Chapter 36: Sink or Swim

Chapter 36: Sink or Swim

“You did all this?” Patrick’s jaw practically dropped as he got his first good look at the ground being utterly covered by dead Rock Golems, to the point where no normal dirt was visible underneath.

“Yep.” Isaac nodded.

“Isn’t it a little risky, leaving monster bodies lying around like that?” Karl asked.

“Normally, of course. But these things are useless, check ‘em with your [Skills].” Isaac suggested.

In lieu of answering, Karl just walked forward and laid a hand against one of the stone chunks.

“Yep, these are pretty normal. The rock has an abnormal internal structure, but it’s just regular granite. Interesting, but hardly valuable except as a curiosity.” Karl said “I don’t suppose you have anything else cool I could look at?”Ñøv€l-B1n was the first platform to present this chapter.

“Not really, but I gave a bunch of magically modified kunai to Amy.” Isaac shrugged, then hopped onto one of the nearby rocks to tower over everyone else “Ok, we’re here. I have the materials to summon a bunch of different monsters stashed here, but there are a few things I think we should focus on. One of the things I’ve noticed is that stronger monsters have a higher conversion rate of mana to XP. Tier 1 barely gives anything, Tier 3 gives half the mana cost, and I’ve found that Tier 4 gives two-thirds of the mana invested back as XP, not to mention that there is a five percent XP boost for every Level an enemy has on you.

“Now, punching that far above your weight class is risky as hell, but I’ll be here to help mitigate that risk. To that end, I’d like to demonstrate something.”

Picking up a stick, he walked over to the flat area in the middle of the ‘graveyard’ and fixed the badly smudged summoning circle there, dropped in a random rock, a handful of dirt and a piece of iron he’d grabbed from his pocket. Mana flared and suddenly, a Rock Golem erupted from the circle ... and froze.

One moment, Isaac had stood there with a large mystery package under one arm. The next, he was frozen mid lunge, right arm extended forward with a gigantic Zweihänder erupting from him and out of golem’s back, orange light flaring around the weapon.

It was an impressive looking move and all, though that was really the only reason to do it. For one, that kind of close in lunge was incredibly dangerous against almost all enemies. It would put you right up against their body and since very few creatures died instantly when pierced through any kind of vital organ, especially with a high Fortitude, there was a high risk of having your head torn off by something that was yet to realize it had been killed.

Thankfully, that wasn’t a problem with golems. Only having a single vital organ might let them outright ignore physical damage to literally any other part of their body, but it also led to them dying the instant that organ was destroyed. With a body not quite wide enough to block out a weapon as long as a Zweihänder and the core’s location being fixed in every iteration, it was a rather significant weak point in smaller golems.

That being said, using the move against something made from rock also came with a significant risk. Namely, the fact that it turned into solid, immovable rock the instant the core broke and began to keel over, threatening to rip the Zweihänder out of his hands with its falling body and shatter it against the ground below.

Of course, there was a counter to that, namely, spending over thirty mana on [Skills], orange light flaring as he drew the blade back while slicing through the rock as he did so.

Once the blade was free, Isaac took two quick steps backwards to avoid having the damn thing fall on his head as the gigantic figure slammed into the dirt with a titanic crash.

“And what was the point of that?” Patrick drawled, sitting down on the arm of an older dead golem “We know you’re capable, the mere fact that you’re still alive after all the things we know you fought proves that.”

Isaac shrugged and opened up the kill notification in a way that was visible to everyone “Visual demonstration.”

Rock Golem (Lv. 10) has been slain. 100 XP gained

“Basically, you can get one hundred XP for the 150 mana you need to invest to summon the weakest of the Tier 4 monsters. Throw in the five percent per Level boost for each Level they have on you and you should be able to level after a mere handful of kills. Or, you can rapidly gain the XP but save it to get to Level 10 in one giant jump, speeding up your gains for as long as possible and saving your [Skill] points for all those cool advanced [Class] [Skills]. Point is, this is one of the fastest ways you can level, and with me here, you should be able to do so as safely as possible.”

“That might be all well and good for someone with a combat [Class], but I’m a [Researcher].” Patrick pointed out “I don’t even have any offensive [Skills], let alone the Stats to compensate for that.”

