“Huh? What just happened?” Elian stared at his fist.
Tattoos of the Abyssal Eye blazed. He punched the tree again, giving it his all this time. His knuckles connected with the rough bark. But instead of a loud crash or a crunch, there was only a gentle thump as if he had tapped it. The bark wasn’t cracked at all. The tree didn’t shake. Not one leaf fell.
A cold hand grasped his heart. Something was very wrong.
With a wave, he summoned the Covenant with the Gods and made terrifying discoveries.
Elian Ward | Human | Level:1
Health: 150/150
Energy: 50/50
ATTRIBUTES:
Attack Power: 0
Magic Power: 0
Armor: 1,620
Magic Resilience: 0
DIVINE BESTOWAL:
Greater Curse of the Berserking Abyssal Eye III
Greater Curse of the Powerless Physical Immortal I
Attack and Magic Power both started at a hundred the last time. His Armor and Magic Resilience should be ten each.
The Greater Curse of the Berserking Abyssal Eye reduced his Magic Power to zero as a penalty. That was supposed to happen. But why was his Attack Power, which was supposed to have increased, turned zero as well? And what was this other Curse? He hadn’t heard of it before.
Greater Curse of the Powerless Physical Immortal
Transfer all your Attack Power and Magic Power to your Armor, becoming helpless in a fight while gaining durability beyond measure. Suffer the ultimate vulnerability to magic in return for quadrupling your Armor. So wills the Elder Giant, whose skin is impervious to steel but not magic.
“Elder Giant?” Elian replayed his last moments before dying.
Was the dark wall that came up behind the Giant King one of the Elder Giants? Was the awakening ritual already completed? If so, even if they had enough forces to kill the Giant King, their mission would have been in vain and humanity still would’ve lost.
Elder Giants were considered deities by other gods before they were defeated thousands of years ago. The Giant King must’ve somehow suspected what Elian was doing—perhaps he was knowledgeable of the Timekeeper’s shenanigans—and asked the Elder Giant to counter it. The Elder Giant couldn’t overcome the authority of the Timekeeper, but he sure could make life very hard for the returned Elian.
Bizarrely, the Elder Giant was able to inflict him with a Greater Curse. It should start from a Lesser Curse and it was up to Elian to invest Favor in it. Another thing was that it stuck with him through the time travel.
His two Curses affecting each other meant that for every point of Attack Power, he’d gain sixteen Armor. The Elder Giant didn’t know that Elian had stored the Greater Curse of the Berserking Abyssal Eye and didn’t account for this interaction. But it wasn’t something to celebrate.
From a healer who couldn’t heal himself, to a tank who couldn’t heal himself and was a wet toilet paper defending against magic. And he didn’t have any Attack or Magic Power to contribute to a fight!
Elian rested his forehead on the tree and closed his eyes to compose himself.
“Fine,” he said after several minutes. “If the Giant King wants me to stay on the sidelines of every battle, so be it. I have plenty of testing to do to see how things would play out. I can always return to the past and—”
Can I still return? He hurriedly checked the Covenant again to make sure his eyes weren’t tricking him.
Two Greater Curses. Nothing else.
The Greater Boon of the Timekeeper’s Secret Gift was gone.
Was it a one-time thing?
“Timekeeper!” Elian walked around the tree, shouting for the Timekeeper to show himself.
He wasn’t expecting that creepy cloaked man carrying a dozen kinds of clocks to respond. The first and only time they met was right after the Timekeeper randomly yanked Elian from Earth. In the whiteness of the dimension called the In-Between, the Timekeeper granted Elian his Boon and plopped him on Fellenyr with the task of saving humanity from getting wiped out.
This time, Elian didn’t come from the In-Between. He was from the future, carrying two Curses. He wasn’t the same Elian granted the Timekeeper’s Secret Gift or else he wouldn’t have the Curses. There must be a time travel paradox explanation for this that he wouldn’t understand anyway.
Bottom line, there were no more second chances. If he died… that was it.
His mind raced. He wasn’t giving up. Searching the field for a stone, he found one the size of his fist. If his punches couldn’t do any harm, would wielding a weapon circumvent the limitation? He repeatedly hit the trunk with the stone.
