CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  Well. I think it’s safe to say that could’ve gone better. Admittedly, not my finest moment.

  Before anything, Richard reached out and rested a hand upon the cold snout of the towering elite. In this way, seconds later, when the rest of the swine exploded into motes of white light, before condensing back down into thumbnail sized mana crystals, the elite remained entirely unaltered. Just a big old hunk of boar meat.

  Perfect.

  That done, he retrieved his hand—careful not to jar his many injuries—all the while doing his best to ignore its trembling. Ignore the way his whole body trembled, for that matter. That, and the brief bout of lightheadedness that nearly laid him out flat. It didn’t take a doctor to realize he’d lost more blood than was generally recommended. Just take a good long look at their battle scarred arena. There was simply far too much of it, especially when you considered that he was the only one here that bled red.

  I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m actually glad the little empress chose to snub me on this particular outing. It doesn’t exactly paint me in the best possible light. I mean, I have certain appearances to maintain! And I have the sneaking suspicion that a sorry sight like this one would’ve set me back by months. Not exactly the dashingly handsome, untouchable mentor I’d always envisioned I’d be.

  Pulling up the points catalogue, he purchased a basic first aid kit for 100 points. The familiar box with its alien contents appeared at chest height, hovered there for a time, before dropping like a stone. Richard reached over and drew it closer, flipped open the lid, and finally plucked free a glowing green syringe from its casing. He didn’t inject it immediately, however. Not with these wounds. He knew from grim experience that these “Healing Syringes,” no matter how miraculous, were no cure-all’s.

  Oh, it would seal his wounds, sure, but that was all it would do.

  Without direction, the bits of metal currently lodged in his flesh would be going nowhere fast. Not fun, in other words. Which was why Richard spent at least a minute or two delving into himself. Using his sense for life energy, coupled with the life energy currently saturating every cell in his body, to locate each of the foreign objects embedded therein. Once he was reasonably confident of his success, only then did he prick his arm and inject the dubious mixture.

  Immediately, the feel of revitalizing energy flooding his system was strikingly familiar, if laced with copious preservatives and all manner of artificial impurities. Heavily processed trash, it was a far cry from the simple, pure life energy contained within the Kalax Original Energy Bar. But then, those were the organizers for you! If there was a corner that could be cut, rest assured it’d already been sanded down to nothing a long time ago.

  Fortunately, there were still trace amounts of untouched life energy present. Enough so that, when he tried to convince the mindless energy that its ultimate prerogative would best be served in expelling the foreign objects from his body, it actually obeyed. Which was great! Unfortunately, life energy wasn’t exactly known for being gentle. Which was not so great.

  He screamed as sharp fragments of metal were forcefully shoved from his body. The particularly stubborn fragment sticking from his left eye threatening to rob him of his consciousness entirely. Indeed, it was all that he could do to stick himself with a second syringe before the curtains finally fell, and he not-so-peacefully slipped into oblivion.

  +++

  I’m up! Wha-?! Huh?

  Richard shot up to a sitting position. Shook his head in bewilderment. Then cringed in anticipation of unpleasantness.

  In his defense, the sensation of dozens of bits of metal grinding against organ and bone with every movement had this way of sticking with a person. In the end, he was left even more confused when nothing much happened. No pain. No… nothing. In fact, he felt perfectly fine. Of course, that was when he caught sight of the tattered state of his clothes, and the nightmarish bits of metal surrounding him on all sides. He shuttered to think where he’d found the space for all that shrapnel inside his miniature frame.

  With only a bit of hesitation, he tested his left eye, gratified when he was able to see out of it once more. Shrugging out of his blood stained onesie, he rose unsteadily to his feet, then tottered his way over to the burbling stream. Braving the brisk chill of the icy water with only a few choice expletives, he waded in as far as he dared, and promptly began to scrub his skin raw. Not because he needed the deep cleaning physically, but emotionally? Spiritually? Richard continued to scrub.

  After barely a minute of this, he exited the water feeling like a brand new baby.

  Fifteen minutes later and he was all dolled up and dressed for success. Now standing before the imposing boar corpse, Richard was left scratching his bald head in idle contemplation. Making up his mind, he sauntered up to his defeated enemy, and swiftly scaled its prodigious bulk in short order. The vines of red licorice made the task so easy a child could do it.

  Heh.

  Rolling onto its side, he immediately scrambled to his feet, before thinking better of it, and plopping back down onto the beasts prickly hide.

