Chapter 57: System store

On the walk back home, I open the system log and lazily scroll through the walls of text searching for that one victorious announcement.

*Congratulations. You have slain [Queen of the Nest] lvl 35/40 (F). 274.49 Event points awarded.

*Congratulations you have gained a level. You are now level 1.

+10 HP +80 SP +5 Strength +1 Agility +2 Perception +11 Constitution + 5 Endurance +5 Mind +2 Unallocated Stat points per level.

*Congratulations you have gained a level. You are now level 2.

+10 HP +80 SP +5 Strength +1 Agility +2 Perception +11 Constitution + 5 Endurance +5 Mind +2 Unallocated Stat points per level.

My mouth drops as my eyes flick towards the panel that displays my Resources.

HP: 276/285 -> 276/305

SP: 144/345 -> 144/505

My Stamina pool grew by 160 points after a single fight. And it wasn’t even that dangerous. Sure, it was in a room in the middle of a hive of murderous bugs. But still…for 180 points it was nothing. I bet that I can keep up at least a hundred more metres of bindweed battlements with this. Maybe I can even make the walls higher or the thorns sharper.

With this much more Stamina, think of all the tests I can run. Perhaps it will even stop me from feeling so dead tired all the time, forced to spend every point nourishing the walls.

I scroll through the rest of the notifications and grin at the few skill levels I’ve gained. Additionally, two of my skills reached their current caps. I pull up the notifications and read them twice.

*Bindweed Manipulation (R) lvl 34/35 -> Bindweed Manipulation (R) lvl 35/35.

*Claw Infusion (C) lvl 24/25 -> Claw Infusion 25/25.

*Congratulations. Thanks to your feats the skill Claw Infusion (C) has become eligible for an upgrade. Pick one of four options.

I increase the cap for Bindweed Manipulation, sacrificing one of my recently-earned skill points to raise the cap to level 40. Then I wave the new window that popped up for Claw Infusion away for now. I’ll look at it tomorrow. As exciting as it might be, I have had my fill of the day. First repairing the walls, then getting dragged to the nests to fight a queen can be a bit tiring.

We approach the bastion, climb on the walls and stroll towards Sairal who’s gazing out at the muddy landscape with a frown on his face. However, that frown quickly melts away as he looks at me, likely using a skill to view my level.

“Green, Cobalt,” his words are cordial yet cold. “I see that the trip to the nests has born fruit. Two levels in a single day in (F) grade? Tell me, what kind of mortal danger did the two of you decide to deem as acceptable today?”

I glance at Cobalt, as she steps closer to him and turns to the landscape beyond the walls. “As if I ever dared to put Mandrake Green in danger,” She scoffs. “Well, uncalculated danger,” she quickly corrects.

“Do I need to remind you of that time you went delving with him?”

Cobalt shrugs, “There were worthy foes to be found down there.” There is a beat of silence before she answers the question on his tongue. “We decided to slay a high (F) grade queen. There was ample opportunity for Mandrake Green to gain levels without much peril. You see, the queen did not have any capable guards, still in the process of setting up her hive.” The blue beetle fidgets with her hands behind her back, ignoring the dryad’s glare like a flashlight to the face.

Sairal sighs and shakes his head, “Fine. But please keep in mind how fragile Green is for an (F) grade. He only gets 10 HP per level. It’s a pittance compared to most beings.”

Cobalt nods and turns back to me. “Perhaps I have underestimated the threat the queen represented.”

I fold my arms over each other, knowing where this is going. Best to cut down the argument before it can even be presented to me. “I’ll bear the walls like my class is meant to, however, I won’t cower behind them.”

“Green,” Sairal says as his face goes through various expressions before settling on concern. “I’ve seen what you can do with that bindweed. Fragile as you are, you still can throw quite the punch,” He says the words almost hesitantly. He doesn’t continue speaking but we all hear the unsaid. It’s better for me to stay behind the walls.

I give them both a nod, glad that we settled it. My health pool is one of the fatal weaknesses in my class. For now, I can still compete with monsters thanks to mandrakes being a species that has a focus on Constitution. But that only goes so far. At the end of this grade, with my abysmal health pool, any decent blow might be the end of me.