Then, slightly hopeful, he added “But I suppose you have a plan for that?”

“I do, actually. I can see you haven’t slotted the Aspect of the Specter yet, but that means you’ve got a fair bit of XP saved up, right? How much do you need to hit 1,000?” Isaac asked.

“I’m guessing you have a nice and powerful offensive Aspect, then?”

“Obviously.” Isaac said, pulling what looked like an orb of water out of his pocket, then tossed it to Patrick “That’s an Aspect of the Water Elemental. You can summon a few creatures for the others to kill, then use the XP you get as the summoner to slot it and do some more direct levelling.”

“Ok, so now everyone has some offensive power. [Telekinesis], [Geokinesis], knives, soon to be water power and a fucking gun. But that doesn’t mean we can take one of ...” Amy said, gesturing empathetically at the dead golems strewn about “... those things.”

“Of course not.” Isaac said evenly, but even as her mouth opened to send what would most likely have ended up being a stream of rude exclamations, he continued “Everyone’s powerset lends itself to fighting a certain kind of enemy. [Telekinesis] coupled with razor sharp knives is lethal against creatures with vulnerable spots near the surface without significant armor covering them. Control of the earth is going to play merry hell with anything that has mobility issues. Water is going to kick ass against monsters with molten hot bodies as it chills and hardens vital portions and freezes them in place. And then, well, we have a fucking [Skill]-enhanced gun.”

What followed was nothing much to write home about. Monsters were summoned and fell in short order.

Patrick played the role of mana battery for the first couple of hours until he’d gained enough XP to slot the Aspect of the Water Elemental Isaac had gifted him and then gone up against a Molten Soldier, a kind of animated armor that glowed with radiated heat. A little dangerous to have in the middle of a forest, but the entire ground had been covered with rocks and Isaac had stashed a few fire extinguishers nearby.

The strategy for killing it was rather simple. Lock up the knee joints with bolts of water to make it topple over, followed by a constant stream to cool down the chest and then finally cave it in with the Zweihänder. It was pretty rough on the blade, but Isaac’s [Blades] [Skill] made repairing that a chinch. After all, he wasn’t currently summoning and therefore had mana to spare.

Several different kinds of giant slug or snail were vulnerable against Karl’s [Geomancy], a [Geomancer’s] basic earth manipulation [Skills] while Raul’s gun backed by [Enhanced Impact] was able to shatter the rather exposed cores of Water Elementals with casual ease.

Meanwhile, Amy demonstrated true mastery of her [Skills] by simultaneously controlling several knives and small vials of Corpsemelter Acid, courtesy of Isaac. Any kind of biological creature had vulnerable points on their exterior, things that would be difficult to put on the inside. Eyes, other sensory organs, Achilles Tendon equivalents, things like that. And when you had someone able to strike at them from afar, ignoring range or the angle of attack, that was a little difficult to defend against.

A Swamp Knight fell in under a minute, as did a Drake. High Level [Telekinesis], creativity and a good matchup made for one hell of an offensive potential.

Time flew by in a flash, with Raul heading back into civilization to go get some supplies. Someone else might have gone, but their location was in the middle of nowhere, well clear of any trails and in a cellular deadspot, meaning it took an experienced woodsman to find his way back out. In other words, that meant the person who went had to be either Isaac or Raul, and one of them was far more vital to the process at hand than the other.

The first to truly drop out of the fighting was Karl, pumping his fist as he finally gained the needed XP to hit Level 10 and retreating to think over his choices. Apparently, there were ones worth considering beyond just [System Researcher], though that was also an option he’d unlocked.

Soon afterwards, Amy did the same, followed by Raul and finally Patrick, leaving Isaac to breathe a sigh of relief.

That. Had. Sucked. Constantly watching over other people who were fighting against perfectly beatable foes was boring as hell after the first couple of times, yet far too dangerous for him to just fall into a stupor and wait for everything to be over.

Which left him in that highly unpleasant place of having to be at high alert near constantly while having basically no mental stimulation. Blech. Annoying, but necessary.

