The lights of the fortress where a welcome relief shining through the dark night. The combat group had elected to delay their departure from Kapps to after dark and headed off along the tar road first to decrease the likelihood that they could be followed to the fortress by the rescues. Although the people had been friendly and from all appearances not inclined to prove difficult, it was better to avoid the exposure of the fortress altogether lest they’d be tempted in future.
Leah and Anna were on watch and shouted in excitement when they saw the group, clearly tempted to rush down to welcome Miguel. The two resisted and remained on duty, leaving John and Katrina to welcome them. Katrina led them directly to the dining room and John meekly followed the cook, she had quickly established that her word was law where the eating arrangements of the group were concerned. John elected to defer their full debrief when he saw that they were knackered, all barely managing to desultorily chew some stew, Alexis even nodding off while midway through her meal. Ryan kept fantasizing about his pillows and quickly decided to forego further food and just collapse into bed, the demands of the world could wait until tomorrow once he was rested. His last thought before darkness claimed him was of the amount of administrative tasks he had deferred over the past few days.
Luxuriously stretching in the late morning light pouring into the room Ryan revisited that thought. Checking on his Character Sheet he confirmed that he had indeed gained a level after catching up on his experience deficit during the conflict in town and needed to allocate stat points, which he quickly decided to split evenly between his Agility, Will and Intellect sub-stats as the latter of these were lagging behind. Closer inspection showed that the rest of his Stats showed solid gains due to the various activities over the past week, his Character Sheet, upon reformat, showing the last viewed value in parenthesis behind the current value after he had reformatted it to keep better track of the changes.
His greatest gains were still in relation to his semi-regular cultivation, his energy pool had increased significantly, nearly doubling in size. He had also experimented with directing the cultivated energy to reinforce his muscle tissue but so far had had little success. Miguel had explained the concept of tempering oneself with cultivated energy and Ryan had great hopes for the future if he could ever figure out how to achieve it. Next, he checked on his Inventory, the continuous near subconscious training he had been doing with the coin had borne fruit, the little pocket dimension, which he could feel tethered to somewhere in his body thanks to the Bifröst, had grown to a sphere with nearly 20 centimetres diameter. He considered for a moment and added his notebook to the sphere, safely storing it after adding a note that he would need to collect a biggish rock to increase his training efforts with the little space.
Still sitting on the bed he quickly reviewed the next change to his Character Sheet once again. The insistent buzz of the notification of his latest Achievement, Liberator, demanded attention as it had from the moment they had safely escorted the rescues out of the immediate environs of the capital. He ignored it once again as the entire combat group had decided to discuss the implications with John before choosing their reward, but the nagging feeling of the notification hadn’t left any of them since them. Unlike his previous Achievements it hadn’t gone away after reviewing the notification and Ryan surmised that it would remain until they made a choice, reinforcing how severe the impacts of the choice might affect them.
Ryan also investigated his Quest log, in addition to the previous two quests requiring him to survive from day to day and to reach level 25 he had obtained two quests to find trainers to rank up his Profession and one Skill respectively. Apparently, to gain access to more Skills for Smithing which had reached some sort of ceiling for the Journeyman rank he had to obtain training. Identify on the other hand however required that he obtain two further Skills that would need to be merged into the Skill, Evaluate and Elemental Scan were the two Skills he needed to learn to further progress and the Interface suggested finding a trainer for them as apparently they couldn’t be purchased directly. He wondered if anyone that was a higher rank in either a Profession or Skill could teach a lower ranked person or whether one was required to obtain the relevant status of a trainer somehow. After materialising his notebook he jotted down the thought and sent a note to John about it, it was an idea that would be worth investigating.
All in all, he could be satisfied with his gains. Across the board his stats were all nearly twice as high as immediately after Initiation. Ryan didn’t feel stronger or faster however. He assumed that he subconsciously would always feel as if his current strength would be baseline and that only testing the application of his new stats would show the difference from before. Something that he wouldn’t bother with as long as he could still correctly exercise his newfound strength to survive the challenges of this new world.
