~~~Stanley~~~
Debuff Downgraded: [Major Soul Wound]
Fuck. Yes. Stanley closed his eyes and let the feeling of triumph fill him for a moment. But only for a moment. Then he opened his eyes to the ruins of a lair and the bloody remains of its queen and her children. She foolishly hadn't surrendered.
Stanley smiled. Not at the surrounding carnage, but at his soul, which felt good. Better every day. Stronger every day. Strong enough that he could work on it at least twice a day instead of only the single morning session he'd done for what felt like ages.
At this point, fixing the soul wound felt like an inevitable outcome rather than a distant dream.
Move
The earth streaked past below him, but it wasn't all a blur anymore. Increasing his attributes was definitely changing him. For the better.
Not that he actually needed to see where he was going. His mental touch was more than enough these days, and it, plus the souls he could feel ahead, led him to the next lair on his list.
Someone, probably Nate, had started a list of problem lairs that were growing too fast. Some were like the ant lair, in that the queens were getting clever. Others were like the ant lair, in that they were massive and only growing larger. While still more were like the ant lair, in that they actively sent monsters out to hunt in the wider world.
In short, the ant lair had really been a trendsetter.
Unfortunately for them, Stanley existed. Extra unfortunate for them, Stanley needed a lot of cores, and they were just asking for it by being such juicy targets.
While he ruined yet another queen's whole life, Stanley kept a dedicated portion of his attention on the small bundle of happy emotions inside his head. Caffeine. Probably playing with Barbie by the feel of things...
As long as Stanley didn't stray too far across the city or get too excited about anything, Caffeine would roam freely and joyfully. Though he tended to linger in or around Nate's base, either playing with Barbie and the kids or running with the wolves.
Stanley hadn't quite nailed down how far he could range from the pug before Caffeine came running in a trail of destruction, but that was because it seemed to depend on a wide range of factors. Like his own mood, or Caffeine's mood, or if Caffeine just ate and needed a lap to sleep in...
He didn't actually want to be apart from Caffeine, but Stanley ruthlessly quashed those feelings whenever they resurfaced. Caffeine deserved... everything. Anything he wanted. Anything that made him happy. Stanley could endure whatever it took to make that happen.
Plus, it helped him keep watch on Zeke while out hunting. Sure, there was a chance the hiding undead would eventually strike at him out here again, but Stanley wasn't feeling very threatened by that thought. Not personally, and especially not after improving the soul wound yet again.
No, if they resurfaced before he found them, he was almost certain Zeke would be their target. His purification zone was spreading every day, all while the corruption beyond it grew ever more potent.
As his own power only grew over the last week, Stanley had noticed a new trend. A worrying one. Well, it wasn't exactly new, but after having complete shit luck searching for the undead, it was feeling more and more likely.
Zeke might be exactly as important as Nate had originally thought.
Stanley had seen corrupted fish. Not a lot, but enough that he knew even the ocean would fall to the corruption. Eventually.
If he never found the undead, if they could hide well enough, then all they needed to do was eliminate Zeke. Without him, everyone would simply starve to death as every living thing rotted away. Sure, maybe people could evolve and adapt to the corruption, but how many? Stanley didn't want to be undead... Well, he would if he had to, but he could never let them do that to Caffeine.
So it worked out great to have Caffeine hanging out with Zeke... even if Stanley worried every second that... No. I am calm.
Caffeine was strong. Even another D-grade skeleton wouldn't be able to take him down before Stanley could get back. And then they would regret ever trying... Then they would regret ever fucking existing!
Stanley winced at the flash of alarm echoing back to him, then sighed as a whirlwind of destruction swirled around and past him. Once the wind settled and the debris finished raining to earth, he could finally see the pug standing in front of him and looking up with big, worried eyes.
"Sorry, Caff."
Yeah, so his control wasn't always good. But he was trying.
He offered his lap to the dog and flew them both into the mostly dead lair. "Let's get some cores."
The queen was waiting for him when he arrived on the top floor, but she didn't attack. She didn't surrender, either. Not even when he drifted closer and spread his arms wide. "Come on. Take your shot."
Still nothing.
"I'm going to kill you if you don't..." The queen, who looked like an eldritch mix between a tree and a caterpillar, lunged toward him.
Stanley watched the behemoth cross the distance between them at a truly sluggish pace and sighed before punting her back across the room.
