PenguinKills
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Chapter 59 - Nice Talk
🕑 Added 2024-06-20 19:42:26 +0000 UTCIt was a few hours after the fight that I really came back mentally. Killing a human for the first time was a lot different than I thought it would be. The physical act wasn't what was different, hit anything hard enough and it would die all the same, but the mental side was different.
"You all right there bud?" Austin said.
I was sitting on the wall staring out into the forest when he found me. The blood was gone after some vigorous washing and there weren't any signs of the previous battle, but my thoughts were still in turmoil.
"Yeah, I'm good. Just a lot, you know." I said back.
My hands had stopped shaking and I was trying to clear my mind from replaying the events on repeat.
"They deserved it." He said.
"I know they did, but that doesn't change what I did," I answered.
Knowing they deserved it did little to change the fact that 5 lives were ended by my hand. 5 people wouldn't see another sunrise. I was working through the mental gymnastics to be ok with that and it was taking longer than anticipated. The fact I would have to do it again didn't feel good.
"Having this be the first of many doesn't sit well with me. I know the world isn't sunshine and rainbows, this will happen again." I said forlornly.
"That's dark, buddy. Why don't you try and to take the emotion out of it. They have definitely killed before, think about it like you saved someone in the future from dying." Austin said.
Think about it like you saved a life. That was a generous mental leap but not entirely wrong. They would've killed another person and I technically prevented that from happening, probably more than once. Logically, it was a net positive.
Logically wasn't emotionally though. This was something I would have to work through and I didn't see it being easy.
"Oh, I got something that'll take your mind off it. Abigail and the rest of 'em bought the info on Earth. You wanna know what's happening?" Austin said with amusement poking at my side. He knew I wanted to know but was messing with me.
"Oh, my dear nightlight, please enlighten me," I said with a laugh. His face scrunched up at the nickname but he was the one who started it. He could have just told me without the games.
"The planet's mass wasn't enough for some stupid standard so it's increasing in size to accommodate while also going through heavy changes. Biomes will change rapidly due to the mana influx along with the flora and fauna. Animals will evolve and mutate rapidly and a bunch of other things. It even said that any ancient bloodlines would resurface in current descendants! What if there are dinosaurs when we get back? How cool would that be!" There was a glint in his eye thinking about all the new sights to explore. He really embodied his profession. Fighting a dinosaur did not sound like a fun time. Seeing one was but fighting one did not.
"How much bigger is the planet getting, it was already big," I asked.
"Not sure, it said every planet's different so we weren't able to get a definitive answer. We'll only know once it's finished." He said.
He spoke about it a little more and my mind was thoroughly stimulated thinking about it all. We were told to expect nature to reclaim most of civilization and animals to dominate the land when we returned.
Animals fared better with the sudden influx of mana and essence than humans could so that was why they were left behind. The 10 levels in H rank were the system preparing the human body for mana.
If we were stuck on earth to deal with the massive change so abruptly, most would die. Mana poisoning, I think they called it.
Beasts had bodies that were better adapted to the change and would enter a period of massive growth and evolution. Mating and hunting on a scale never seen before.
The information even said to expect a massive increase in the population of the animals found on the planet.
The animals also had an event of their own while we were here in the tutorial. While we could purchase things from the store for points, they fought over treasures dropped throughout the world.
Natural treasures that would strengthen a bloodline or a nicely curated space of the perfect mana type. It would be a massive game of King of the Hill for all the beasts involved.
Bloodlines were another thing that was new in this magical world. Every animal carried with them a bloodline of their species and to evolve to higher grades, they had to either purify it or evolve it.
Evolving a bloodline made me think of a snake evolving into a dragon, which made me chuckle thinking about it.
Humans were slightly different. They could also carry with them different bloodlines inherited from their ancestors but they could also take others. They were a sort of clean slate in terms of bloodlines.
An arctic fox could never assimilate a hellhound's bloodline because they were so different and it would result in death. A human, on the other hand, could assimilate either. There were limitations to the ability and you could only have one, but it was still cool to think about.
"What about a wolf bloodline making you a pseudo were-wolf," Austin said excitedly.
We had been talking about all the possibilities.
"What about a dragon bloodline, that would be cool," I said throwing out my idea.
Finding out dragons were real shouldn't have been that surprising but it was cool to think about.
Sitting here throwing out increasingly crazy ideas was nice. It took my mind of off what happened and got me to think about something completely different. I would have to thank Austin somehow later for doing this for me.
"You think you'll ever get strong enough to make your own?" Austin asked.
After learning bloodlines were a thing, someone bought an info missive about them. There were three ways to get a bloodline; inherit it from your parents, assimilate it from an outside source, or forge your own.
