"Okay, roll calls Half-High elf [Augur], Skippy picked a [Swordsman] Squirrel man, and Hector clearly picked Lizardman with the [Giant Slayer] class.
"What did Alex pick?" Skippy asked.
"Sun Elf [Arcanist]," Alex said proudly. "Well, I'm a current hedge wizard, but you know what I mean. And why aren't you guys more excited that we're in the bleeping game?"
"Did you just say bleeping?" Skippy asked in disgust.
"Did you all get the bonus skills, the one free skill, and the system token? I used my'n for [Mana Super Session]." Alex said, not even acknowledging Skippy's words.
"What'sss that one agiaan?" Hector asked through a slurring mouth
"While it's active, I have infinite MP for five minutes. But I need to repay everything I used back to the system. And the debt locks down a not insignificant percentage of my mana pool and regen until I get it to a high enough level. I did get the Bloodline of the Spector, though."
"Wait, how did you get the bloodline?" Tom asked.
"I got a bad roll. Preexisting bloodline detected," Alex said in a mock voice of the system.
"Damm, that's annoying," Tom said sympathetically.
"Yeah, I mean, upgrading it to the bloodline of the Banshee Queen would be relatively easy. But I don't know if that's the best thing for my build. Hmmm. I need to look at the wiki later. Abbadon, what did you get?"
"I got [Sseigebreaker]," Hector said. "Nooow, I ccan punch enkantmetsss and ssouls. Tom, what did you buy?"
"I used it to purchase the ink heart bloodline," Tom admitted.
"Why was I the only one to purchase a legendary bloodline?" Skippy asked. "At least Alex and Hector have good skills. Tom's bloodline is only meh. I used my'n to get a legendary bloodline from the start."
Tom shot Skippy a cruel smile.
"I had the ink heart bloodline, but it fused with the [System Wiki] and [Identity] skill, and now it's called the bloodline of the Keeper of Akashic records. It's also a forgotten rarity, so suck it, Alvin." Tom shot back.
"You got a forgotten rarity bloodline?" Alex asked as she smacked him in the arm. "You lucky dog. I didn't know the [System Wiki] skill was actually useful."
"I didn't either," Tom said with a shrug. "I got lucky. In fact, I think the only reason I qualified for the upgrade is the hidden bonus in the tutorial."
"Um, guyssss, whaat are yoou gooing to doo aboot this?" Hector slurred through his maw.
They all turned to look at him. The massive lizard man was feeling up his face as if he were trying to familiarize himself with his new face.
"Thank you, devs, for turning real life into a video game!" Alex cheered.
Tom shook his head before glancing at Hector, who wasn't paying attention. Instead, he was exploring … himself. He was touching himself, not sexually but exploratory, touching his face and placing his fingers in his mouth, running his tongue along his teeth.
"Hector, are you ok, buddy?" Tom asked, concerned.
"Iss reaaaly weerri, in game itt was a sssuiitt noow its real." Hector slurred.
"I could understand you better if you kept a steady speech impediment, you know," Tom joked.
"Trying new thingssss to get beeettter," Hector said.
"Dude, if it's bothering you that much, just use the reroll scroll," Skippy suggested. "I mean, we all got the rewards from the tutorial, right?"
Tom nodded, but Hector shook his head.
"Ca ca can not," Hector said, his speech improving with every word. "I neeed the racial skills and bonuses from the lizard man for my build."
"Alright," Tom nodded. "If it becomes too big an issue, tell us your build will be worthless if you don't feel comfortable in your own skin. Besides, we can pick up the polymorph skill at level 50, and that should--"
Crash
Chloe screamed as she raced back into the room with them. Lucy, on the other hand, started growling and barking angrily.
Tom was cut off as his living room window suddenly shattered as a massive bear broke through the window of Alex's house. Skippy, Hector, and Alex were caught off guard, their eyes widening in shock and fear.
"Holy shit!!!" Skippy said
The bear, snarling and baring its teeth, charged at them with determination. Skippy drew his sword and slashed forwards. Three massive slashes flew through the air, opening large tears in the bear's torso and painting the floorboards in blood.
The Bear roared in anger and charged at Skippy. Skippy froze in panic as the Bear charged. Before it could make it halfway to Skippy, Hector slammed into the Bear. Hector was big before the change, over six feet. Now, he was easily pushing eight feet and almost as heavy as the bear. He slammed into the monster with enough force to send them both sprawling to the ground.
Hector had clearly gone right into game mode and was attacking Bear with no regard for his own safety, kicking the downed animal over and over again in the ribs in an attempt to kill the mob before it killed them. Lucy joined in spraying the Bear in the face with a cone of darkness as the animal struggled on the ground.
"What's happening?" Chloe cried.
That snapped Tom out of his stupor. He scooped up Chloe, tucking her head against his chest so she couldn't see what was going on as he started ordering his friends.