Deciding to do some more active cultivating Ryan headed to the area adjacent to the pool. The sandy patch of ground had become the groups training area and would likely remain so as it offered plenty of space for sparring between several people at once. Ryan was happy to find that the area was deserted as he wasn’t yet ready to meaningfully interact with another person yet. Starting the poemsae without any further preparation he got lost in time until he was interrupted by the ringing tolls of the small bell Katrina had commandeered to announce that a meal was ready and waiting to be demolished. He interrupted his efforts and wiped the copious amount of sweat that had aggregated on his forehead away with his left hand before he jumped into the adjacent pool, clothes and all.
After the quick dip he changed into dry clothes and hung the sopping wet gear over the fence to dry, checking his Character Sheet to determine the gains of his extended cultivation session. Another 108 Energy to the Pool he thought, once again a bit proud of the glorious new information presented.
Ryan Alexander Hunter
Wild Shifter
Level
11
Cultivation:
Mortal Realm (mid*)
Experience
1875/2080
Energy:
1939/2057
Statistics
Strength
Muscle Strength
24(20)
Intellect
Speed
17(15)
20,0
Tendons
22(20)
15,7
Cognitive
18(17)
(20)
Bones
21(20)
(15,7)
Memory
16(15)
Agility
Muscle Speed
24(20)
Will
Resolve
15(15)
20,0
Nerve Speed
23(20)
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
12,7
Force
12(10)
(20)
Cartilage Friction
22(20)
(12,7)
Focus
15(10)
Dexterity
Muscle Control
21(20)
Energy
Capacity
25(20)
20,0
Proprioception
20(20)
20,0
Efficiency
21(20)
(20)
Flexibility
22(20)
(20)
Regen
24(20)
Constitution
Resilience
23(20)
Perception
Acuity
23(22)
20,3
Healing
26(20)
17,7
Psy Range
11(11)
(20,3)
Shield
22(20)
(17,7)
Processing
22(20)
Available Points
0
allocated
0
Affinities
Kinetic (macro)
22
Kinetic (micro)
21
Gravitational
52
Soul
14
Space
79
Time
50
Matter
12
Electromagnetic
19
Biological
19
Psychic
22
Skills
Class Skills:
17 listed
(expand)
Profession Skills:
518 listed
(expand)
General:
10821 (listed)
(expand)
Special Skills:
None
Unique:
None
Achievements
First Kill, Sneaky Bastard, David vs. Goliath, Hat-trick, Liberator(bonus not chosen)
Traits
Protean, Indomitable
Mutations
Recombinant Omnivore, Enhanced Senses, Bifröst, Quantum Crystal Processing Lattice
Once again, Ryan considered that he, together with the rest of the group, had grown significantly stronger since Initiation but that these gains only represented the very first few small steps that they would need to take if they were ever to realise their intentions of reaching Prime and releasing their family from Stasis. He wondered whether they would have the strength to persevere as a group against the coming challenges, especially since he assumed that conflict in the nature of the fight they had with the gangs would form a substantial part of the challenges they would have to overcome. Would they find themselves able to ruthlessly bulldoze over any competition barring their way? Ryan knew his answer to that question but wondered whether the rest would be willing to make the hard choices as he headed to the dining room hoping to stuff his face full of Katrina’s delicious meal.
Before he reached the promised land John managed to intercept him, asking him to keep himself available for a meeting of the council and the combat group after lunch as they needed to debrief after the raid into town and agree to schedule another expedition there to retrieve critical supplies. Ryan just nodded and brushed past John, not willing to be deterred from his goal any longer. As he did however John added: “Oh, Ryan, speak to Lizzy, she’s assigning you a quest. You will need to keep track of what you eat and report on the results of your Recombinant Omnivore. Katrina has agreed to cook separate meal for you in the near future so we can gather some data and analyse it. So no more eating random stuff, your meals will be regulated for the next week.”
The last part was too much, Ryan basically growled his assent at John, and made a silent promise to himself to find a way to heap untold amounts of suffering on the Spy Master, naturally for his own good.