Kegan was barely paying attention as the blue spirit listed out his achievements in the last life. The numbers stood out to him, but the praise and accolades from the blue spirit felt hollow. He felt like he was being praised as a child would be after completing some minor task that all adults could easily complete.
“...survived 713 days …”
He’d always thought the blue spirit seemed cruel, but this experience was changing his perception. The spirit just lacked any kind of tone other than joyous excitement. When Kegan had been suffering and dying the joyous excitement felt cruel. But now he had achieved something ...
“... 1621 goblins killed directly ...”
The tone of the spirit should have fit better. But knowing that it was the same tone as always, made Kegan … not feel anything because he never felt anything in this place. But he was pretty sure he would have felt lonely had his emotions been working.
“... one world level threat resolved ...”
Kegan had half expected the golden spirit to show up, and another emotion felt pushed out of his mind before it could take hold … disappointment. If this life wasn’t enough to warrant a visit then what would work?
“... for a new total of 19,453 points. Any questions adventurer Kegan!?”
“What perks do I have available now?”
“You have some new memory perks available:”
New Memory Perks
You can learn skills through restarts. 50 points to add a skill. Memory skills added:
Archery, Metal Working, Teaching, Wrestling, Human slaying, Swords, Shields, Orc-Slaying
“I’ll take all of the memory perks.”
“That will be 400 points, leaving you with 19,053 points”
Memory User:
Memory User
You can learn skills through restarts. 50 points to add a skill. Memory skills added:
Javelins, Spears, Daggers, Clubs, Traps, Hand to Hand fighting, Wilderness survival, Winter survival, Carpentry, Wood Carving, Hunting, Skinning, Tanning, Pathfinding, Goblin slaying, Deer slaying, Wolf slaying, Wolf Taming, Spirit Advice, Archery, Metal Working, Teaching, Wrestling, Human slaying, Swords, Shields, and Orc-Slaying
“Two new subsistence perks available:”
New Subsistence Perks:
Perk Name
Perk Effect
Experience points required
Achievement to unlock
Fat Controller
Improved body fat storage. Store more calories in fat, create fat faster, burn fat faster.
1000
Consume 10,000 calories in a single day.
Never go thirsty
Store more water in your body. Drink any kind of water safely. Absorb water from the air.
1000
Suffer dehydration from seawater.
“I’ll take both of the subsistence perks.”
“That will be 2000 points, leaving you with 17,053 points”
Subsistence Perks:
Perk Name
Perk Effect
Food Coma 12/12
Each hour slept in a day gives you 100 calories. Must first sleep at least 8 hours for this perk to take effect. You cannot gain more than 1200 calories a day.
Herbivore
Gain Nutrition from Plants
Iron Stomach
Immunity to all foodborne pathogens. Never lose your food again!
Hunger Pains
Hunger is no longer painful. Careful, remember that you still need to eat!
Sleep Expert
Fall asleep on command, sleep exactly as long as you intend to sleep, and wake up instantly.
Potty Trained
‘Hold it in’ indefinitely without pain. (note: will not protect you from the negative health consequences of holding it in)
Inner Warmth
Generate more body heat for the same amount of energy.
Fat Controller
Improved body fat storage. Store more calories in fat, create fat faster, burn fat faster.
Never go thirsty
Store more water in your body. Drink any kind of water safely. Absorb water from the air.
“Four new homeowner perks available:”
New Homeowner Perks:
Perk Name
Perk Effect
Experience points required
Achievement to unlock
Real Estate Mogul
Homeowner perks now last for a year on any established residence
500
(Must have Homeowner perks) Build and own multiple different homes in one life.
Landlord
Other creatures living in your homes get homeowner perks at half strength
1000
(Must have Homeowner perks) Live with another creature in your home for a year
Material Attachments
Unlock option to bring items across restarts. The amount that can be added to material attachments depends on how much was created. Spend zero points to attach 1 out of 1000 items created. Spend 100 points to attach 1 out of 100 items created. Spend 1000 points to attach 1 out of 10 items created. Spend 10000 points to attach all items created. Attachments last through restarts. Points do not have to be respent.
10000
(Must have Homeowner perks) Craft a weapon one thousand times in a single life (wooden javelin).
Nomad
Homeowner perks at half strength while not living in a home.
1000
Spend two months without a home.
“Why is the material attachments perk so expensive?”
“It requires an increased alteration to the world generation algorithm. As you’ll see when we get to the world generation section, changes can be quite costly. Most perks only require changes to your body. Even the homeowner perks work by spreading a helpful microbiome in any place your mind recognizes as ‘home’.”
“Your explanations are of no value. I’ll take the Real Estate Mogul, and Nomad perks, but I will come back to consider the Material attachments perk. I need more time to consider its worth.”