The ‘hit’ became a tap. Other than a few tiny scratches on the tree that must’ve come from the stone’s rough surface rubbing against the bark, there was no other damage. Frustrated, Elian threw the stone up. It got lodged in between branches.
He looked up and laughed. It reminded him of a basketball stuck to the side of the hoop.
Been a long time since he had played basketball. Not that he was any good at it. Just a bunch of unfit office guys trying to get some exercise after work, relaxing before diving into the horrible commute on the way home. He was starting to forget the faces of his friends. The Timekeeper promised to return Elian to Earth after he saved the humans of Fellenyr. He might never meet any of his family and friends again because of the Greater Curse of the Powerless Physical Immortal weighing him down.
What am I going to do now? Elian asked the stone above him.
A gust of wind rolled over and made the tree sway its branches. Even the wind could do more to the tree than him. As the tree danced, the stone got free and fell on his head. It harmlessly bounced off of him because of his high Armor and landed on a fallen twig on the ground.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
The stone broke the twig.
“Newton!” Elian jolted at the epiphany. “Wait. Newton’s the guy who got hit by the apple, right? Not Einstein? Oh, wrong time period.” If Elian was having difficulties remembering his life before he was taken from Earth, science lessons in school were a distant memory.
Elian picked up the stone and dropped it a few more times on pieces of bark and twigs. Whether he dropped it from a branch or straight from his hand, the expected happened—the falling stone damaged whatever it landed on. The Elder Giant’s Curse didn’t work in this case because Elian wasn’t doing any attacks, hence his zero Attack Power wasn’t a hindrance.
Conversely, if Elian threw that same stone at the tree, it didn’t do anything. He was technically attacking the tree with the stone.
“I’m not so helpless after all,” Elian said, sitting next to the tree. “Given how this Curse worked, I still should be able to use bombs and potions.”
Did a crossbow count? It wasn’t the shooter who propelled the bolt forward but rather the rope pulled back by mechanisms. But the line in the Curse about “becoming helpless in a fight” might extend to a crossbow since it was still a weapon he’d operate. He’d figure that out with more testing.
This was the hand he had been dealt with. No use complaining and moping.
Always look on the bright side. That was his mantra to survive the corporate world as one of the cogs of the massive wheel. He’d drown in misery if he only focused on the negative.
He was very hard to kill. A very huge deal in this dangerous world.
He also didn’t need to spend any Favor Points leveling the Abyssal Eye’s Curse while the Elder Giant’s Curse only had two more levels to go before its highest tier. He should avoid taking any more Curses because they couldn’t be Melded together like Boons. Be more conscious of what Boons to fill up the remaining six slots for Divine Bestowals.
Wrapping up his self-pep talk, Elian headed to Wendell’s house. The kind old man would give him breakfast, and he could begin training. Unlike the humans of Fellenyr who were born with the Covenant, Elian obtained it as an adult. His actions had just started to be taken into account for attributes.
Every level gives one Favor Point. Unlike the RPGs he used to play, the level-up didn’t give points to Strength, Agility, or those sorts of things. There was none of those in Fellenyr. A person doing push-ups would increase his strength, and that would be reflected by higher Attack Power. Studying and practicing magic spells would increase Magic Power.
That meant people slowly increased their attributes through the years. Elian had a lot of catching up to do.
Walking up to the door of the small farmhouse, Elian breathed deeply, taking in the smell of grass and manure. There was also the scent of freshly baked bread. He arrived just in time. He sorely missed this place and also felt guilty he wasn’t able to return here. Elian never saw Wendell and Thalia, his wife, ever again. This area and the rest of the valley would be trampled by the Giants in a few years.
Elian knocked on the wooden door, barely making a sound. “Good morning!” he loudly said.
He spoke Angloise, an odd mix of oldish sort of English and the other languages of Fellenyr. Humans weren’t native to Fellenyr, which was why the Giants wanted to wipe them out. A long time ago, different groups of humans from around the Renaissance Period of Earth got transported here. They survived and thrived, mingling with the other races. Hundreds of years later, humans carved a large portion of the biggest continent as their own territory.
The door opened and out came an elderly man, stooped because of age but retaining some muscles due to working hard every day. He raised a bushy white brow and looked over Elian, no doubt wondering about his half-Asian features and his clothes from Earth. Elian’s black hair in a crew cut wasn’t common for men in this world. Probably most notable for the old man was Elian’s complexion, with no hint of working under the sun as he spent most of his waking hours in an air-conditioned office.