At least everything had been over faster than it normally would have been. Fighting stronger enemies was good even without the XP boost per Level above your own, while there was no penalty for having a build that countered one’s foe almost perfectly.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t something one could repeat ad infinitum, given that one could only gain XP from an enemy a given number of times. Then again, if it were possible, the strongest people in the world, at least in terms of Levels, would be ones who’d found such a matchup and exploited it ruthlessly. That would bring in immense amounts of XP, but also leave [Skill] Levels lagging badly behind, and only a handful of [Skills] would be levelled at all.

“Alright, I know you mentioned that [System Researcher] was a great [Class], but I decided to go another route.” Karl announced, sitting down in the middle of the torn up battlefield “As awesome as copying other creatures’ abilities would have been, it’s not me. This is.”

He spread his arms theatrically and the area around them rumbled, golem bodies seeming to liquefy for a brief second before re-solidifying in a smoother, more even configuration, leaving them all standing on what basically looked like a natural rock formation with a few odd shapes, here and there.

But that wasn’t all. There were still the occasional monster bits, here and there, that they hadn’t caught in the first round of cleanup, or at least, there had been. During whatever Karl had done, they’d been swallowed by the ground.

“That certainly made an impression.” Patrick commented “Specialized geomancy [Class]?”

“No, [Magineer].” Karl corrected “Epic rarity, knowledge based crafting [Class] focusing into engineering and architectural projects. I’m still limited to minerals and metals, but if I can make a plan in my mind, I can make it reality. Refining things is prohibitively expensive, so I basically need all the materials to be at the same level of refinement the final product will contain.”

“I, for one, think it’s awesome.” Isaac announced, stepping besides him and clapping him on his shoulder “[System Researcher] is awesome and all, but picking a [Class] will set you on that path for, at the very least, the time required to hit the next Evolution. If it’s the wrong choice for you, it’s the wrong choice, and that’s that. Are you, perchance, available to do that again within the next few weeks?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Thing is, I’m in the process of buying a place out in the middle of nowhere and this would make for an awesome base for building on. So, if I produce the material, is fusing them all something that you could help with?” Isaac asked, spreading his arms in an inviting gesture.

“Sure thing, but you’re buying beer and cooking. You can cook, right?” Karl asked with a wink.

“Cook?” Isaac asked, making a ‘sort of’ gesture with his hand “I mean, providing meals is something I’ll do as a matter of courtesy, but most of what I make are quick meals for convenience’s sake, not the good stuff. But I’ll make sure to have something suitable.”

“So, Vegas worked out well for you, then?” Patrick asked.

“Sort of, but a lot of it came from helping discover the security flaws afterwards.” Isaac replied “So, did you pick your Evolution yet?”

“Obviously, wasn’t like there wasn’t a glaringly obvious choice right there. Did you know that you look like a black void to [Inspect], by the way?” Patrick chuckled “I’ve got some pretty good sensory [Skills], others that enhance comprehension, and, of course, the ultimate copycat [Skill]. [Analyze and Replicate]. Expensive as hell to get, but wow! Just ... wow!”

A massive grin stretched across his face, his normally rather dour mood nowhere to be seen.

“Same here.” Amy shrugged, looking completely nonchalant “Now all we need is a target to test this out on.”

“One magical monster, coming right up.” Isaac nodded and with a blur of movement, arrived next to the summoning circle “Now, everybody take few steps back please. And Raul, please keep a hold of Brisa, this is too dangerous for her. Now, see if you can copy the spectral weapons.”

He held the Ol’ Reliable, his soulbound weapon, in his left while grabbing the Kriegsmesser with his right.

A Wraith manifested in the summoning circle a moment later, Isaac not even having bothered to recharge his mana. He’d been able to handily beat the first Wraith he’d fought in this timeline a while ago, and since then, he’d increased his Agility by 50%, among a massive list of other improvements.

A large kite shield and bastard sword manifested in his spectral foe’s hands, who immediately lunged, aiming to skewer Isaac in an instant.

Using his knife, Isaac pushed the blade to the side while thrusting his sword forward, driving it through a gap in the armor just above the elbow, complete with a combined [Power Strike] and [Piercing Strike]. It tore through the flesh like tissue paper, nearly severing the arm.

The Wraith screeched and banished the shield, replacing it with a shortsword that nearly stabbed Isaac in the throat. Nearly.