Certainly, said Constitution makes my body tougher and shores that partly up. Especially with the monstrous number of that stat, I gain each level. And yet, with a maximum health at the end of this grade that will only be a sixth of my total Stamina pool, I don’t see myself winning against monsters in close combat.

“Good,” I finally answer after mulling over my thoughts for a few seconds. “Actually, I’ve been thinking about this. I don’t have any inclinations to fight monsters face-to-face. That is just stupid and leads to death. So, I’ll meet you halfway. I won’t go out that often anymore, instead relying on the Bastion for defence and to shore up my weakness.”

Sairal’s shoulders relax and he visibly seems more relieved.

“But,” I say wagging my finger at him. “I’ll still get to fight monsters on the walls, even if the Elites try to snipe me or some other monster shows up. I still need levels after all.”

The dryad opens his mouth to argue but a rumble below his feet cuts him off. “Do I need to remind you that the walls are mine? I have perfect control over them. Watch.” I point to the six or so Cave crawlers that are making a run for the walls.

The mushroom guardians on the ground are more than enough to take the weaklings out. Though, I need to show off right here. What the evolution didn’t say was that the Wall bearer, while focused on defending also has a few offensive capabilities.

Stamina drains out of my feet into the wall, trailing down the vines until it finds the thin needles on the outer wall. They greedily drink in the energy, growing longer and sharper like the tips of spears.

I flick my hand towards the pests and the wall comes alive with motion. The ten bindweed vines explode with motion and fly through the air like heat-seeking missiles. I suppress a wince as my focus is split further apart, manually steering the speeding projectiles with my mind.

Two of them veer off course and hit the ground in bursts of mud. The remaining eight, however, strike true. The insects are perforated by the vines. One of the larger vines I devoted more of my attention to pierces the first of the insects, swerving around to skewer a second and a third before expending all the stored energy and slumping on the ground.

Cobalt seems more than impressed. Sairal less so. Although, what do you expect from an ancient dryad that creates living beings from spores to do his bidding?

“Okay,” he admits. “But still no guard duty when the sun is setting. I don’t want one of the Mindhorrors luring you off the walls.”

I accede and the conversation turns back to an analysis of the fight with the Queen of the Nest. The dryad, curious of every detail, smirks at himself. “I underestimated how the two of you work together. It always seems to me that the two of you stumble from one problem into another, barely hanging onto life. Still, blocking the tunnels and distracting the queen by crushing one of her eggs. Highly strategic moves.”

When the sun dips below the horizon, I move to his tree and collapse on the moss, falling asleep before I hit the ground.

***

Mandibles wrap around my leg and familiar pain flashes through my mind. With a roar, the Stamina pulses through my body. My claws sharpen and I lunge for the Cave crawler…and stop halfway.

The tiny mushroom guardians, now all firmly in (H) grade, scatter to the wind with their arms thrown up into the air. Weird squeaks that faintly sound like laughter emanate from them. I look down at my leg and see a set of mandibles, torn loose from a Cave crawler stuck to my leg.

As tiny as it is, the set must’ve belonged to a small (H) or (I) grade. I prize the thing free, surprised at how the mandibles still seem to lock shut even after being torn away from the insect and stand up.

The sun already hangs firmly in the sky and I realise that I overslept. I move out of the tree’s shade and let my body feast on the sunlight while mulling over what to do. First things first, upgrading Claw Infusion.

I pull up the window and read through the options.

*Option 1: Bodily enhancement.

*Option 2: Stronger infusion.

*Option 3: Efficient infusion.

*Option 4: Skip the upgrade.

Not the most interesting stuff as I expected. Then again, there is a question to be asked here. For once, with the 11 points of Constitution I gain each level, I might be able to handle the effects a stronger infusion has on my claws.

Even so, will I even be using that skill? With each passing evolution, I’m becoming someone who relies more and more on distance. Especially now that bindweed belongs to my core skillset. Along with my crown which is a major weak point that I can’t remove, it might be better for me to forgo fighting face-to-face altogether.