"Alex, start casting," Tom ordered as he began casting his own spell.
The Bear caught Hector's leg, yanking it out from under him and knocking Hector to the ground. Hector hit the ground hard enough to dent the floor, letting out a yell of pain. Then the Bear launched itself on top of Hector, its jaw clamping down on Hector's arm hard enough to shatter the scales on Hector's arm. Hector screamed out in pain and started to flail against the bear. Lucy bit down on the bear's leg and started to yank and pull on the wild animal.
"Chain Lighting!!" Alex said as her spell left her hand.
"Wait!!" Tom called out as the lightning bolt hit the gorilla and traveled from the beast to Hector and then to Lucy.
"FUCK" Hector roared in pain.
Lucy yelped as she lept back from the fight and retreated over to Tom, no to Chloe. Tom dropped a mend spell on the dog as a quick apology for Alex's short-sightedness.
"Shit, sorry," Alex apologized.
Then the Bear punched Hector in the face.
"Lesser Mend, Lesser Heal." Tom cast two healing spells on Hector to try and undo the damage.
Skippy's swords glowed as he started to chain his martial arts one after another, slamming each one into the Bear's back as it pounded on Hector's head like a bongo.
"[Manifold Strike], [Far Strike], [Power Strike], [Piercing Strike], [Soul Strike], [Venom strike]," Skippy called out.
The Bear's backside exploded in blood as skippy savaged its rear end, his moonstone sword blurring as he burned through his mana and stamina pools like there was no tomorrow.
Tom winced at the attack. [Manifold Strike] combined multiple Strikes, [Far Strike] extended skippy's blade, and [Venom Strike] coated skippy's blades in poison. [Soul Strike] affected skills, [Piercing strike] increased the penetrating power of the sword, and [Power Strike] Increased the strength behind his attack.
The Bear let out a horrific scream at Skippy's attack, dropping Abbadon as it turned to Skippy.
"Shit," Skippy swore as he lept away from the bear. "[Nidhog --]"
Too slow, the bear slammed him into the ground before he could get more than a foot away. There was a sickening crunch as skippy's ribcage collapsed under the bear's heavy blows. His blood splattered the ground as his organs were pulped.
Tom didn't even register the notification; instead, he just finished drawing a glyph at the same time as Alex finished casting.
"Light Spear," "Rock Spear,"
Tom and Alex's spells slammed into the Bear's chest, puncturing its heart and its spinal cord with a sickening shlunck. The Bear froze, its mouth gaping open in a silent scream.
The bear toppled over next to Skippy's ruined body.
Tom turned away from the battle and dragged Chloe back into the kitchen.
"What's going on?" Chloe asked, tears in her eyes.
"Chloe," Tom said as calmly as he could. "I need you to stay here with Lucy for me, alright? Can you do that for me? Can you be a big girl and stay here for me?"
"Don't leave me," Chloe said, wrapping her arms around him.
"Hey, hey. I'm right here. Listen, I'm right here. I just need to go and help skippy. I'll just be in another room. I'll be right back, ok?" Tom said.
"Ok," Chloe said, wrapping her arms around Lucy.
Tom turned and ran back inside.
"What the fuck happened" Hector whined as he pushed himself off the ground cradling his ruined arm.
"Skippy is dead," Alex said as she stood over his body.
Tom was only half paying attention. He cast another instance of Mend on Abbadon before he opened up his menu to start searching for his level ten capstone.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
"What?!" Hector asked as he stumbled over, crashing to his knees at Skippy's ruined form.
"But he'll respawn, right?" Hector asked.
"I don't think so, buddy," Alex said.
"No …." Hector whispered as tears gathered in his reptilian eyes.
"But we can bring him back, right?" Hector all but begged Tom.
"Yeah, I'm just grabbing my level 10 capstone … [Hand of Mercy], [Hand of Mercy], Hand of, " Tom muttered to himself until he found what he wanted. "Ah, I got it."
DING!!!
Tutorial: Capstone Skill
A capstone skill must be taken every ten levels. Each capstone skill is more powerful than the standard skills and cannot become a personal skill. Until this skill is purchased, no additional skills may be purchased in the class, though you may continue to level.
Tom Ignored the notification because he already knew all this.
DING!!!
Level 10 Capstone Skill - [Hand of Mercy] - Ancient - Augur
Completely restore a person to full health, letting neither physical damage, sickness, or even death stop you from restoring a person.
Reduce the mana cost by 10 Mana per level.
Mana cost to resurrect player: 2000 MP per level
Requirements: Art of Life
[Hand of Mercy] was honestly … terrible. Its mana cost was awful from a meta-game perspective, even when the skill was maxed out. However, it had two redeeming qualities. First, it was effectively a cure-all and a resurrection skill. Second, everything better had far steeper skill and level requirements.
