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Chapter 111 - Thoughts
🕑 Added 2024-08-19 20:01:07 +0000 UTCThe destruction that surrounded me after the wave was over astounded me. Not in the amount of it, but the ease with which it was accomplished.
The imagery of bodies and blood strewn everywhere inside the walls was not new to me but this was the first time that it felt so effortless.
Usually at the end of battles, my body was tired from exertion and my breathing was hitched. My mana was empty and there was a certain toll on my body the wave extracted.
This didn't feel like that. Sure, I had some superficial wounds and some of my blood was spilled, but the level of destruction didn't match the effort I felt I put in.
The boost from my Spirit Anchor was clearly visible to see.
With it now formed, there was only one thing left on the to-do list before I got to evolve.
Reach Body of Wood.
After the wave, there wasn't a lot to do. Working on autopilot was enough to clean up the bodies at this point from doing it so many times and gave my mind a chance to think about other things.
The 28th wave was over, leaving only 2 left.
Just over a week remained of the tutorial we had been teleported to. In a week and two days, we would be put back on a changed Earth. It was both exciting and worrying.
We knew somewhat about the conditions we would be returning to and that was cause for alarm. Saying nothing of the people, the environment alone would be actively trying to kill us.
The plants that inhabited the planet changed dramatically during the terraforming, or so we were told. Evolving and mutating far beyond what they once were. The animals too.
I wasn't as concerned about initial survival as I was sustained survival.
From the information of previous integrations and data on past planets being terraformed, enlightened races came out of the tutorial with a similar level to the beasts who were left behind.
Now that was on average and said nothing of the statistical outliers that were bound to pop up.
Beasts who did well in their game of King of the Hill would reach greater heights than those who didn't perform as well. The same was true for people in the tutorial.
Depending on the tutorial, people could return from anywhere from early F-rank all the way to well into E-rank. There was a lot of variation depending on how and what the participant did during the tutorial.
Take our tutorial for example. Austin was the highest leveled person I knew and he was a handful of levels into E-rank while some of the fighters in Tracy's camp were only in the mid 30s and low 40s.
The gulf in levels would only get wider the more time elapsed. People's ambition and strive would delineate the populous in terms of levels.
So when we were dumped back on Earth, the monsters would be about the same level as the ones we were fighting during the waves. Which was not that threatening to me by this point.
It was their continued growth that was worrying.
Carving out a place to live was going to be difficult. Taming the new environment and founding a place for civilization weren't going to be easy tasks.
The more I learned about what the planet was being turned into the more daunting the task of founding a city seemed.
But that was a problem for future Chris, present Chris still needed to figure out what to do with his new free time.
To reach Body of Wood there was no need to spend days in pesky meditation or introspection. All that was required was the painful and merciless destruction of the body on a cellular level.
It sounded so relaxing it reminded me of a spa.
In all seriousness, there were things that I needed to finalize on how I was going to do this. There were benefits and drawbacks from doing it in certain ways and I needed to read up on everything I could.
During these last few weeks my mind has only prioritized what came next. If going through Body Refinement wasn't immediately pressing, my mind dismissed it to focus on later.
There were too many things to juggle if I tried to focus on everything all at once.
My juggling act had decreased significantly the past week opening up some room to focus on new things.
There was no looming threat of the Mindbreaker to worry about, no Spirit Anchor to form, and no Law to upgrade.
All the more labor-intensive tasks had been dealt with leaving only the excruciatingly painful one that somehow managed to end up last on my to-do list.
With the bodies cleaned up and thrown out of the camp, my trip down south began.
Abigail and Austin would remain at Tracy's camp without needing to rush up here after I gave to ever-present birds the okay signal. There was no need for them to travel so far when I was fine.
My luggage was bare bones. Only the armor I wore and my hammer would be coming with me. I usually harvested something from the boss of the wave to be used to fashion into gear but I didn't this time.
The demonic feeling they gave off was something I wanted nowhere near me like with previous bosses.
Sam and Ashley managed to turn the Vine Bear Boss into a wonderful set of pauldrons that now rested on my shoulders. Its skull and upper jaw decorating my left shoulder with one of its paws on my right.
They managed to strip the fur of its nature affinity and greatly strengthen the hide with their skills.
While using a creature that already had an ice affinity as the base would have been better, none of those running around were as strong as the boss.
While their levels may be similar, they were significantly different in terms of strength. The Vine Bear hide was still the best in terms of durability for me to use even without an ice affinity.
It only took a small nudge with [Ice Manipulation] to get [Frost Armor] to freeze over the hide. Even less of a nudge after [Ice Manipulation] upgraded to uncommon.
It added to the overall bulkiness of my armor but the extra defense was worth it. [Heavy Armor Proficiency] diminished the worst of the problems. When that skill reached Journeyman it would get even better.
Speaking of armor, that was another thing I needed to add to my list. While preparing for Body Refining, my profession would become my sole focus for a time.