The queen has surrendered. Lair defeated.
It was just as well; she wasn't powerful enough to trigger a premonition. While her minions had been decent, they, too, were still lacking in that department. Maybe she would learn from his attack and make something better next time? Besides, he still got a core out of it.
Root Circulation (Rare)
The ground nourishes you.
Greatly increase regeneration while your roots remain planted...
Another weird skill, and yet the attributes he could gain for destroying it were probably way less than he could make selling it to another human. Someone who would probably evolve the skill and not themselves. Though he wasn't certain anymore. Not after seeing more and more people adapting themselves... Freaks. The lot of them.
It was far from the first such transaction. He'd gotten a lot of weird skills in the past week. Some came from the problem lairs, but others he had pulled from the ocean.
It turned out that there were indeed lairs down there. None of them were anything special, but then again, he hadn't gone very far into the water yet. Which was a shame, because the ocean was a veritable goldmine of cores that practically threw themselves at him. Something about the water, or perhaps the lower corruption, but the creatures down there really loved to swarm at any opportunity to eat each other.
The problem for him was that Caffeine hated the ocean. Or maybe feared was a better term. Even on land, Caffeine wouldn't let him stray very far before coming to find him, and it worked the same in the ocean. The one time Caffeine tried to save him from the water felt... traumatizing for the pug. It was bad enough that Stanley wasn't willing to put him through it again.
That alone was reason enough to stick to the shallows near the city, and besides, there were still enough lairs on land. He didn't need to torture Caffeine. Though he was hoping the shorter trips into the ocean would help acclimate Caffeine to the water.
Despite the minor setback there, he'd made good progress.
Status
Name: Stanley Cascade
Race: [Wrathstorm](E-grade Human)
Titles: [Titan Slayer] [F-grade Source]
Traits: [Adaptable](57%) [Source Nexus] [Wrath] [Eye of the Storm] [Source Burned] [Ruthless Soul]
Class: Soul Psionic (Epic) - Level 115 (Expert)
Class Skills: Mind Over Matter (Legendary) - Level 89 (Advanced) | Premonition (Epic) - Level 55 (Advanced) | Still Mind of the Psionic Beast (Epic) - Level 49 (Intermediate) | Harmonic Soul Meditation (Rare) - Level 75 (Advanced) | Mental Fortress (Epic) - Level 1 (Novice)
Attributes:
Strength: 515(+70%)875
Vitality: 509(+162%)1333
Dexterity 511(+70%)868
Wisdom 620(+1683%)11443
Intelligence 623(+1683%)11496
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Willpower 655(+2926%)20209
Twin-Soul 110(+607%)777
Non-Class Skills 2/6: Soul Awareness (Epic) - Level 49 (Intermediate) | Psionic Barrier (Rare) - Level 35 (Intermediate) | Psionic Soul Shield (Rare) - Level 24 (Basic)
Buff: [Soul-Link]
Debuff: [Major Soul Wound(Rune Seal)(Shielded)]
Great progress... not counting a few holdout skills that were refusing to advance, with Still Mind and Soul Awareness being the most concerning.
He used Soul Awareness daily, and in every way he'd thought possible... that it still wasn't leveling meant he was missing something. Probably something damn important if it involved his soul...
Still Mind wasn't as common on his roster, and Stanley was... hesitant to experiment too freely with that skill. Besides, he used it often enough, and there really weren't that many ways he could think of to change it up. Not without Caffeine interfering... which was probably a good thing.
The why of Mental Fortress not leveling was obvious and not too disappointing, seeing as how no one was attacking his mind... but he still didn't like that big level one staring out at him from his status.
He wasn't buying for a second that the wizards didn't have someone with mind magic... No matter what Nate said. Not that Nate was being very clear in the intuition department. He sort of trusted some of them, but he still didn't know if any were traitors.
So pretty much useless.
Stanley flew high above the lair. The last one on Nate's list and the most profitable to date. The monsters on the previous level before the queen had dropped the really good cores. The ones that actually gave him whole attributes. Which likely meant they were getting closer to the next grade.
Of course, the diminishing returns had also started kicking in the moment he passed five hundred attributes... He’d almost forgotten about that bullshit.
The ocean was still his next best option for mass core gathering, and Stanley hesitated while staring at the thin strip of blue in the distance. One thing he hadn't tried yet was taking a shit-ton of chicken along. Maybe he could distract Caffeine from the water with food?