Tom was just about to activate the skill when he realized he would need 20,000 mana to bring Skippy back. Hand of bloody mana grubbing.
"Alex, I do not have the mana for this; I need [Mana Supersession]," Tom said.
Alex walked over, taking his hand, and she activated two of her own skills.
[Mana Supersession (System)] - Historic - Level 7
Allows the user to borrow mana from a greater source (The System itself). For five minutes, you effectively have a mana pool equal to your source: ∞
After borrowing the mana, your mana pool will have 100% of your Mana pool and Mana regeneration locked. Reduce the % of your Mana pool and Mana Regeneration locked by 0.9% per level.
If your entire mana pool becomes locked, all of your mana debt will be consolidated, and you must pay it off before your mana is returned to you.
Locked mana and excess mana regeneration will go towards paying your debt.
The current skill level will lock 93.7% of your mana pool on the next use.
[Synchronized Chanting] - Level 13
This skill allows the user to synchronize spell casting between multiple people, allowing multiple people to share the load of casting a single spell.
Mana costs will be inflated by 100% due to efficacy.
Increase Casting speed by 1% per level
Reduce mana cost inflation by 1% per level.
Current Inflation cost: 87% Increase
This is a Racial skill and cannot be removed
"This is going to be so expensive," Alex complained as she took Tom's hand.
"[Hand of Mercy]," Tom & Alex said as he pressed his hand on Skippy's mangled corpse.
Skippy's corpse knit itself back together before grotesquely swelling like a balloon.
<[Hand of Mercy] has Reached Level 2>
Then Skippy screamed as life returned to his body.
"What the fuck was that?!" Skippy asked.
"A Bear." Tom deadpanned.
Skippy shot Tom a look. "Really, Tom? And here I thought it was your mom."
"That would be funnier, but I'm pretty sure my mom could crush you with her fat ass," Tom said.
"Well, I hope you two are having fun. Fuck, I owe thirty-seven thousand and four hundred mana to the system because of you, Skippy. I don't even have a hundred mana to use." Alex mopped as she sat down.
"You guys better protect me while I'm useless," she grumbled before she went into meditation and started to regenerate mana even faster in an attempt to get rid of her debt.
Skippy looked at Tom. "What did I miss?"
"You died, we killed the bear, I bought [Hand of Mercy]," Tom explained. "By the way, was there any respawn screen or anything?"
Skippy shook his head. "It just said you have died. Then I woke up."
"I was afraid of that," Tom muttered. "By the way, how did you die? You're a Legend of Noralon Veteran, and you got pwned like a noob. By fucking dova bear."
Skippy threw up his arms. "Excuse me, my entire worldview has literally shifted, and I ran out of stamina. Sorry for not being perfect, you cunt."
"Love you too, buddy," Tom said, attempting and failing to scratch behind Skippy's ears as his friend dodged his hand.
"Tom, can I come in now?" Chloe shouted from the kitchen.
"Yes, you can come out now," Tom said.
Chloe ran out. She tackled him in a bear hug before crying into his chest.
"Don't leave me alone again," Chloe begged.
Tom didn't answer. He couldn't. He just did his best to rub her back to comfort her.
"How long until Alex has all her mana back?" Hector asked as he nursed his slightly less ruined arm.
Tom pulled out his phone and quickly ran the numbers before he grimaced, "Twelve hours and forty-three minutes with [Solar Metabolism]. Longer without."
"Fuuck" Hector groaned.
Tom cast a few more healing spells on Hector to fix his arm completely
"Why did the bear attack us? Why did you have to kill it? What's going on?" Chloe asked
"Oh, sweety." Alex got up, ending her meditation as she walked over to where Tom was sitting. She rubbed Chloe's back in the same way Tom did when he comforted her.
"It's ok. I'm sorry we had to hurt the bear, but he was trying to kill us, so we needed to kill him first to make sure he didn't hurt you or Lucy, right Tom." She said calmly.
Tom nodded in agreement, though in hindsight, they didn't know that the Bear was hostile. It had broken into the house, and their response was very game-like: hit it till it dies.
"Tom?" Chloe asked.
"Yeah, pumpkin," Tom said.
"Where did the bear come from?" Chloe asked
Tom felt his heart stop as that question crashed into his mind. He felt himself begin to sweat as sneaking suspicions started popping into his head. Were monsters now part of the world? Was the world now overrun with raid bosses? Were dungeons everywhere?
Then he realized something he could check. Tom considered using [Augurs Eye], but that wouldn't give him enough information. With a bit of trepidation, Tom looked towards the bear and activated [Thirst for Knowledge]. Tom just hoped the backlash wasn't as bad as he feared. His thoughts cut out as his mind was immediately assaulted by the largest brain freeze he had ever experienced.
DING!!!