Option one might be the most useful in that regard, giving me more mobility at the cost of Stamina. That too ties in nicely with my quickly growing pool of resources. And speed isn’t a mandrake’s forte. Along with the promise I made yesterday, the choice is easier than I thought it would be.

I pick the first option and watch the skill change.

*Claw Infusion (C) lvl 25/25 -> Stamina Surge (C) lvl 1/25.

Stamina Surge (C) lvl 1/25: Infuse your body with Stamina, increasing efficacy, manipulation and thought. Expending more stamina increases the effect.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Warning: Prolonged use can have negative effects on the body. Using this skill to its full potential might lead to side effects.

I read the finer print of the skill and nod hesitantly. I only expected it to enhance movement but a higher thinking speed is a great boon, especially if I need to use all my skills at the same time, or need to manipulate bindweed vines individually.

The warning and the unchanging rarity makes me think that the aftereffects are detrimental. Then again, with my high Constitution, I might be able to stretch the time I can keep it active.

All in all, a good skill for my repertoire.

Noticing that my Stamina pool is full, I head over to the battlements, revitalize them and tell the mushroom guardians to remove a good ten metres of the temporary wall for me to extend the bindweed battlements.

I turn to the bindweed walls and conclude that I haven’t even surrounded a hundredth of the total circumference of the Bastion. I still don’t understand why Sairal said he needed this much space to begin with.

The mushroom guardians finish removing the wooden logs that make up the temporary wall and take a position in front of it, fending off the horde of bugs that are trying to storm the gap.

I put my hand on the wall and let the bindweed grow, filling in the gap as, cutting the Cave crawlers off. With the higher skill levels in both Bindweed Manipulation and Bindweed Conjuration, the required Stamina per metre of wall decreased by a lot.

The guardians and I repeat the same tactic two more times, slowly growing the wall outwards by two dozen metres or so. However, I’m forced to stop when I drip under a hundred points in my pool.

I resume standing in the sun, actively pulling in sunlight as I open another menu that I’ve been putting off for far too long.

*Event points: 4.346,92.

The store, as expected, offers a myriad of goods. From rare metals, and a few artifacts to the fabled elixirs that everyone so much desires. There are strange things though. Almost all of the things the store offers have a ‘stock’. For items, the stock is always the number of items itself. Raw goods are sold per Unit, whatever that means.

With new curiosity, I begin scrolling through the store. And like I thought there is a lot in here, billions of different items, ranging from tablespoons that can levitate in the air, to hammers that can call down lightning.

I have a spare thought of buying a single-use magical wand that can shoot bolts of thunder or a magic sword that might rend the clouds. But one is almost impractical to use and the other costs a painful 50.000 points.

No, what I’m interested in are the things that increase my personal strength like the binding of bindweed did. The system reacts to my thoughts in a flash and the displayed items shift going from interesting things like a lantern that can hold the souls of the passed and an orb of fire called a ‘volcanoes heart’ to the more practical ones like the aforementioned elixirs that I can afford and a few nature-based items that might increase my stats.

According to Sairal and the book that holds much of the basic information relating to the system, you can artificially increase your stats by 15 per cent. Meaning, that if I had all the event points to spend, I basically have 65 free stat points to allocate.

And that is where the dream ends. The elixirs are expensive, going for an average of 200 event points per stat point. So that leaves the question of the stats I need to invest in.

Some part of me wants to fully dive into the Wall Bearer evolution and shore up the remaining weaknesses as far as I can. This means that Mind might be the most useful stat for greater bindweed control and bending my skills more than I can. It also has the benefit of making me more immune to the Mindhorrors of the second layer. The gods know that in the future I get to fight one of them.

I pull up my stats and check for anything I might have missed.

Strength: 85

Agility: 62

Perception: 39

Constitution: 113 (+15)

Endurance: 70

Mind: 70

My perception is pretty low but that stat isn’t that useful to me. I don’t deal with illusions on a daily basis nor do I want to distance myself that much from the monsters I’ll be beating down.