  Crossing his legs beneath him, he gave the assortment of items laid out before him a once over. Having taken the time, moments prior, to retrieve the bag he’d stashed in a bush for safe keeping, what stared back at him was, in effect, everything he’d need to secure his rightful position as strongest baby of the tutorial. Excluding Penelope, of course, seeing as that girl was less an infant than she was a force of nature.

  First and foremost, there were his two ability cubes. One green, and the other purple.

  ?—|-Super Enhanced Metabolism-|—?

  ?[Uncommon]?

  Cost: (10 Ability Slots)

  Your stomach digests food at a far faster rate while producing much less waste. Speed of digestion and percentage of waste product are dependent on ability level.

  ?—|-Flesh Manipulation-|—?

  ?[Epic]?

  Cost: (50 Ability Slots)

  You can manipulate your own flesh, as well as the flesh of others. Speed and control are dependent on ability level.

  Next to those, naturally, sat Shaper’s Legacy—an item he’d taken to carrying with him everywhere he went these days.

  ?—|-Shaper’s Legacy-|—?

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  ?[Unique]?

  The accumulation of the Shaper’s grand legacy, condensed into nine consecutive circles of understanding. Acting as his sole will and inheritance, anyone who manages to master all nine of Shaper’s lessons can expect-

  And finally…

  ?—|-New Form Energy Bar: Kalax Nougat Swirl-|—?

  ?—|-New Form Energy Bar: Kalax Tropical Vanilla-|—?

  Two incredibly potent cultivation resources promising a metric crap ton of un-aspected soul energy, and raw unfiltered mana respectively.

  Now all that was left was to go through with what he was contemplating.

  It hadn’t been his first plan. Nor his second. Nor his third for that matter. In fact, initially he’d intended to tackle these particular issues much further down the line. That necessity had pushed them up to the fore on his list of priorities wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, mind you. Just… unexpected. Despite his optimistic projections, he honestly hadn’t thought he’d be in such a good position to capitalize on his more… ambitious plans so early in the game.

  It’d only been a day after all.

  Right! So, the way he saw it, there were three items on the docket in need of his immediate attention.

  Number one! He needed to invest in a soul seal. Draw up the blueprint, trace the architecture, basically do all the preliminary grunt work needed to prepare for his first ever Soul Grade prestige—in this timeline or the one that came before. And, since he’d be working directly with his Master Formation, he also needed to treat the entire process with the utmost care and attention. In order to get there, however, he’d need all the mana he could get his hands on.

  Thankfully, he was fairly flush with mana crystals right now, so that shouldn’t prove much of a problem. Merely excruciatingly painful, given that decided lack of mana channels he’d mentioned earlier.

  Number two! He had a ridiculously high attribute ceiling for his grade and level. He needed to take advantage of that. The sooner the better.

  Stat points! Gimme gimme!

  And there were only really two ways to consistently go about doing so that readily came to mind. The first was through leveling. Obviously this presented something of a problem for him. Thankfully, when monsters were scarce, and experience was scarcer, there was always the classic, bygone, time tested method of increasing one’s attributes.

  Good old fashioned elbow grease. Or, in other words, the advent of an arduous, grueling, downright unforgiving training regimen.

  Normally a fairly tedious proposition—similar to everyday body building pre-ascension—believe it or not, it was actually the faster option of the two, at least in so far as he was concerned. And it all had to do with his recent double prestige. Put simply, something happened to a body following a jump in prestige. In the days immediately after, it proved far easier to gain stats through simple training. Almost as if the body itself were uniquely energized in the wake of it, and was somehow eager to catch up to its newfound potential.

  Of course the way in which you trained played a major role in the gains you received, but, with his wealth of knowledge and experience, that shouldn’t prove much of an issue.

  And finally third! This was less a need than a want, really, but the wording of the Flesh Manipulation ability had given him some ideas. Only time would tell if it actually came to anything though.

  Also, bonus points if he found the time to explore Shaper’s Legacy at some point during all this.

  So much to do, and yet so little time. Well, it’s a good thing I’m so great at multitasking. Only one talent among many, I can assure you.

  First things first, he’d head out to fetch the tiny terrors and bring them back here. After all, they served a vital purpose. If not for them, who was going to gather up all his loot? Next, he’d see about giving his soul a quick workout—he still wasn’t sure how much of an effect overclocking his ability slots would have on his lackluster Soul Grade.

  I mean, two measly ability slots is pretty pathetic, no matter which way you slice it. Hopefully it’s merely debilitating. So long as it’s not instantly lethal, I can cope.

  And then… well, then…?