Isaac backstepped, easily leaving the weapon’s pathetically short range while sending out a [Power Strike] enhanced [Far Strike], making it stumble, then lunged back in to stab into it with both weapons.

Newly manifested blades flashed, one going for his neck, the other aiming to plunge into his right kidney. Twisting, Isaac kicked off the Wraith’s right leg to send himself flying skywards while it went down on one knee, thrown off kilter.

But even in this new and infinitely less sane world, gravity was still a present and existing force, yanking Isaac back down onto his foe. Blades leading, he slammed down into the Wraith’s back and kicked off, the conjured halberd swishing past with mere centimeters of clearance.

Isaac just grinned. After all, close only counted in horseshoes and hand grenades, as the saying went.

Sticking with the halberd for now, the Wraith advanced lashing out. Isaac interposed the knife and slid it, leaving a shallow cut across its belly with his sword, only to have to dodge back hastily as his foe decided to re-equip itself with less cumbersome weapons.

Now this was a more normal fight against a Wraith. When not completely berserk, Wraiths would only switch weapons when it was necessary, rather than whenever their old weapon was no longer the exact perfect tool at the given moment.

He dodged another swing and lunged in one last time, triggering [Sweeping Strike] and [Sundering Strike] while his knife was stuck inside the Wraith’s body, six sweeping blades tearing through its insides while weakening it on a fundamental level.

The Wraith stiffened and after another moment, dissolved into nothingness.

“So, did you get anything from that?” Isaac asked.

“So-so.” Raul shrugged “Copying a [Skill] just by seeing it is awesome and all, but I suppose I shouldn’t expect to get it from watching a single fight. By the way, I’m also a [System Researcher].”

“What he said, if with a little more disappointment.” Amy added “Where did you learn to fight like that, anyway?”

“[Skills] and a hell of a lot of practice, followed by more practice.” Isaac shrugged, stifling a grin. Just like Raul had said, it would be incredibly unfair to be able to instantly copy any magical ability one saw.

Raul yawned loudly, then announced “Anyway, it’s getting late and I’m going to bed. Anyone who can’t find their own way out of the forest can either come with me or stay here until Isaac leaves.”

Then, he yawned again.

Patrick and Karl headed off with him after bidding Isaac goodbye, but Amy stayed, looking at Isaac expectantly.

“Hm?” he asked.

“You know what. You were planning to stay behind after we’ve all left to summon something you felt was too dangerous to have around us.” she grinned at him “Well, go ahead. I’ll be fine.”

“There is a reason I don’t want to do this around other people.” Isaac insisted.

“Of course it’s going to be dangerous. Just like everything else worth having, it ain’t free. Time requirement, effort, danger, it doesn’t really matter. If it’s worth having, so is putting in the effort.” she gave him a confident grin “I became a cell biologist because I thought that was an interesting thing to do. I chose to become a [Mage] instead of going with the safe looking [Class] that’s basically my job, but as a [Class]. I’m going to get whatever I can out of the [System], because that’s what I find fascinating, because that is my chosen goal. If that ends up badly for me, then at least I tried.”

Isaac grinned “A woman after my own heart, it seems. But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m going to be summoning a Hydra. A full Hydra. It isn’t just risky to be nearby, it’s practically suicide.”

“Why?”

“Yeah, nope, not a chance. Not until I’m fully healed and I have my transformation [Skill] back.” Isaac groaned slightly as he laid back and rested his head against the ground.

“That reminds me ... how come you have that?”

“What do you mean?”

“It just feels a little off. Like it doesn’t belong to a sneaky swordsman.” Amy said thoughtfully.

“How come you have a bunch of research [Skills] when you used to be a [Mage]?” Isaac answered the question with another question.

“Why does that matter?”

“Because it’s the same kind of effect. Our [Classes] aren’t actually direct Evolutions of our starter [Classes]. They’re based on them, sure. But my [Class] is an Aspect-gatherer’s [Class] changed based on the fact that it emerged from the base [Class] of [Rogue], same as [System Researcher] is a research [Class] first and foremost, it just has a bunch of [Mage]-like traits.

