Zogarth
patreon
Chapter 56 - Metal Savant
🕑 Added 2020-11-06 15:01:47 +0000 UTCFor a mortal to meet a god was far from an ordinary occurrence throughout the multiverse. Only the most extraordinary ones had the chance to interact with divinity up close. And even then, it was rare.
The tutorial, however, was as far from ordinary as anything gets. It was an event that affected every single living being in the entire multiverse. Not the tutorial itself, but why it happened; it marked the start of a new era as the multiverse expanded with the introduction of yet another universe.
Gods, among all, were, without a doubt, the entities most involved with the tutorial. It was one of the few times where they truly moved with greed and desire. It was a time to earn rewards otherwise unachievable for them - a chance to gain more power and influence.
The most significant way to get these rewards was through finding capable mortals among the new initiates. Finding them and making them into your follower. This was done through something like Jake’s meeting with Malefic Viper in his realm. This also meant that Jake’s experience of meeting a god wasn’t unique. Casper had met one... and so had the Smith.
It was later than Jake, but he had shown great potential in smithing and was recognized by the system.
At least that is what the Smith was currently telling William. He told him of how he had met a god and had been granted a blessing along with guidance. Contrary to what William expected, he hadn’t met Ferroras, however, but instead one of his fellow gods, one known as Camicus, the god of the forge.
“Sounds interesting and all, but what does this have to do with me?” William finally interrupted as he was getting tired of the long explanation.
“Ferroras, the god of iron, has taken quite a liking to you, kid,” the Smith chuckled. “But apparently you rejected him or something?”
“I don’t think I did?” he answered, actually being honest for once. He couldn’t remember ever turning down a god, unless…
“I was told you had a class offered. One related to the god of iron,” The Smith explained. “You just didn’t pick it.”
William did recall getting a class with Ferroras in the name. However, it was honestly not that good and provided far worse bonuses than his current Metal Savant one.
Looking at his old system messages, he went back a long ass time before he finally returned to when he had his class evolution.
Metal Savant, he naturally already knew as it was his current class.
Metal Savant – The Metal Savant stands among the top of geniuses when it comes to manipulating metals. Having shown extreme talent as a caster and as a manipulator of mana, you have started walking down a glorious path to power. The class is highly focused on metal manipulation and all magics related to metal. The class's nature is inherently offensive, leaving defenses up to the caster's skill, focusing on intelligence and wisdom. Your path has just begun, but you have shown yourself a true savant. Stat bonuses per level: +7 Int, +5 Wis, +4 Will, +2 Per, +6 Free Points
The class was excellent, in his opinion. It had made him superior to every other survivor he met except for that dark star Jake. The stat bonuses were a straight-up quadruple compared to what he had before the evolution, going from 6 per level to 24. Most of his free points had gone into intelligence, but he also started putting quite a bit in vitality after his run-in with Jake.
As for the Ferroras class, he passed over… it was quite honestly terrible compared to what he got.
Promising Mage of Ferroras – A mage of Ferroras showing great promise on his path to power. As a caster, you have made clear your ability to manipulate metal and mana itself, offering you a clear path to power. The class is highly focused on metal manipulation and general metal magics but is specialized in iron magic. The class's nature is balanced between defense and offense, making you a versatile fighter at both range and melee. Your future patron god Ferroras believes in your talent. Stat bonuses per level: +4 Int, +3 Wis, 2+ Will, +2 Tough +1 Vit, +1 Per, +4 Free Points
Everything about it was just worse. The descriptions were similar to each other as both of them were metal mages, but this one was just so much less impressive. William wasn’t promising he was a god damn genius. And that last sentence about his “future patron god believing in him” just rubbed him the wrong way. Reminded of what that damn psychologist kept telling him.
The class also gave way fewer stats, only providing 17 per level. That was more than an entire basic caster class’s worth of difference. William would have genuinely been an idiot if he had picked that shitty class just because some equally shitty god had attached his name to it.
“Well, yeah, I did get it, but I chose another one that I liked more,” William explained, not showing any signs of going into further detail.
“What’s done is done,” the Smith answered. “But you did pick up a skill with his name attached later on, didn’t ya?”
“I did. So what?”
“That is how you become attached to a god kid. At least partially,” The Smith explained as he continued. “Karma or something like that. Anyway, it means that the god is aware of your existence, and he wants to help you.”
“And why the hell would I become the follower of some god?” William asked dismissively. He had no interest in attaching himself to some wacky religion.