“That will be 1500 points, leaving you with 15,553 points”
Homeowner Perks:
Perk
Perk Effect
Homeowner
Unlock the “Homeowner” series of perks. Homeowner perks apply while in your home residence (a place you have lived in for 100 days).
Homeowner (home is where the heart is)
Reduce the required number of days to set a residency. Reduced to 25 days.
Homeowner (healthy)
Your natural healing rate is twice as fast while at home.
Homeowner (well-fed)
Calorie requirements are halved while at home
Homeowner (well-rested)
Sleep requirements are halved while at home.
Real Estate Mogul
Homeowner perks now last for a year on any established residence
Nomad
Homeowner perks at half strength while not living in a home.
“Four new healing and physical perks available:”
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Perk Name
Perk Effect
Experience points required
Achievement to unlock
Divine Appearance
Erase all physical appearance flaws on restart. Spend 100 calories during life to erase any new flaws like scars or moles.
250
Convince others of your divinity
Smithing Skin
Water condenses on your skin at the site of extremely high temperatures. There is a risk of dehydration with extended use.
500
Get burned by a fire hot enough to melt metal.
Muscled
Muscle tissue can be improved beyond normal human limits. Maintaining the new muscle tissue will require increased daily calorie intake.
2000
Train to the limit of human abilities.
Muscle Base
Increase the number of calories required to build up muscles, but reduce the calorie maintenance costs of the muscles.
1000
(unlock Muscled perk, and any calorie related perk)
Kegan almost felt some amusement leak through his emotional block when seeing the first perk. He knew it must have been unlocked in the previous life when the villagers all thought his combat skills were godly. ‘If only that had been true …’
The smithing skin could be useful, he had burned himself badly a few times working with molten metals. The muscle perks looked like an absolute must-have.
“I’ll take everything except divine appearance.”
“That will be 3500 points, leaving you with 12,053 points”
Healing and Physical Perks:
Perk Name
Perk Effect
Fever dreams
Sleep for 24 hours to fight off any infection.
Blood Fountain
All physical effects of blood loss are halved. Regenerate blood twice as fast.
Strong bones
Make all bones 3x stronger.
Walking expert
Tripping, twisting your ankle, falling, and other failed attempts at walking are far less likely.
Persistence Hunter
Long-distance running is made easier. Your legs will recover faster, you will need less air, and your body will control its temperature easier. This perk will effectively double your running distance.
Thick-skinned
Your skin is thicker and more resistant to cuts and scratches. It takes twice as much force to break your skin.
Peak Condition
Start each life at the peak physical condition of your last life.
Scratching Post
Your skin heals three times faster from cuts and scratches
Deodorant
You give off no scent.
Internal Surgery
Spend 1000 calories over 6 hours to mend 1 cubic inch of internal injuries.
Trainer
Body enhancement magic, muscles rebuild twice as fast, allowing much faster training. Burns 2000 calories over a day.
Smithing Skin
Water condenses on your skin at the site of extremely high temperatures. There is a risk of dehydration with extended use.
Muscled
Muscle tissue can be improved beyond normal human limits. Maintaining the new muscle tissue will require increased daily calorie intake.
Muscle Base
Increase the number of calories required to build up muscles, but reduce the calorie maintenance costs of the muscles.
“Finally there is one new magic perks:”
Magic Perks:
Perk Name
Perk Effect
Experience points required
Achievement to unlock
Multilingual Dreaming
During sleep, your mind will replay the conversations and words you have heard. Giving you the ability to learn new languages much faster.
100
Partially learn a new language
“That would have been useful to have, I’ll take the perk.”
Magic Perks:
Perk
Perk Effect
Taming Fire
Create a small flame on your fingertip.
Stop hitting yourself
Choose any time to instantly die.
Ambusher
Illusion magic actively blurs the outline of your body. It makes you more difficult to spot. Burns approximately 100 calories an hour.
Multilingual Dreaming
During sleep, your mind will replay the conversations and words you have heard. Giving you the ability to learn new languages much faster.
“You have 11,953 points remaining, would you like to select any more perks?”
Kegan sat there for a few minutes thinking things over. He did tend to spend a lot of time every life building the same tools, weapons, and items to deal with the goblin invasion of the valley.
“Spirit, if I unlock the material attachments perk, will I always get to start a new life with those items?”
“Yes, unless you choose to remove an item, but it can be added back in without respending any points.”
“What about things that don’t make up a single item? Can I bring pemmican or smelted copper and iron with me?”
“Non-contiguous items will be measured by weight. One pound of the substance will be equal to one item. Would you like to add the material attachments perk?”
As the spirit spoke Kegan felt knowledge entering his mind for how much a ‘pound’ of weight represented.
“Yes, add the perk. I’ve finished my selection.”
“You now have 1,953 points remaining. Here are your options for Material Attachments:”
A huge list of everything Kegan had made in the last life appeared before him. Kegan thought hard while looking at the menu. After speaking with the spirit he narrowed it down to just a few items that he thought might be worth getting.
