is consuming your blood!
Safety measurements active! Do you want to disable the [Garuan]?
No, he thought. It was controlling the intensity of his internal bleeding, evidently using his blood as a food source, but that was beside the point.
The Garuan set up his ribs and stabilized the structure of his lungs. It was spending a lot of resources to do that. But he just realized how deeply it was integrated with his body, it basically had ‘roots’ inside his whole torso.
That is not alarming at all… he sarcastically thought. I just need to get used to it.