“Because you can’t win this shit alone, William,” the man answered. “Yet together, we can win this tutorial. I can craft things for you to make you far more powerful than before, and in turn, you can wipe out everyone else. Especially Richard.”
Suddenly William started paying far more attention. He knew how much of a difference strong equipment could make, and based on that isolating barrier; the Smith wasn’t entirely without talent when it came to crafting. Having his assistance would undoubtedly prove useful.
“Why Richard in particular?” William asked curiously. He wasn’t aware of any conflict between them.
“I didn’t enter this tutorial alone, you know? I came with my son and daughter in law,” The Smith said as his mood took a downward turn. “I promised to protect them. I tried to. We thought the nights were safe, but it turns out that was the time for the bottom feeders to come out. Richard and his folk disagreed with us three just sticking together. They killed both of them while I was away hunting during the night…”
“That sucks,” William said without even thinking. Wait; what? Why does that suck?
“Thanks,” the Smith smiled. “You know my son was only around your age. Too early to get married, but they claimed to be in love, and who was I to stop them?”
Wiping a tear away that had appeared in the corner of his eye, he continued. “That is why I want payback on that fucker. I can fight, but I have always been a smith and not a fighter. I can’t win. But you can, William. My god has told me this is the way to fulfill my dream and guided me. I know you are far stronger than you let everyone know. Let me help you get even stronger. Get stronger.”
William kept his solemn expression, even though he deep inside thought how stupid this was. That fucking trapper Casper all over again… yet he didn’t think it was that stupid. He understood why the man wanted revenge for losing them… but he didn’t know why. Even Casper had begun to appear less unreasonable… what?
“Okay. But what do you need me to do?” William asked as he was trying to understand why he had all these weird thoughts. He was experiencing thoughts he couldn’t understand…
“I need you to find the resolve to do whatever is necessary. You have to be willing and able to kill. Not just beasts but humans too,” The man said as he sighed. “I know it is unfair of me to ask of you, but I beg you.”
The Smith’s face was solemn as he looked at William with an apologetic gaze.
William looked a bit at him. He felt like agreeing, but he had an agreement with Richard already. By all accounts, the camp leader could offer him more benefits than the lone smith. Yet… he agreed.
“Fine… but how?”
“Come,” the Smith answered as he stood up from the chair, “join me at the forge.”
With that, the man waved his hand as the floor of the cabin split open, and a furnace appeared. He summoned a forge and a hammer, along with a bunch of different ingots of metal out of nothing.
“A storage skill,” the man answered before William could ask, “only works with items related to smithing, but it gets the job done.”
Standing tall, he looked William in the eyes. “Now, time for us to get you ready for the big battle.”
---
Jake climbed the hill as he got higher and higher. He avoided all the beasts he could as he had no intention of getting into any melee brawl for now. Basic Stealth, while undoubtedly a skill he didn’t notice often, still proving itself useful. With it being night, there were plenty of shadows around to activate his bracer's bonus effect.
Sneaking up, he soon found himself at a crevice. He called it a crevice, but it was more like an immense valley in between two mountains. He had to admit that he had underestimated the size of the inner area by quite a bit. Sure, it was about the same size as the entire outside area in pure square kilometers, but the big difference was in verticality.
This area was filled with mountains, crevices, and valleys, the tallest mountain in the center of the area upwards of a kilometer tall. While that didn’t sound like too much, one had to consider that the mountain had no top but looked more like volcanos. As in, it had a hole on top.
Something the three other mountains he could currently see also had in common. Hopefully, they weren’t volcanos, though. He didn’t see any smoke coming out of their tops, but then again, he was pretty sure that was just something that happened in movies and cartoons.
As for the type of beasts in this inner area,… raptors. A whole lot of raptors. They seemed to be the primary enemy and came in all kinds of colors. A few other dinosaur-like beasts also roamed about, but the vast majority were raptors.
However, the raptors only occupied the open area on the mountains and sometimes between mountains, but they mainly appeared as ‘filler’ beasts. In the crevices, like the one Jake was currently overlooking, the biodiversity increased tremendously. The world below the cliff seemed like its own entire world.
Pulling out his bow as he observed the first beast he saw roaming about below. It looked like an evolved version of the badgers found outside in the forest from where he stood. His high perception allowed him to see the beast clear as day. Not to mention Hunter’s Sight improving his eyesight significantly.