Item/Material
Attachment Options
Existing Attachments
Wooden Javelin
3 - Free
36 - 100 points
361 - 1000 points
3617 - 10000 points
0
Wooden arrow
4 - Free
41 - 100 points
413 - 1000 points
4136 - 10000 points
0
Iron arrow
1 - Free
10 - 100 points
100 - 1000 points
1007 - 10000 points
0
Pemmican (weight-based calculation)
0 - Free
8 - 100 points
81 - 1000 points
811- 10000 points
0
Iron (weight-based calculation)
0 - Free
2 - 100 points
26 - 1000 points
265 - 10000 points
0
“I’ll spend a hundred points on these four things, and a thousand points on the iron”
Material Attachments:
Material Attachments Perk to bring items across restarts. The amount that can be added to material attachments depends on how much was created. Spend zero points to attach 1 out of 1000 items created. Spend 100 points to attach 1 out of 100 items created. Spend 1000 points to attach 1 out of 10 items created. Spend 10000 points to attach all items created. Attachments last through restarts. Points do not have to be respent.
Item/Material
Existing Attachments
Wooden Javelin
36
Wooden arrow
41
Iron arrow
10
Pemmican (in pounds)
8
Iron (in pounds)
26
“This leaves you with 553 points. Are you ready to start a new life?”
“Wait, are you going to show me the world generation thing that you spoke of? And can’t I return to the life I was just in?”
“Of course I can show you the world generation settings! However, you do not have enough points to purchase anything. You also do not have enough points to return to your old life with your new perks!”
Kegan wasn’t sure if he was imagining it, but the spirit seemed extra cheery about him not having enough points.
“Well can I reallocate some of my perk choices to have enough points to return to the world I was in? And why didn’t you mention this point cost upfront?”
“Nope! You already finalized perk selection. And you did not ask about it upfront.”
Kegan was experiencing a rare upside to the muted emotions, of the spirit world. His anger quickly slipped away.
“How much would it cost to revisit the world?”
“Ten percent of your perk point changes, excluding material attachments, since those changes will not be added until you start a new life. You spent 7500 points, thus the cost is 750 points.”
“Fine, show me the world generation.”
A planet slammed into Kegan’s mind. That was the best way he could describe the sensation. One moment he was in the spirit realm talking, and the next moment he felt like his mind had grown to encompass an entire planet. There were suddenly millions of minute details that his mind was tracking. The temperature at thousands of different locations, the ecosystem of hundreds of unique places, from frozen tundras to deep ocean trenches. All of that felt like just background noise, his main attention was sucked into the sentient races of the planet he was viewing. Goblins, orcs, and humans were immediately recognizable, but there were dozens of others as well.
For each sentient race, he could feel their connection to specific stones. Ones just like the ‘save point’ that he had found in his last life. He felt that with just a small nudge that he could change the history of a species. A small tweak in their essence and they would be blood-crazed warriors, or they could be calm scholars unwilling to hurt the smallest creature. He could plant the seeds of new ideas in their heads, or make them incapable of thinking certain things. All of the changes seemed to require a cost. Kegan realized that the cost was being measured in his perk points. He felt like even the smallest changes would cost hundreds of thousands of perk points.
He kept diving into smaller and smaller changes, trying to find something he would be allowed to do. He started finding things that only cost tens of thousands of points. His awareness probed for increasingly cheaper things, without really caring what those changes were.
His probing went deeper and deeper into the smallest minutiae of a save point stone. Time did not flow the same when he was in the world generation. He may have spent seconds or may have spent days before he re-emerged in triumph. He’d found a change he was allowed to make.
There was an experimental save point that was only tried to a single individual. This made most of the changes at this save point incredibly cheap. They also fed power back into the save point, lowering the cost even further. The one thing that lowered the cost the most was that this individual was Kegan, and he was editing his perks. The change available to him was the Divine Appearance perk that he had turned down earlier. Kegan felt himself screaming in frustration. The world responded to his anger, races dying out, volcanoes spewing ash and covering the planet, the oceans boiling away.
His anger turned to fear and horror, and he pulled his mind back.
Kegan’s mind snapped back into the tiny body that represented him in the spirit realm. The emotion dampening effects quickly calmed his mind, apparently, he still had his emotions inside the world generation program.
The blue spirit spoke up:
“The proposed changes would cost 12,945,732,150 points. You do not have enough points saved up to make these changes. If you’d like I can save this template for later use?”
Kegan briefly felt some amusement before it disappeared like all emotions. His changes hadn’t been real, it was all in his imagination.
“No, don’t save that template. I’m ready to start a new life. I finally know what I need …”
The spirit cut him off before he could finish his sentence and he found himself waking up at his normal spawn point once again.
“Welcome to your new life adventurer Kegan! Good luck!”
Kegan glared at the spirit, before sighing and heading down the mountain towards his cabin.