It now sat 15 levels behind my class and I aimed to fix that. I wasn't sure if there was a benefit to evolving both at the same time but the gap bugged me.
I would find out soon anyway.
The way the store worked was aggravating to no end but it was a wealth of knowledge when it wanted to be. The only thing you had to do was figure it out on your own first.
Austin didn't care much to evolve both his class and profession at the same time which was why he already went through with it. Jonathan on the other hand, wanted to find out.
After merging with Tracy, the information we had available to us exploded in variety. We had spent a lot of points for information on Laws, humanity's racial trait, what the planet would be like, and others like it.
Tracy focused more on profession techniques and skills while only having shallow information on everything else. She still had missives on Law enlightenment and Body Refinement but that wasn't the focus of her spending.
She needed to know how best to utilize her workforce to produce the best armor and gear they could or whatever other professions the people inside her camp held. She needed everybody to do the most they could to increase the camp's ability to defend the waves.
They also needed skills to use to help during the waves rather than waiting to get skills from their class.
The areas we focused on were different and sharing what we knew allowed us to find out far more.
Also, the increased number of people to add their thoughts to the conversation led to some interesting theory crafting. Not all of it led to something productive but some things were worth testing.
One of those things was whether a 'perfect evolution' existed.
I wasn't sure who came up with the idea but they said it may be possible to get a bonus if you evolved both at the same time. It didn't make sense to me why, Professions and Classes were separate, why would there be a bonus for evolving them together? It was easy enough to test though.
Jonathan was the closest to doing so and was willing to wait for the opportunity.
His profession was maxed out already and he was only waiting on a few more levels from his class. If we hadn't merged with Tracy he would have been capped at level 50 already.
The fight with the Mindbreaker was his only major source of experience after moving down south. There wasn't a need for him to stand front and center in front of the walls anymore which resulted in fewer levels from the waves.
He would get there soon though and we would confirm if the idea was true or not. If it was, there was one more thing to add to the list below making new armor.
After evolving [Heavy Armor Proficiency] to the Apprentice tier, or Uncommon in terms of other skills, my armor needed an upgrade.
With its upgrading, it gave me the ability to increase the armor's proportions without suffering the drawback that said proportions usually entailed. The skill worked to ease the burden and cumbersome nature of the armor to a greater degree letting me pack more of it on.
There were two ways the skill could be used in my eyes.
One of the ways was to get all the armor benefits from heavy armor but still be able to move as if it were medium or light armor. Wearing what would commonly be considered heavy armor but with the boosts from the proficiency skill the body would still be able to move like it were said medium or light armor.
That way, warriors who focused more on mobility and agility would be able to keep the tanky-ness of heavy armor without dealing with its usual cumbersomeness.
The armor would stay the same in terms of heaviness and protection and the boost to mobility would only increase as the skill increased in rarity.
That was not how I used the skill.
The other way was to keep the boost the same while constantly increasing the heaviness and protection of the armor.
So from beginner to Expert, my mobility in the armor would stay the same, but the armor itself would change. Becoming thicker and heavier to take advantage of the decrease in burden.
I was already accustomed to the weight of heavy armor and I didn't rely on my agility during battle. It was my strength and fortitude that I relied on and wearing ever-increasing armor was a greater boon than being able to move more fluidly.
My strength was enough to power through the restrictiveness of the armor. I wouldn't be doing any dance recitals or acrobatics, but I could probably shrug off a canon ball at this point.
While having to always upgrade and buy new armor sounded annoying, that was where being able to make it came in. I wouldn't have to worry about the costs and effort to find a blacksmith able to do it if I relied on myself.
Vinny could no doubt make it but this was something I wanted to do myself. Also, he was focused on other things. With the increase of people buying their wears, profession experts were in high demand at Tracy's camps.
No one had the points to buy better gear from the store and had to rely on blacksmiths and leatherworkers for their weapons and armor.
Additionally, no one had the points to pay for said service but that was where good old human ingenuity came into play. We went back to the beginning of commerce and the bartering system came back.
For profession-focused people to increase in strength, they needed to make things aligning with their profession. To make things, they needed resources.
They didn't have the class levels or skills to go out and acquire said resources and relied on others to do that. Hunters and warriors would go get the skins, bones, plants, etc required and trade that to crafters for the finished product.
That way, warriors could get gear without spending points and crafters could level up without having to buy or get the resources themselves.
Some things still needed to be bought since they weren't readily available in the surroundings but that was up to Tracy's digression.
She would only spend the points if she believed it was worth it.
Jonathan and my family had been making a killing exploiting that. They had the points to spend while others didn't. They were able to buy things that weren't available for points and turn them into mountains of resources that were available.
Like hides, fangs, claws, plants, wood, and such.
Uncle Brayden and Scott had all the best building materials for whatever they wanted to build. Well, Brayden did.
Scott wouldn't be making much of anything anymore.
Comments
Demonlord
Thanks for the nice chapter π
