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Edge of apocalypse 93
🕑 Added 2023-07-21 12:02:19 +0000 UTC93 – Huge power spike, eventually
[Meditation increases magic.]
New Skill!
[No affinity] Meditation 1
· Meditating increases mana regeneration by 100%
The status message broke Albert’s concentration and forced him out of the meditation session. Nothing too bad, he was at full mana and the meditation had helped soothe his nerves.
“Interesting…” He muttered.
He didn’t feel like getting up yet.
However he didn’t want to be idle either. Remembering his early experiments and observations while on the void island, Albert decided to try something. What if he absorbed the mana into his body, just like the old, almost forgotten Body quest said? It surely was not going to be easy, but it had to be feasible.
He knew this: his body did not contain mana per se. What it did contain was his mana pool, in the form of magic swirling around somewhere – but not inside his material body. Perhaps it was in the astral? He did not know whether what he saw when he looked for mana was his astral body, his soul or some other form of esoteric thing that could not be proved. But what he knew was that his actual body was still flesh and blood.
He knew of a way to flood his body with mana already: skills. For instance, Strengthening empowered his muscles and tissues with mana. Other skills did similar things to other parts of his body, while skills that manifested outside did not, and only acted upon the world.
It was all nice and good to know, in order to build a foundational knowledge of magic, but what he wanted to do here was different than what skills did.
He gathered some of the mana from the swirling mass that was his mana pool and tried to make it so it swirled in a similar way inside his body. The first attempts went pitifully bad, with the mana dissipating and disappearing, or with him suffering backlash. But he didn’t give up, convinced that he was on a good track towards obtaining something meaningful.
Bit by bit the mana responded better to his attempts at manipulating it, not in small part thanks to his high affinity for raw magic. Small droplets of it condensed and coalesced inside his body, hovering around his heart and spreading out from there. More followed, until critical mass was reached.
Albert kept absorbing mana, drawing upon his stash of crystals, feeling tangible progress happen before his eyes. A small part of his brain suggested that he should get going, but he silenced it on the basis that was he was doing here was worth the time he invested into it.
Eventually…
Quest: Body Complete!
· Absorb 1000 FU of mana into your body.
· Reward: Cultivation-Level hybrid System blueprint to develop your own leveling system.
· Reward: Appraisal Update. You will be able to upgrade the skill and estimate the power of an opponent as a number equivalent to their level if they had a system like yours.
Skill level up!
[No Affinity] Appraisal 2
· The skill provides basic information about a target, with a flexible definition of what a ‘target’ is.
· Display the power level of a target as a number equivalent to what their level would be if they had a system. Can be resisted.
[BLUEPRINT OBTAINED.]
Knowledge on how to proceed appeared in Albert’s brain as if it had always been there. Fortunately, there was no mention of a dantian anywhere, unlike in cultivation novels. Albert really didn’t like how they did things there, as far as the power system went.
[SPECIFY A WAY TO GAIN LEVELS]
Albert smirked. He was prepared for this question.
Suddenly his whole demeanor changed, his body language changed and even his personality seemed to shift. He felt, had anyone been watching him, like a predator.
“I know how you work, system. I know enough, at the very least. I learned the lesson.”
There was no response, only the sounds of the forest.
“You almost tricked me. You almost made me construct an even more complicated mechanism to add to the already headache-inducing amount of shit I have on my plate.”
No answer. Albert’s eyes narrowed.
“I would have lost myself, I know it. But I am not yet ready to take the next step. I still don’t remember what I saw in the void well enough.”
The silence stretched on. It was a gamble, and Albert felt his resolve waver.
“You decide. Give me a temporary way to grow until I understand magic well enough to make my own choice. How about it?”
There was no response. Seconds ticked by. Time seemed to stretch, far more than it was possible even with the use of Bullet Time. The forest was eerily silent, but Albert barely noticed the lack of sounds and movement. He was completely focused inwards, watching, waiting.
He felt that if he blinked even once, he might miss the change. And when the change did not come, he felt like he had just lost his chance.
But still he did not blink. He kept his inward gaze focused on his magic, on his body, on mana itself. On Entropy, even.
Then he saw the change happen.
[Leveling module created. Meditate to convert 1FU into 1XP, and when the requirements are met finalize the process to reach the next level. Access to the first 20 levels has been unlocked. A Quest to create a Mana Core will be issued at level 20 to enable further progression.]
A grin blossomed on Albert’s face. He had never been acting against the system, but what he just did felt like cheating, like getting away with doing something he should not have done.
