Sitting right on a rocky beach under a huge metal umbrella, Robert was slowly going over his rough plan inside his head. Periodically a familiar tattoo appeared on his forearm, glowing with light, when Rob summoned his status screen to adjust it to his liking. Despite being covered with a shadow, his skin had a clear red tone after long exposure to sun rays. However, by this point, Robert was accustomed to feeling being cooked alive all the time. This damned scorching sun hadn’t moved at all from the moment he appeared in this world. It wasn’t surprising that local life wanted to avoid it all cost by going deep down.
So, to summarize, right now I have an in-built eternal nuclear reactor that doesn’t have any switches… pardon, constantly growing eternal reactor. Fixed part of the mana produced is used to sustain my life, while simultaneously feeding my body with energy. The rest is free and can be used by two active abilities. Although both have their own limitations. Conjuring steel constructs takes mental effort, while restoration depends on my body's condition. No wounds – nothing to regenerate. Moreover, the strain after intensive usage is still there, despite lessening quite a bit. Overall, they both, but mainly summoning, indeed solve my energy issues… as God said. It is a good power-up I must admit.
Nodding to his own thought, Robert once again focused on the status screen to do a final check of his doings in an attempt to make it clearer and more practical. Fortunately, it had enough possibilities for it, including adding previously unspecified information and even self-made parameters.
Envoy of Wepwakor – Tier 1
Strength - 19 Agility - 10 Endurance - 24 Toughness - 18
Perception - 10 Mind - 45 Mana flow - 37
Energy generation per second – 340 pts.
Sustaining life – permanent 18% of generation.
Active ability 1: Restoration – up to 35% of generation.
Active ability 2: Conjure Steel – up to 133% of generation.
Passive traits: God’s Envoy, Interdimensional Entity, Avatar’s Body
Body modifications: Hive-mind, Steel Skin, Self-Supply, Increased Regeneration, No Vulnerabilities, Potential, Mana Conductor
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Temporary info (Rob, DO NOT FORGET to kill it later – no repeat of the same mistake! Your throat was already cut once when you were overwhelmed with a wall of text!!!)
Active Ability: Restoration – It is an odd mixture of God’s blessing and a curse together with the natural abilities of different species. Grants a controlled possibility to direct mana to rejuvenate the body, which, depending on the amount of energy, can lead from restoration of stamina up to immediate healing of any critical wounds. The stronger the body, the more energy it can take. However, such fast-paced healing overstrains it greatly, which limits the possibility of repeated usage. Can be triggered to full power even in an unconscious state for the sake of survival.
Brief info about body modifications:
Hive mind: Ability to multitask from the very same creature.
Steel Skin: Increased toughness of skin together with an overall weight in exchange for flexibility.
Self-Supply: A constant supply of mana decreases biological needs tenfold.
Increased Regeneration: A constant supply of mana increases the body's ability to passively regenerate any damage tenfold.
No Vulnerabilities: Absence of any critical points such as a brain or a heart, but unavoidable death after losing more than 60% of body mass, no matter what it is.
Potential: No limits on growth which is achieved by own efforts in a natural way. Attention – the size and overall appearance will need much more to change visually than before.
Mana Conductor: Mana flows through the body with ease, but with no exiting point a following overcharge of it will lead to dire consequences.
Current usage of mana generation – 87%
Status of the body: overstressed after intensive restoration
Limitations: Restoration is limited to 8% max usage for approximately 21 hours
Warning: Body strain is accumulating with minor speed
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Okay, including my ability to conjure steel, it is all there. Detailed and specific. Even my own comment is there. With exact numbers that were earlier hidden by a vague description. The main irony – it took me so many attempts to see it like this just to read it once to organize my thoughts before I willingly hide it for an unknown time if not forever. Oh, well, at least it is useful to understand my limitations after the recreation of my own body by God.
I have some space for Mana Flow’s natural growth, but it won’t be forever as I can’t really rely on Restoration – only a small amount of mana is needed for a rejuvenation effect and not actually healing. The mention of the power of the body or vessel was quite direct. The stronger it is, the easier it might handle fast fixing, so that is one of the goals. Don’t know how it correlates with overstressing… And how long I was unconscious, but for now let’s assume that I have one possibility to regenerate fully in about 30-35 hours. It is not on the inhuman level of eating bullets for breakfast, but I believe it is stupid to downgrade a second chance after own failure.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
In the long run, I will need to get more abilities from God that are… how is called… channeled. It is the only way for me to live. But before that – to hunt. My stomach is almost touching my back already!
His umbrella started to disappear right into thin air, while Robert redirected his attention on creating a spear. The greyish metal seemed to disintegrate into nothingness, leaving not a single trace of its previous existence. However, another material was in the process of creation in a magical way, quickly taking the form of a long pole with a sharp end. It was hard to name it a weapon as its crude and primitive nature was almost screaming from its appearance. Rob needed just a single glance to repeat the conjuring again. His list of instruments included many different things, but he decided to slowly work over it, so they wouldn’t look like made from a stone by an ape.
Sighing after careful inspection of the result of his summoning skills, Robert tried to imprint in his mind all details that went far from what he intended in the first place. The single solution to overcome his lack of ability in the visualization of different objects was simple – just to train more to overweight the needed talent with simple experience. It was a long way before getting such results. Right now even such poor-quality versions were enough for him. Therefore, dispersing his weapon, he spent some time adjusting the form of his previously made aqualung, optimizing its construction. Soon, some turned into a lot.