That sent his gaze back toward Nate's base. He'd need a lot of chicken... and Caffeine liked it cooked. Maybe if he brought the extra chickens to the cooks? It definitely seemed worth the effort. At least if he wanted to keep pushing forward. Which he did.
He was still in a great mood when he stopped along the way to check in with some old friends. His mood improved further when their souls failed to react to his approach. Maybe because of the weaker debuff or the improvements to his soul shield—either way, it was excellent. "How's the hunting?"
Silas glanced back, then did a double take as he flinched slightly. It wasn't a scared flinch, just... surprised. "S... Stanley! I... didn't know you were here."
Serenity didn't flinch; she only smiled briefly and waved before turning her attention back to the fighting. She wasn't in the actual mix, instead hanging back with ten other people while a smaller group fought through the lair ahead. Except she wasn't watching the fighters. Stanley could feel her attention focused intently on a man in purple robes. Silas' too.
Caffeine successfully distracted both of them from their task while Stanley eyed the man they were obviously here to protect. It wasn't the council guy who'd rewound time before... just one of his apprentices... presumably. "I thought they weren't letting the purples outside?"
"Nate brought 'em around," Serenity said without taking her gaze from the other man and while scratching Caffeine behind his ears. "Wants them as close to combat as possible to increase the leveling speed of their skills."
"Skills? What happened to the sanctity of their magic?" Stanley asked, making air quotes.
"Oh, they're still hung up on that," Silas said, his hovering cloud of crystals suddenly condensing into a shield around the purple-robed man when something exploded ahead. An unnecessary precaution, as the fighters were kicking ass.
"Unfortunately," Purple-robe said after emerging from the shield. "The system counts Mana Manipulation as combat adjacent enough that we can't improve past a certain point without risking our lives. A truly brutish system..."
Stanley still wasn't sure how their wizard classes worked. He only knew that they went hard on Mana Manipulation. Their skill with that, along with reaching some threshold of aspect affinity, determined what school they belonged to... and, thereby, what color robes they wore. It was all very ridiculous, but supposedly the robes helped with controlling mana... though Stanley was certain the colors didn't matter.
Purple wasn't the only wizard present. A gray robe enshrouding a familiar soul lurked nearby, and he was studiously not looking Stanley's way. Instead, he waved his hands toward the fighting, presumably casting some magic to help them. Gravity magic, obviously, given the gray color of his robes.
Which meant the other guy was from the divination school with his purple robes. How divination related to combat was... well, he could see it having useful defensive applications. At least if he was as strong as the master of his school. Such as predicting the future and rewinding time. Offensively... maybe scouting the monsters?
"Did your big-shot master of divination ever find the undead?" Stanley asked.
"Yes," Purple said. "He found them. They're everywhere."
Stanley expected the useless response because he could feel Purple's soul. Their formerly glorious leader had stopped supplying the lowly troops with his soul blocking items, claiming it was unnecessary now that they were no longer hidden.
He claimed that, but was probably just upset about the little flesh wound Stanley had given him at their first meeting... even though the other guy had undone it... which was fine. Stanley liked it much better this way, where they couldn't hide their souls. Of course, he would like it even more if the bastards could actually do something useful, like finding the undead.
The only thing they seemed able to find with their divination magic was more humans. Sure, it was probably good to search out and gather up all the smaller groups, but Stanley could have managed that himself. Eventually.
Even then, they could only find the humans if enough of them gathered together. So basically, only the already established groups who didn't actually need help. Of which there were more than Stanley had expected...
Thinking about the undead only reminded him that he was wasting time here. So he left. After letting Caffeine check everyone out and kill a few of the paper monsters...
It was a new type of lair he’d only seen a couple times. With non-living monsters. Well, non-flesh monsters. They still moved around like they were alive, and they still dropped cores when killed. This warehouse was presumably a paper vendor in the past, and now, instead of flesh and blood monsters, it was full of animated paper... golems? Interesting for sure, and definitely disturbing, but also not a place Caffeine would enjoy.
Which was fine. More monsters for the weakling humans to fight. But then again, they were fighting. That was more than many were doing. He should give them credit for that much, even if they were weak. At least they were trying.
Caffeine still whined at him as they flew away.
"She'll be fine, Caff," Stanley told him, mostly sure he wasn't lying about Serenity. The monsters were weak enough, and it wasn't one of the massive lairs. Plus, she had a lot of backup. "Let's go see your other friends."