For now, a simple leveling module had been created. But thanks to the help of Analysis Mode, he could take his time to study what happened to him until he could do it himself. And then, well…
Albert Grassman
Mana Core: Absent
Level: 1/20
XP: 0/2000
Race: Psionic Half-Elf, Half-Human
Unawakened Essence of Nature
Mana: 133FU + 58/hour
“Good. Isekaied, with a system and a level up mechanic. Looks like I’m set for an adventure.”
***
While not what he wanted, or what he hoped for, there were many good side to the leveling mechanic Albert had gained. He could basically gain XP passively, for instance. He had a mana regeneration of 58FU per hour, and it all went into making crystals that he then put into his inventory. There seemed to be no limit to how many crystals he could store in a single slot, which meant that the only limit to his storage was the lifespan of a crystal: 10 hours, for a total of 580FU stored that way.
The plan was to sit down every five hours or so and absorb the oldest of the crystals, turn them into XP, making room for new ones to be created without any of them expiring and going to waste. The rate of absorption when meditating was easy to calculate after a quick test: it was exactly ten times his mana regeneration rate.
Albert didn’t have a calculator, so he eyeballed the numbers. To go through the 5 hours of crystals he would need 30 minutes of meditation. He then needed to consider 30 minutes of mana regen (at double speed because of the meditation skill) and his existing mana pool, for a total of…
Too hard to calculate, but between 30 and 40 minutes of meditation every 5 hours to gain around 300XP.
Pain. Pain. Pain.
Too many numbers. Besides, all this was only possible in theory, while the real world hardly worked according to plan.
Crunching numbers allowed Albert to return to his usual self. Whatever had surfaced in his attempted negotiation with the system was gone, back where it belonged.
In fact, he was excited now!
Coming up with a convoluted way that allowed him optimal resource management was oddly satisfying: no mana went to waste.
Content with his optimization strategy, Albert finally refocused on the outside world.
With the day approaching its halfway point, he needed to prioritize what to do. The three big things when it came to surviving in a new place alone were: food, water and shelter.
The contents of his inventory took care of the first two. As for the shelter, the information Albert pilfered from the mind of the huntress contained vague directions for the closest city. Whether it was indeed a city, a town or just a settlement he didn’t know, the memories were too vague, but the direction was clear. It was time to set out.
Being in a typical isekai setting, it was almost natural that new, inventive ideas about breaking the system and abusing its power came to mind as he walked. The lush forest of trees resonated with his elven sensibilities, and allowed him to relax and his mind to unwind.
Albert wondered: what happens if I use appraisal on the teleportation map?
[Kingdom of Timoa – Brenteros region.]
Easy. Now he knew where he was.
The map never ceased to amaze, a simple yet very useful tool that most people take for granted. It showed all the places Albert visited, or that were touched by his senses. When he needed directions, all he needed to do was climb a tree and the map would be updated immediately, adding the new area he scouted to its ever-growing database. It was like looking at a satellite image, and before long Albert managed to spot something his eyes had missed: a trail.
***
Slimes were, apparently, a staple of all fantasy worlds. Be it in fiction, or in reality. Albert was left to wonder, though, if perhaps it wasn’t as much as being a staple in games and fiction novels as much as perhaps being a quirk of evolution. After all, even on Earth many things take on the form of a blob of undefined shape made of elementary cells, sometimes even made of one single cell with a nucleus.
Isn’t this last example exactly what a slime is in a fantasy world? The presence of magic just allows for more exotic properties to manifest, as was the case with the small blob of blue goo that was bobbing up and down, unaware of the fact that it was being studied by a very curious Albert.
The encounter did not last long. Albert had a city to reach before nightfall. However, there was yet another test that could be done without too much of a time waste. He knew that his psionic skills were destructive and hard to control but so far, he had only tested two of them.
What about Telekinesis? Everyone loved to be able to control objects with their mind, and the skill’s usefulness was unquestioned. If anything, the skill looked like the easiest of Psionic skills to master, which meant that Albert could use it to establish a baseline and practice until he could fully control it.
Albert reached forward with his hand, focused on making the slime levitate and…
It exploded.
Mana: 133FU + 58/hour -> 133FU + 59/hour
Albert received the kill notification amidst a shower of gelatinous substance, which impacted the shield and slid off without sticking.
Useful shield.
A very disappointing use of Usurp increased a hidden water affinity and nothing else, making what was left of the slime’s tissues decompose into basically just water.