“So of my two Central [Skills], one of them is based solely on my Aspects, while my other is a strong [Rogue] [Skill] that gives me a soulbound weapon. One for the new [Class] and the Aspects that form its basis, the second a legacy of my old one.”

“Huh, never thought of it like that.” Amy replied, thoughtfully stroking her chin.

“Anyway, enough lazing around. Cleanup time.” Isaac announced, shooting to his feet, but winced as his injuries were stressed. That fight could have gone better. But maybe he’d gotten something nice?

Name: Isaac Thoma

Class: Undying Wraith

Species: Human

Level: 11

XP: 2397/2400

Health Status: Injured Shoulder, damaged Organs (see list), badly poisoned (priority: cleanse)

Mana: 0/250

Stats

Fortitude

45

Perception

40

Strength

30

Agility

30

Magic Power

25

Magic Regeneration

30

Free Points: 0 Stat, 0 Skill

Central Skills

Form of Horror V

The Chosen Weapon IV

Skills

Hundred Faces VII

Stealth X

Power Strike XIV

Piercing Strike XV

Sundering Strike XIII

Blades XIV

Sneak XI

Sweeping Strike III

Far Strike X

Manifold Strike VII

Hunter’s Gaze V

Phantom Step IV

Unknown Fear II

General Skills

Gralloch III

Alchemy II

Aspects

Aspect Skills

Specter

Spectral Shift

Hydra (2 stack)

Hydra’s Regeneration

Redundant Organs

Dunkleosteus

Gills

Isaac grinned as he saw his progress. Three whole Levels in [Form of Horror] and pretty decent gains in all of his [Strike]-type [Skills]. Though it was a little odd to have Fortitude be his highest Stat despite actually being one of his dump Stats. Consequences of Aspect use, he supposed.

Far Strike (common, Level X)

Upon the User’s next melee attack with a bladed weapon, the blade will extend by 2+0.5n meters where n equals skill level.

In addition, the User may now imbue his weapons with ten mana to create a range enhancing aura for a full minute. This extra reach is 0.5 meters, gaining an additional 0.1n meters, with n being every Level in this Skill over 10.

Cost: 20 mana

And he’d hit the Level 10 threshold in another [Skill], perfect.

“Cleanup?”

“Can’t exactly leave a gigantic corpse lying in the woods, let alone one leaking toxic bodily fluids, can I? Besides, there’s a ton of leather left on that body that I’m going to grab.” Isaac flashed her a slightly pained grin.

He walked over and pulled a jug of Corpsemelter Acid out of a hiding place and began to erase the random puddles of toxic blood until Amy offered to take over, using [Telekinesis] to directly fire orbs of liquid at them.

“You know, that is fascinating! The magical energy in the acid is of a caustic type, when it hits the toxic energy in the blood, it destroys it and both just ... evaporate! I ...” she continued to talk, slipping deeper into technical speak that even Isaac didn’t know.

Two hours later, he sat next to a pile of leather with more volume than his own body, even compressed to the utmost.

Isaac was also now dressed in fresh clothes and was, for the most part, healed.

“You know you’re nuts, right?” Amy asked as the two of them walked out of the woods.

“Oh, I’m keenly aware of that. But where would we be if everyone just did the sane and normal thing?” Isaac asked.

“I’ve heard that before. ’The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.’ George Bernard Shaw said that, though I heard it when it was quoted on Grey’s Anatomy.” Amy told him sagely.

“Could you send me that? I might need that for a potential future criminal trial.” Isaac grinned at her.

“Bwhahahaha!” Amy started laughing so hard she nearly tripped over a random root.

“Anyway, I think I’ve earned some bedrest. ‘night Amy.” Isaac said as he headed off towards the subway.

“Goodnight, Isaac. See you tomorrow.” Amy waved him goodbye.

Isaac left with a grin on his face. She reminded him of himself, back when he’d first started fighting monsters. Excited at every new monster, not really thinking too much about the danger of dying. He’d lost that spark pretty quickly but was glad to see someone have that same spark. Hopefully, she’d keep it even if things started to go downhill.

The world was a bleak enough place as it was, it needed people to light it up with joy and infectious optimism.

But enough about old injuries and bleak philosophy. An evening on the couch and watching Clone Wars called to him.