Mind is indeed the best stat for me right now. I didn’t get to pick the evolution I truly wanted. However, with smart choices, I can still move towards that direction.

The System responds to my thoughts once again and pulls up the best options to increase the Mind stat.

*Cost: 1000; Harmonic brain matter (R) | Stock: 192 Units

The Harmonic brain matter, often found in highly magical creatures, is a physical crystallization of an efficient brain. Consuming this brain matter grants +5 to all Mind-related stats. This brain matter has great relaxation purposes! Also very good for mindfulness!

Warning: Consuming harmonic brain matter may lead to memory alteration, formation of new memories, retrieval of host memories and acute brain damage.

Yeah, I’m not going to eat a dead monster’s brain. And I really don’t want memories of the host…

*Cost: 2000; Pill of aching dreams (El) | Stock: 42 Pills

This pill, forged by a master alchemist and made from a multitude of herbal ingredients strengthens the mind through tribulations. Consuming this pill and weathering the tribulations may grant a stat increase of +50 to +75 to a single Mind-related stat of choosing. Remember, Strength is always gained through perseverance.

I roll my eyes at the second item. Why would anyone make a nightmare-inducing pill to grant stats? Honestly, can’t the master alchemist distil it into a simple elixir? Might be less useful though, taking that much of the energy out of the ingredients to only have positive effects.

The store changes and the proper options move to the top of the list.

*Cost: 900; Elixir of the forged Mind (El)| Stock: 993 Elixirs

A special concoction made from the tears of a Mayflower and honey made by a [Bumble Bee] (D). Drinking this elixir grants +3 Mind.

Further description: All the ingredients have been obtained by the alchemist herself. The flowers have been lashed until they cried and the [Bumble Bee] (D) has been bought by the alchemist, forced to produce the magical honey using the Dewite flower (R), common in the Kiseria region, far south of the Capital city: Thallasa.

The honey has been distilled to its pure magical nature by…

The description is the longest I've ever seen, growing more convoluted with each paragraph that passes. I can’t peel my eyes away, each new line bringing a bit more understanding of this world and how alchemists willingly commit war crimes to get a few nice elixirs that increase some stats by a small amount. Willingly lashing flowers until they cry is one thing, though what she did to the bee and its hive is unforgivable.

Anyway, I guess it’s normal that the safe option is far more expensive. Though, this is just sheer robbery. That Hive queen awarded only 250 points and was almost an entire grade stronger than me. This is just unfair and what is up with all these descriptions? Why do they differ so much in style?

My eyes move back to the pill of aching nightmares. How bad can those dreams honestly be? I’ve had my fair share of nightmare-inducing experiences. I’ve seen the monsters of the second layer and faced death a few times. Can an aching nightmare even come close to that?

I loved watching horror movies back on Earth and perhaps this will be like that. My finger hovers over the option to buy the pill and then I pause, look back at my stats and curse. I already have some stats from the Binding of Bindweed, giving me enough room for 50 stats from external sources. The Nightmare pill can give between 50 and 75 which means I’ll be losing out on value if I use it now. Better wait for a few levels and buy it. It gives me enough time to discuss things with Sairal. The stuff he does with spores is alchemy-related so he might have some information regarding the nightmares.

Maybe I can buy some equipment meanwhile? Maybe a ring? I have eight fingers, after all.

The system store responds and a list of thousands of different rings comes into existence. I quickly scroll down the list, reading the enchantments off them. There are a few with attack spells tied to them. One made of solidified lightning peaks my interest and I pull the description up.

*Cost: 75.000; Lightning caller (E)

This ring is forged from lightning that rained down in the outer parts of the region referred to as the Waterstorm. It has the ability to call upon the spell {Chain lightning} once every 34,3 days.

Requirements: (D).

Hah, I wouldn’t even be able to afford this even if I destroyed all the nests on the surface. Scrolling down the list to the far less interesting rings, I find something that I like. The image displayed by the System store shows a simple bronze ring that seems to shine with warmth. On the inside, there are lines of runes scribbled down that glow with orange light.