Another difference between this area and the outer one was the behavior of the beasts. Here they didn’t go into that weird comatose state during the night but instead continued mulling about. Nocturnal animals like the badger actually got even more active during the night.
Taking out an arrow, he grabbed the arrowhead with the palm of his hand as he channeled Blood of the Malefic Viper to turn his blood into a toxin. Allowing the arrow to cut into his hand, he thoroughly soaked it in his blood.
After the fight with the survivors, he was starting to run a bit low on poisons. He had started throwing them all around him during the battle, wasting most of them as they harmlessly broke against ground or trees. Heck, despite throwing so many, he didn’t get a single kill as healers were abundant. Coupled with people seemingly being aware of his use of poisons. Thanks to that William-fellow, no doubt.
Shaking his head, he got back to the matter at hand as he nocked the blood-soaked arrow. Drawing his bow, he started charging a Powershot as he traced the movement of the beast. After about 10 seconds, he released the string to an explosion of force as the arrow was released and flew towards the still unsuspecting badger.
The poor beast didn’t know what had hit it before it suddenly got slammed by an arrow that completely disintegrated as it hit its back. The poison proved to be thoroughly unnecessary as the kinetic force behind the arrow alone smashed the beast's insides into an unrecognizable mess.
The beast was dead pretty much instantly, and what little vitality remained in it was quickly snuffed out by the poison that, together with the arrow disintegrating, had been spread all over the broken form of the beast.
The notification confirmed the death as he felt the level-up.
*You have slain [Venomfang Badger – lvl 48] – Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy above your level. 56000 TP earned*
*’DING!’ Class: [Ambitious Hunter] has reached level 26 - Stat points allocated, +4 free point*
A level 48 beast one-shot by him. He didn’t know if he was overpowered or what, but it sure as hell seemed extreme. Then again, he didn’t have others to really compare himself to. Though based on that spear attack from the fire caster, he too could likely reproduce the result. One also has to remember that the only reason why he could channel Powershot for so long was due to his high defensive stats.
Sitting down, he relaxed his numb arm as he allowed it to slowly recover. While he could kill a beast many levels above him in a single attack, it didn’t come easy. His stamina expenditure was insane, and the strain on his arm also got bad enough that he even lost health points during the charging of the shot.
He knew ten seconds was too much, but he was still testing. He would improve it slowly and find the perfect balance. Between rotating stamina potions and firing arrows, his hunting speed should be extreme if his theory was correct. And whenever he did get too low stamina, it would just mean a great chance to make a few more potions and maybe even a concoction of poison or two.
As he relaxed, he thought over his plans, as he also pondered other exciting parts of the tutorial.
The number of tutorial points per kill also seemed to go up two thousand per kill for all beasts above level 25. Based on the raptors, the boar, and the badger that Jake had just killed, that is. He still had no idea what use exactly those points had. According to the description of the tutorial, they would likely show their worth whenever the tutorial ended.
Getting up, he exited his thoughts as he saw other badgers had started gathering around the corpse of their fallen comrade. Taking up his bow once more, he massaged his shoulder and cracked his neck as he prepared another poisoned arrow.
It was time to get this hunt started for real.
Comments
Zogarth
Anyone in F-grade or above can regrow limps given they have enough health points to consume to do so.
Steven Thompsen
A few chapters ago you said he lost his arm?did it come back with the class evolution cuz I was under the impression that a limb could only be grown back currently with a race evolution
Zogarth
Fixed!
A B
1. inheritably offensive --> inherently offensive 2. Thanks for the new chapter! Just subscribed and loving the story so far!
BubblyGhost
You know people can do this crazy thing called lying, and scheming right? Stop jumping to conclusions when we haven't had any info from the Smith's perspective. This could all be a plot from the smith/his god to use Will.
BubblyGhost
William wasn’t promising[,] he was a god damn genius.
Ethan Flohr
Bruh why so many comments?
Ethan Flohr
Same, my bro.
BladeTytan
Problem is William isn’t a “Sociopath who randomly decides to start a war...”, his plan since he was introduced was to kill everyone in the tutorial to “win”/“beat” it. Iirc he thinks being the sole survivor of the tutorial is either how to win, or else it would give him a bonus.
silder
So I'm wondering if the inside 'higher tier' area has higher level loot boxes to be found.