Stop wasting your time, Rob. Your fear of finding nothing down there will not change, no matter how you are going to prepare for it. Just brace it, you coward!
An inner shout made him finally move forward as there was no need to avoid reality. He didn’t have the opportunity to lazy around if he couldn’t find a proper source of food. No, on the contrary, he would need to hast himself to kill that lizard before all his strength was gone because of hunger. However, to understand it and to do it were different things. The possibility of being trapped on a bared island in the middle of the ocean under no resting sun and without any other humans literally terrified him. Many people labeled themselves as introverts, but a total absence of any form of social communication would crash them in just a few weeks if they knew that there was no way out of this situation. Robert wasn’t that different in that regard and didn’t want to lie to himself. Adding a threat of slow death from hunger couldn’t improve his mood either.
Therefore, his indecisiveness was understandable for him. But it didn’t mean it was easy to overcome as it was nothing. Rob had made a mental push just to step into the water. The picture of a clear goal – to live through any misadventures to enjoy his life finally – helped him to focus his hesitant mind, before winning over his fears. There were only possibilities and there was not a guaranteed outcome. Even so, he knew what to do next. He wouldn’t give up. Not after all those events he went through already. Robert might struggle and might get into more trouble, but he was sure he would fight until the end when the obstacles would be too hard to overcome. Brief moments of despond were natural, taking into account his circumstances.
Not everyone can boast of visiting multiple worlds to fight giant monsters instead of rotting into his own grave! So, in some way, I am quite a lucky bastard who will have more portions of fortune in the future. Maybe even now… Wait! Yes, fucking yes! I see movement! What is it? Human?!
In just a moment Rob realized how badly he was mistaken. Indeed, the first thing he saw was a humanoid, that was emerged from the water. Light grey skin with blue stripes, which formed an odd, but beautiful natural pattern on the whole body of this strange creature. The latter could be easily confirmed by a single glance as a wide mouth with sharp teeth; three eyes with two being almost on opposite sides of a hairless head; no nose or ears; clearly visible gills on a long neck – everything showed the inhuman nature of it. The muscular chest and arms with the addition of membranes between long nailed fingers looked quite ordinary. The partly visible legs were no different in that regard.
Why partly? The reason was simple – the creature was dead, hanging lifelessly in the mouth of an already-seen lizard, but much smaller in size. Diving out from the water, the monster threw its prey on the rocky beach before turning its attention to Rob’s frozen figure. The obvious familiar smell might have confused it as it didn’t rush to attack him and was carefully observing the unknown entity.
“Good boy… or girl. No need to be aggressive,” his attempt to calm the lizard immediately led to a loud hiss.
That was another mistake…
Without any roar or sign, the car-sized monster pushed itself forward with lightning speed, already opening its mouth to bite him. At the very same moment, Robert tried to conjure the shield but failed. Still, the formless something managed to block the attack. However, the sheer force from the impact threw him backward. Hitting the stone with his head, Rob’s surroundings darkened for a second, before returning to normal. The lizard was already above him, exhaling directly into his face. The horrible stench almost made Robert vomit, but descending teeth were good motivation to ignore it and start moving.
Rolling to the side, he barely missed the bite, before rolling back with summoned knife in the hand. A strong hit with the help of adrenaline helped to push the crooked hastily created blade inside the body of the beast. The painful hiss only confirmed Rob’s ability to hurt the creature. However, he didn’t have time to celebrate as the lizard jumped back. His hand was still holding the hilt, resulting in an almost broken shoulder after a sudden dash. Raising in the air in a short flight, Robert dropped down on the side of the creature, finally letting go of his weapon. Still, his weight was enough to hurt the lizard more as it almost curled from pain.
Despite the pain, Rob pushed himself up, conjuring a rough boulder. Not willing to experiment during the fight with complex forms, he focused on the size, making it as big and heavy as possible. The crude sphere appeared to be too huge for him to handle, but that was its main purpose. Therefore, not giving even a second for the lizard to recover, Robert pushed it directly onto its head. The steel ball fell down under the force of gravity, almost crushing the lizard’s skull. That didn’t stop Rob as he unsummoned it, before raising his hands up and conjuring it again, repeating the whole process.
The third fall had twisted his damaged shoulder, but fortunately, the monster was already on the verge of death. Still, losing the ability to move his arm, Rob focused on creating a thin sharp sword, which penetrated the brain of the creature, ending its torture state with its life. Next, he dropped down near the corpse, breathing heavily and out of any strength.
That was surpassingly quick but tiring. These monsters are basically giant lizards without anything special, except their giant size. That is good to know. Decreases a threat by a lot… And this unknown humanoid – it can be a local sapient species. But if their habitant environment is underwater, with differences in appearance, I don’t need to be a seer to predict possible problems in communication, even if I manage to get to them somehow… Which I don’t see happening at all without growing a pair of gills. Well, at least I’ve got a meat and under this damned sun, any rock can become a grill. Now let’s eat and wait, while restoration’s cooldown ends, or my natural regeneration kicks in to heal my shoulder.
Looking around at the empty island and endless ocean, Robert finally saw the first signs of light in his hazy future. It wouldn’t be easy, but he would prevail as he did earlier. What other options did he have? It was a simple “do or die” choice.