*Cost: 1000; Ring of Fire resistance (R)

A ring forged from a bronze alloy in the seventh layer. It grants the wearer protection from fire and element-adjacent attacks and effects. The ring has been tested to ward off anything that can damage a Peak (G) grade.

Requirements: (F) grade or higher.

*System notice: Due to your chosen element (Nature) this ring may not fully promise the stated effects.

I scratch the side of my head reading the extra bit of information tied to the window, almost as an afterthought. I think that I’ve only seen the System give a notice once before when it shifted my skills around after an evolution.

This seems unnatural even. As if the System itself thought that the ring's description wasn’t enough. Nonetheless, the system generates these descriptions…unless it’s made by someone and not the system.

I close the windows and hop onto the walls, strolling up to Sairal who has been staring out at the hives with a spyglass. After observing something, he scribbles down numbers on a piece of paper, muttering to himself.

“Sairal have you checked out the system store?” I ask him.

He doesn’t turn to me but nods as he scribbles down another line of numbers. “Yes. Where do you think I have been getting my spores from after the bazaar?” he replies absentmindedly.

“Have you noticed that the descriptions are off somehow?”

The scribbling of his pencil stops and he turns to me. “You don’t know? Those descriptions aren’t made by the system. Well, most aren’t.”

I edge closer to him, reading strange lines of numbers on the piece of paper. “They aren’t?”

He shakes his head and smiles. “The descriptions are made by the crafters who make the items, or the ones who provide the goods to the system.”

“Wait. Provide to the system? I thought it wasn’t a physical entity and all?” I say.

“It isn’t. From what I know, and my own findings in the System store, it seems most items are made to fulfil the Quests. Beings hand them in and then complete the Quests the System forces you to take on in the later grades, though only for crafters naturally.” He pushes his spyglass into his spatial pocket and divides his attention between his notes and me.

“So, this ring,” I help him search the description of the lightning caller, “Was made by someone?”

“Yes.” He says reading the description. “Strange find that one. Not worth the event points, but truly strange that you stumbled upon a ring forged in the Waterstorm.”

I cock my head to the side, “Why?”

“Well, that region is quite close to Luxia. In the South-West if I’m not mistaken.” He glances away from the strings of numbers and decides to elaborate further, “How would you say this? It’s like finding a needle in a haystack. And that haystack is the size of…Earth.”

I continue to talk about the Event store comparing our findings. Apparently, the store, while safe, can be deceiving. Items that are made to harm the user aren’t put in it but descriptions may lack important bits of information.

For instance, the pill of Aching nightmares makes you highly vulnerable to mind magic in the assimilation period. If a description truly doesn’t fit or isn’t accurate the system sometimes rectifies the mistake. So, if you want to go buy something strange, always look at the disclaimers the system puts on it. While not giving all the information, you can at least know that everything the System provides is true. The logic is a bit messed up. Still, it seems to be working out for the dryad.

“So I should buy the ring of fire resistance?” I ask the dryad to confirm.

He immediately nods. “Mandrakes and dryads are extremely volatile to magical flames, as you must’ve noticed in your run-in with that Chimera and those constructs.” I keep the wince off my face. I, uh, glossed a bit over some parts of that fight. “...while you have Fire Resistance or something along those lines, the ring will boost your resistance greatly.”

I buy the ring and blink as a new window pops up.

*14 hours, 12 minutes, 55 seconds until delivery.

I had my suspicions about exploiting the store but this seems to make it a bit more difficult. No buying potions and using them right after with a randomized delivery timer.

“Sairal have you-”

“Hello? Is someone there?” a new voice asks.

I turn to the landscape beyond the walls and meet eyes with a green version of Winnie the Pooh. I blink twice in confusion looking at the talking bear who begins to ramble on about forests and the Cave crawlers, the words barely making it over the distance.

Sairal turns to me, his face twisted in surprise and confusion. “Do you have enough points to buy a ring for warding off illusions?”

The window of the event store changes and my eyes scan down the list, “No. I’m afraid not.”