Kingtie
Good hunting
Kevin Caffrey
I've been thinking about the whole "everyone blames Jake" thing, and I generally agree with most of the other commenters I've seen that say it is not very believable. One quick fix that I think could patch up most (if not all) of the issues here is to have Richard start framing Jake from the start. This would change the tone of a few characters, and require a few edits, so isn't really plausible unless the author decides to go back and edit earlier chapters (maybe if you ever do an Amazon release?), but for the sake of constructive criticism I'll outline what I had in mind. First of all, Richard should recognize William for what he is early on, and actively conspire with him to start the war. This seems consistent with the nature of both of their characters: Richard clearly is all about conquest, and William likes killing and winning. In fact, in one of the chapters, Richard said that he DID in fact recognize William's true nature early on - this is just not reflected in the writing currently. This small change sets up a larger change: rather than William going off on his own, Richard is the mastermind and sends him on discrete missions and covers it all up by blaming it on Jake from the beginning. This makes it more believable when his coworkers turn on him despite a lack of evidence (they would have a month of brainwashing to do it). I'm still not sure how to resolve the issue of how to believably get Hayden to cooperate, but I think it would be a step in the right direction. I think this also leaves open an avenue for a "redemption" arc for William. The largest issue I have with William is that he is quite clearly a throwaway villain but gets a lot of screen time. If you shift his character from "sociopath who randomly decides to start a war and kill everyone" to "sociopath who is manipulated into starting a war and killing everyone because he doesn't know better", you add depth to his character. More importantly, you make it easier to sympathize with him. Despite how much I despise the current William, it's going to be deeply unsatisfying when he meets his end, because I'll be left wondering just what the purpose of all his POV chapters were. On the other hand, converting him into a longer term character that experiences character growth as he learns about emotions and struggles to reconcile his dark nature with the guidance of his Smith mentor, I think there would be a ton of payoff for his POV. Anyway, I realize that a lot of this deviates from what you wrote a lot, but I hope the feedback is helpful if you ever decide to do a larger edit in preparation for a book release!
Zogarth
I can confirm that Jake's initial assessment that planning is often a waste of time will prove very relevant. Let's just say nothing really ever goes according to plan. Number 1 rule of strategy theory: 90% of strategies fail.
Adam
As this is "fast food fiction", i like that phrase actually, i am ok with the current plot hole balance. I felt that the earlier accounting of William attempting to stage his earlier attacks as of a different nature was acceptable as long as there weren't follow ups praising the genius of it all. I also felt that the meeting between the 2 factions had enough motivation to occur and Jacob's testimony added plausibility to the joint hunt as long as there wasn't some new founded trust expressed but more of a tentative singular agreement. Also the fact that Hayden wasn't given any real character identity aside from unstable greiving father makes me comfortable with his turn of events. As long as there is mild foreshadowing of events and there isn't previous context of an extreme angle that isn't followed i am comfortable giving leeway to this extent. If Hayden had been painted as more intelligent earlier, or if the author would have tried to be more specific in detailing how cleverly Jake was framed i would likely have had issues. As is i am comfortable as thinking of the 2 factions as just 2 groups of people in over their heads, doing some terrible post apocalyptic things with a few extra motivated nutjobs added in.
Derrick McDowell
Excited for the hunting trip.
Bobtur
Hayden knew Jack might be a Scapegoat. But he despaired for someone to kill in order to avenge his son and move on. I hope the few surviving members of the punitive expedition realised they, and Jack, were set up to slaughter each others.
Blaublue
Did Hayden and others (who don't know the truth) really buy that the person who started the war was Jake? He uses a bow and poison, neither of which were ever the murder-weapons. Granted, Jake could have killed only by repeatedly stabbing people with daggers, but that sounds like a lot of work and dangerous for a poison-archer all just to make it look like others did it (and if he really wanted to remove suspicion, he would've used different weapons, dagger and bow, instead of all the victims dying the same way)
Zogarth
The world sucks and is unbalanced. You don't make them back. But don't be afraid a worse class will result in weakness necessarily. Jake got a far better profession than anyone else, and the stats we are dealing with now are still rather low.
Zogarth
Nah, wouldn't have changed much. This first upgrade is pretty related to innate talents and desires.
Blaublue
Huh, William's class is quite a bit better than Jake's. Would Jake have gotten a better class if he had one-shot that lvl 48 Badger before evolving? He didn't even kill the 3 lvl 41 Raptors at the entrance with a bow but with his poisons somehow (or delirious) - sad if that prevents him from a good class.
Jacob
Richard upon finally figuring out how to enter inner area " hey how come everything's dead"