Dungeon Born Brown Bear
Level 9
Type: Beast
STR: 98, AGIL: 23, DEX: 15, CON: 60, END: 40, PER: 48,
INT: 6, WILL: 2, SPIRIT: 28, EGO: 25, CHA: 14, LCK: 36
HP: 0 / 800 / Stamina: 0/1170 / Mana: 0/120
Skills: Iron Claws, Crunch, Toughness,
This bear was created when the Vancouver Zoo transformed into the Safari Dungeon. During this process, the dungeon killed the brown bears living in the zoo, gaining their template and recreating the bears as standard Dungeon mobs.
This brown bear then rapidly grew until it reached full size. Then, it roamed the outer dungeon, where it was attacked and forced out of its territory by an already displaced Dungeon gorilla.
It then entered the world at large, where it wandered around and killed twenty-six people before being struck by a car. The injured bear then broke into Alex's house in order to …
<[Library of Akashic Records] has Reached Level 11>
<[Thirst for Knowledge] has Reached Level 2>
<[Thirst for Knowledge] has Reached Level 3>
<[Visions of Akashic Records] has Reached Level 2>
<[My Mind is a Temple My Soul the Altar] has Reached Level 7>
<[My Mind is a Temple My Soul the Altar] has Reached Level 8>
"Ow ow ow," Tom groaned as he gripped his head in utter agony.
"What's the matter?" Alex asked.
"Brain freeze!!" Tom groaned as he cast healing on himself.
The spell restored his hp but did nothing to alleviate his brain freeze.
"How did you get a brain freeze?" Alex asked.
"Bloodline skill," Tom groaned. "[Thirst for Knowledge]"
Tom felt like his head was about to split open from the utter tsunami of information as it battered his brain. Worse, his [Library of Akashic Records] Skill meant all that worthless information was now stuck in his head. Lovely.
"It's a dungeon born," Tom moaned. "The Vancouver Zoo has become a dungeon, and it's overflowing."
"Oh … we're bleeped," Alex muttered.
They all knew that a dungeon in overflow would simply continue to produce higher-level monsters until it was cleared or until it scoured the surrounding territory.
Tom turned and stumbled outside through the hole the Bear had made. He needed to get away from the insanity, and he needed fresh air. Unfortunately, stumbling outside didn't help him.
Everything was now covered under a thick layer of snow, and people were getting in their cars and driving away. A dragon, no scratch, a massive wyvern—it only had four limbs, not six—swooped overhead, welcoming the dawn sun with a roar that echoed for miles.
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the end of the world," Tom muttered as his friends and family looked at him with a mix of shock, confusion, horror, and utter glee.
You may skip to the next chapter.
Name: Alex Ling
Race: Solalfar
Type: Humanoid / Undead
LVL: 11
SubRace: Sun Elf
Age 18
Health: 275
Stamina: 490
Mana: (75) 1200
Health Regen: 4.4 per hour
Stamina Regen: 7.7 per min
Mana Regen: (0.7623) 12.1 per min
Titles: Beta-Tester
Immune
N/A
Resistances
Mind
Weakness
Vitality
Bane
Manslayer, Corpseslayer
Classes: Hedgewizard 10, 1 Unassigned
Total
STR: 11
AGIL: 11
DEX: 11
CON: 11
END: 33
PER: 11
INT: 60
WILL: 88
SPIRIT: 33
EGO: 44
CHA: 55
LCK: 11
Base
STR: 11
AGIL: 11
DEX: 11
CON: 11
END: 33
PER: 11
INT: 55 +10%
WILL: 88
SPIRIT: 33
EGO: 44
CHA: 55
LCK: 11
Personal: +4 INT +4 WILL +3 EGO +3 CHA
Racial: +3 WILL +2 END +2 SPIRIT +1 CHA
Level Bonus: +1 to all Stats
Bloodline:
[Bloodline of the Spector] - Epic: This bloodline endows its bearer with an ethereal connection to the spirit world, blending the boundary between life and death. Those who possess this bloodline gain ghostly abilities, allowing them to move unseen and untouched through the physical realm.
Bloodline Skills:
- [Haunting Presence] - Level 12
- [Ethereal Form] - Level 9
- [Invisibility] - Level 14
- [Steal Life] - Level 1
- [Undying Focus] - Level 22
Skill Slots: 11/60: Skill Points: 1
Personal Skills
- [Solar Metabolism] - Level 1
- [Stable Chanting] - Level 15
- [Storage] - Level 10
- [Mapping] - Level 3
- [Mana Supersession (System)] - Level 11
Wizard 6/6
- [Arcane Awakening] - Level 20
- [Arcane Shell] - Level 13
- [Charged Attack Ⅰ] - Level 11
- [Multi-Cast Ⅰ] - Level 10
- [Synchronized Chanting] - Level 14
- Capstone: [Magic Grimior] - Level 1