Forging your own took a tremendous amount of power and rare resources we wouldn't see any time soon.
"I don't know, I'll certainly try," I answered.
Who wouldn't want to forge their own bloodline? To create something that was uniquely yours that you could pass on to your kids. It was a nice goal to think about.
"It sucks that no one in the family had a bloodline," Austin muttered.
In the missive, it said that if you had a bloodline it would show up on the status screen and the lack of it meant you didn't have one. I didn't expect to have a bloodline due to the rarity we were told they appeared but it would have been a cool bonus.
The lack of my own left me open to the possibilities of assimilating one. I wanted to go all in on the winter aesthetic I was pushing and a Polar type of bloodline would be cool. Ha, cool.
Changing a bloodline after assimilating it was possible, but extremely dangerous. It was a painful process that carried with it the risk of death. It all depended on how closely you grew to your current bloodline.
If you had it for less than a year and didn't like it, the process wasn't that bad. If you had it for years and fought through multiple ranks with it, the process was near suicide.
"Did you hear what rank Earth was going to be?" I asked him.
The ranks of planets were the same as classes. It went from G all the way to S. The rank was an evaluation of the amount of essence along with mana purity and density on a planet. Both of those were decided by the planetary core. It was possible to raise the grade of a planet but it was vehemently expensive.
I hadn't heard what our planet was going to end up as and I was curious what we were going to return to. Most newly integrated worlds were on the lower end, in the G to C rank.
"I don't know. I think it's still being decided." Austin answered.
Or conversation wound down after that and we sat in a comfortable silence.
"Thanks, man. I needed that." There were no more thoughts about earlier and I calmed down from before.
"Anytime buddy."
The notifications from earlier were still there and I finally looked at them.
You have slain [Human – Level 31] 987 points earned.
You have slain [Human – Level 30] 1,235 points earned.
You have slain [Human – Level 31] 3,378 points earned.
You have slain [Human – Level 32] 2,212 points earned.
You have slain [Human – Level 35] 5,123 points earned.
Congratulations! You have leveled up.
Skills Available
The most points I had ever received along with a level. I knew what the notifications were going to say since I felt the level being applied and saw how many points I now had.
It was most of the reason I was so distraught. It was single-handedly the most profitable fight I had been in along with the most experience. It was disturbing.
I tried not to think about it and what it meant for the future. Many would jump at the chance of quick experience and points.
Reaching level 30 brought along with it the first skill of my new class and it did not disappoint. There weren't many options but it was easy to pick out the one I wanted.
Momentum of the Avalanche(Rare) – The longer you are in battle the more powerful you become. Percentage boost to physical attributes the longer you are in battle, capping at 100% after 2 hours.
It was the perfect skill for the prolonged fighting that I was doing. It was an insane boost that would double my physical might. It would take a long time to get going though, divided out over the two hours made it less than a percentage per minute.
It would be meaningless in a quick fight. Fighting the would-be bandits took less than 5 minutes and would barely boost my stats by anything by the time the fight was over.
Sustained fighting over a long period of time was where this skill shined and it was perfect for the waves.
The other skills on the list were pretty good and made me glad I picked it.
The choice I didn't take before was there called [Frozen Arsenal]. It did what Frost Armor did but for weapons. [Frozen Fortitude] was a close second but I would get it next time.
Frozen Fortitude(Uncommon) – Inhabitants of Niflheim are known for their strength of arms and body. Frozen Fortitude forces them to go hand in hand. Every second point in strength results in a point in fortitude.
The skill was similar to [Body of a Barbarian] and did the same thing but for fortitude. The skill also came with fine print saying that it wouldn't stack with any similar skills.
It would only go off of my base strength, not the bonus I got from [Body of a Barbarian]. It was disappointing but understandable. It would get out of hand if it didn't work like that.
I did wonder about the limit of such skills. There was no way that I could have 9 of them for every stat, that would be silly. There had to be drawbacks to them. Maybe it was the reason I leveled so slowly. I would have to buy some information about them to better understand the drawbacks because there wasn't any I could see. From the wording and the boosts it provided, it seemed like it was free stat points without anything to pay for them which I knew wasn't how the system worked. We had enough time with to know that everything had a price and nothing was free.
Figuring that out was for later though, right now I marveled at my new skill and I was excited to test it out on the waves tomorrow. With the talk and the distraction of dinosaurs and a new skill, my mind was firmly past the unpleasantness of earlier, at least for now.
Comments
Alexander C Hyde
I was working through the mental gymnastics to be (okay)ok with that and it was taking longer than anticipated.
The Mighty Don
FYI as a tier 1 i still can't access chapter 58