  Richard eyes strayed to the black orb hovering three feet off the ground. Positioned, he knew, at the very center of the glade. The very same that’d appeared in the moment of the Alpha’s death.

  I wonder…? If I shattered the spawning orb, would that give the creature access to the glade?

  +++

  Beneath the pastel blue of a cloudless spring sky, there lies a secluded little glade hemmed in by towering cliffs of mossy stone. Once a vibrant, verdant green oasis, the vegetation of the glade had definitely seen better days. Wild grassy fields and stony embankments, abundant with rich greenery—with life of all kinds—transformed into a stretch of scorched and upturned soil. A pitted facsimile of it’s previous majesty.

  Nature’s rightful domain perverted in the wake of a terrible battle.

  And at the very center of this place of ruin, this tarnished patch of sacred land, hovers a lone orb. As alien to this place as the marks of conflict it had sustained. Plucked as if from the midnight fabric of the void itself, one wouldn’t recognize it for the sphere it was at a glance, or even several. Whatever material it was made of absorbing all the light that reached it. Looking like a flat, two dimensional hole cut in reality. Which made the glow it was constantly emitting all the more peculiar. A soft white radiance that throbbed periodically, as if in time with an invisible heartbeat.

  The light steadily growing more and more pronounced for every second that passed. Just as the darkness of the orb roiled. Seemed to churn with greater and greater intensity. Until, at long last, with a brilliant flash, something new was born from the conjunction of light an darkness. Life where there had been none. A lone soul to repopulate this spurned slice of paradise.

  +—|-Candy-Hide Boar-|—+

  ?[Lvl 1]?

  Three feet tall at the shoulders, the fully grown beast took in a deep lungful of fresh woodland air. Eyes shut tight to better relish in the tactile sensations of simply being alive, it was in no position to dodge when the dagger came whistling in from the side.

  +++

  *Ding!*

  ?-|—(You have slain an enemy: Candy-Hide Boar [Lvl 1])—|-?

  Experience Gained. Participation Points Gained.

  [+10 Participation Points]

  Okay! So, it looks like the respawn timer goes off in fifteen minute intervals. Which is just… actually, you know what?! I’m not even surprised at this point.

  Did he even need to say anything?

  Although I supposed I really shouldn’t complain, considering it actually works in my favor this time around. Even still…

  The clear discrepancy—blatant favoritism more like—was especially atrocious when one considered that the spawn rate for similarly tamed dens in Hard Mode was roughly once every thirty seconds.

  Not to mention they usually spawned in batches of ten to fifteen at a time. Oh! And they didn’t all factory reset back to level one, either.

  Ridiculous. All of this was just so darn ridiculous.

  I swear, back in my day-!

  Ugh- Well, screw it. Better to focus on the present, he supposed. Especially when it seemed so keen on taking it easy on him.

  Once more, he surveyed the extent of his domain from atop the hulking brute of a boar corpse. The elevated vantage wasn’t merely for the sake of his own vanity, however. Case in point, it helped him keep tabs on his busy little worker ants, while also keeping an eye out for unusual monster spawns he might otherwise have missed. After all, he couldn’t have one of the little tikes getting hurt,now could he?

  Perish the thought! It might upset the empress!

  And while it clearly was not his place to seek to comprehend her thought process, she seemsto have grown especially fond of the noisy, smelly things as of late. He would hate to cause her distress.

  Anyway, now that the tiny tots had performed their main function, he was left, in the end, with a gleaming pile of mana crystals, the assortment of items he’d previously laid out, and a dream.

  Hmm… options, options.

  The lively sounds of young children at play filtered in through the sly cover of background noise. Heated arguments and tinkling laughter made a symphony of serene tranquility. The sounds of splashing water swiftly accompanied by shrill screams. High pitched shrieks that evinced water parks and rollercoaster rides, more than they did horror flicks or haunted houses. A heartwarming counterpoint to the gentle murmuring of the icy stream. A soothing balm for an already lovely spring day.

  Now then, which will hurt more to raise, I wonder? Control and Mana Capacity, or Strength and Endurance?

  Richard waffled over the two options for quite some time, before he shrugged, plucked up the green cube housing Super Enhanced Metabolism, and promptly popped it into his chest. Sliding the cube through skin, muscle, and bone, like there were a designated slot there for just such an occasion.

  In the next moment, black veins raced across his entire body like branching tendrils of rancid putrefaction. Choking vines of corruption which snaked their way up his neck to converge around his eyes. The thick tar like substance pooling in the whites. Filling them like ink dropped into a glass of water.

  The world around him shuddered.

  His soul, screamed.