“Mornin’, good sir,” said Wendell, assuming that Elian was someone high-born from abroad. “How may I help you? Are you lost?”
When Wendell and Elian first met in the original timeline, they skirted the cliff of incoherence. Angloise had just enough English words for Elian to understand maybe ten percent of the conversation. It was the pronunciations that made comprehending them more difficult.
Wendell also had thought Elian was a noble or the son of a rich merchant who had lost his way or been left behind by his caravan. The old man took him in and gave him food and a roof over his head for a month while Elian learned about the new world. If there was an award for the most charitable person on Fellenyr, Elian would give that to Wendell.
“I’m not lost,” Elian said, smiling so broadly it must’ve appeared unsettling. He wanted to hug the old man but that’d make things awkward. “My name’s Elian Ward from Gilders beyond the Sunder Valley.”
Wendell gave an airy whistle through his missing tooth. “Sunder Valley? That fiery wilderness next to Cinder Town? I know someone from Cinder. That’s a mighty long way away, young man.” Wendell leaned to the left and looked behind Elian. “Don’t have anyone else with you? How did you get here?”
“With two groffs pulling my wagon,” was Elian’s reply. He was prepared for his second first meeting with Wendell. “But the axle was broken. That rough patch of road outside the town claims credit for causing our party such a headache.”
Wendell scratched his sharp chin covered by a patchy beard. “I’ve been tellin’ the mayor we should get that fixed. You’re not the first one to suffer misfortune there. Where’s your wagon and groffs?”
“I left them in town with my companions while I visit you. I decided to walk because it’s not too far. Good thing the road passes through here is in a much better condition. Made walking easier.”
“Visit me?”
“I’m an acquaintance of your friend, Patel of Gilders. Always offers me a discount for the supplies I buy from his shop. Whenever my family butchers a Filloswine, I make sure to give him the head. He adores it. Patel told me that you gave him a Filloswine head as a gift on his wedding day. I came here to say hello and see if you have a message I can bring to him.”
Wendell’s face lit up and more wrinkles appeared at the mention of Patel. “You know my childhood best friend? Damn right, he likes his Filloswine. Eats so much of it he ends up lookin’ like one too. Er, it’s been years since I last saw him. Is he still…?” Wendell shaped a large belly in front of him.
“Most definitely,” said Elian. Five years from now, he’d walk into Patel’s store to stock supplies for exploring Sunder Valley. Their conversation would lead to another until Patel realized that Elian had met Wendell.
“Come on in.” Wendell opened the door wider. “Any man who makes sure Patel doesn’t lose weight is a friend of mine.”
Elian couldn’t help but feel nostalgic as he looked around the cramped house made of logs. Fifteen years he lived on Fellenyr and he’d never forget his first month. This farmer couple was a blessing to him. He had zero idea of survival. Typing away on a computer for twelve hours a day never prepared him for the mission that the Timekeeper gave him.
Wendell introduced his wife and they all shared a meal of bread and soup with vegetables. Thalia thought their meal was too simple for a well-off-looking guest like Elian, so she cooked a few slices of the cured ham hanging from the rafters and fried a few eggs.
“You don’t have to,” Elian said. “It makes me feel inadequate for not bringing a gift.”
“No worries about that, Sir Ward of Gilders,” said Thalia. “We scarcely have a guest in this part of the valley. Enjoy it here after your long trip.”
“It is relaxing on your farm. I was supposed to have a quick chat before returning to town, but I’m thinking of staying until the sun sets if that’s okay with you. Enjoy the air and the beauty of the landscape. Our group will resume traveling tomorrow.”
Wendell took the plate of sizzling ham and eggs and placed them in front of Elian. “You can sleep here for the night if you want. Tell us stories of Patel, and your travels as well. Storm God knows we get no news ‘round here.”
Elian readily agreed, for he intentionally steered the conversation this way. This was what he had been waiting for. Tonight, a Myrclaw would come to attack the farm. It escaped from a passing caravan transporting beasts for a nobleman’s collection and somehow wandered here.
Elian would make sure no harm came to the couple. This wasn’t related to the big picture of defeating the Giants. This was about saving his friends.
And because he’d earn money for fixing the nobleman’s problem.