Caffeine figured out where they were going before they actually got there, and he went on ahead with... destructive enthusiasm.
Nate wasn't home, but neither was Zeke. Nate never took the purifier very far from home, so it would be easy enough to find them and drop off the skill shards. But first... "Need me to hurt anyone for you, Hugo?"
A few of the people in the room looked askance at him, but the old man didn't even glance up from the wand-like stick he was carving. "You know I'm not helpless, right, Stanley?"
"Honestly?" Stanley said, meeting and turning away every gaze that looked his way. "Everyone here seems pretty helpless... except maybe Nate? Though last I saw, he wasn't anything special."
"Hmm." Hugo finished with his stick and handed it to the boy in front of him with a stern look. "Now listen here. When you cast the spell, channel it through the wand... and only your earthquake spell. If you get another skill, then, for god's sake, come back before you try to use this wand for it. Got it?"
"Got it!" the boy exclaimed, then quickly added, "Uh, sir."
Hugo watched him go with a scowl, but his soul held something like... pride? Then the feeling changed as he looked at Stanley. It wasn't negative, but more... introspective. "I actually had a fellow that needed an... attitude adjustment a few days ago, but that new fellow Bernard handled him."
"Really?" Stanley frowned and stared through the walls with Soul Sight, trying to remember what the guy's soul had looked like. He'd almost forgotten about him and his grand plan of... whatever it had been.
"Yep. Then he asked about you."
"Did he? What is that bastard up to now?"
"Dunno. Told him what I knew and not to listen to the haters. You done good by the folks here, even if some don't agree."
"I... thanks?" Stanley could see the half-undead souls scattered around the base, but he wasn't sure which one was Bernard. "He say anything else?"
"Nah. He's been tryna' smooth things out round here, making friends and enemies alike 'long the way."
"Whatever." Stanley shrugged. He didn't care what Bernard was after, as long as the guy didn't overstep... "Let me know if you need anything."
Jerry was in his usual good mood. Which meant he was glowering at everyone. Though he perked up when Caffeine followed Stanley into the crowded room. The very crowded room... It looked like Nate had gathered even more people in since last time, and he hadn't needed Stanley to go get them either.
So maybe Bernard and his people were good for something after all?
"If I bring you a handful of extra chickens, can you cook them up?" Stanley asked while looking at the massive spread of already cooked meat. He ignored the non-meat stuff. Obviously. "Or, I could just take all of this..."
"Go ahead," Jerry said, smiling suspiciously.
Stanley did so, pulling piles of meat into a bag while Caffeine stared intently. At least until someone started shouting at him...
"You can't take that much!" It was one of Bernard's half-dead people. "You also can't cut the line!"
"Seriously?" Stanley said, looking between the grinning Jerry and the line enforcer. "Do you know who I am?" Then he winced. Saying that felt so cringy...
"Meet our new jack-booted overlords," Jerry exclaimed. "How does his boot feel on your neck?"
"It's not like that and you know it, Jerry!" The man snapped at the cook, clearly annoyed with him, almost like they'd had this argument before...
"Isn't it?" Jerry shot back, his soul only mildly annoyed, like he just enjoyed flustering the other man. So normal Jerry. "Your commander sure seemed to enjoy throwing his weight around earlier!"
"What did he do?" Stanley asked while once again scanning around the base for Bernard's soul. Ominous and unspecific threats at him were one thing, but if he was going after Jerry...
Jerry ramped up his fake outrage. "He's been going around interrogating people!"
"He has not!" the jack-booted thug yelled back.
"And threatening anyone who doesn't kowtow to his demands!"
Stanley sighed. "Jerry, are you just messing with this guy, or do I actually need to hurt someone?"
Jerry abruptly smiled, his entire demeanor changing. "Nah. Bernard is real nosy about you, but these guys are just too uptight about everything. They make it so easy..."
"Have fun with that," Stanley said while shoveling more meat into his bag. "As for you," he addressed the thug. "I get all the food I want. Talk to Nate if you don't like..."
Bernard chose that moment to fly into the room alongside a gust of wind. Foul wind. Like a particularly rotten fart. A half-corrupted, rotten fart.
"Come to give me my marching orders now?" Stanley asked the man, then glanced down at his bag. "Or to stop me from taking my food?"