“We’ll just have to knock it out first. I have an idea for how to do that, only I’m going to need you to structure some snow. And mana... You’re going to need a lot of mana, as much as you can get your hands on. You’ll have to split your consciousness so you can drink potions when you need them—concentrate and imagine yourself in reality without leaving the mountains. Valia, this is important.”
“You can’t get through that thing’s armor with ice.”
“Nobody said you could. This is something I got from the ancients—you don’t think there was a reason the god made us read their books? They were about more than just space exploration! But I need you to have a constant source of mana. Make it happen!”
“Mistress, what are we supposed to do?” Motar asked in confusion when he saw that Valia wasn’t about to leave the cave-in. The guard had good reason to be worried, and that meant the girl needed to pull herself away and project her map on the ground.
“Look, we’re here. Mean Truk is here. Gather the lixes and head in that direction—Valanil Revolt will meet you when you get there. In the meantime, I’m going to stay here for at least another eleven hours. The destroyer survived, and it has to be killed. Go!”
A shiver ran down Motar’s spine when he realized he’d practically dropped to his knees when Valia finished speaking. While the girl wasn’t saying anything out of the ordinary, it was like her tone pressed down on his shoulders, forcing his back and legs to bend of their own accord. Glancing around guiltily to make sure none of his men had seen their commander’s moment of weakness, Motar noticed that the lixes were all bowing. They didn’t understand a single word their chief was saying, though they certainly felt her authority.
Motar headed out a couple minutes later, having already gotten everything ready. Valia, meanwhile, settled back down near the cave-in and closed her eyes. Concentrating was easier that way. Split her consciousness... She had to figure out how that worked, otherwise Tailyn was going to die...
She had to.
And she did. Of course, it took her almost five hours to make her brain accept parallel realities. With night and the monsters it held in the Gray Lands coming on, it was fear of being eaten alive before she could help Tailyn that helped push her over the edge. Valia suddenly found herself both in the virtual mountains and sitting next to the cave-in. The sensation was an unpleasant one, something like watching two plays and being able to completely engross herself in both. That whole time, Tailyn had been waiting patiently, knowing there was nothing he could do to help. But when he noticed the shocked expression come over the face of his betrothed, he immediately stepped over to her. He knew better than anyone what was going on.
“You did it! I knew you’d be able to.”
“This is awful... How did you get used to it?” Valia smiled wearily, though her body was shaking. The Valia in reality continued concentrating without a semblance of emotion. It wasn’t just her vision that had disassociated; her entire consciousness had split.
“A couple crazy hours, and you’ll be fine,” Tailyn said. “Ready?”
“What do you need me to do?”
“Get ready to drink mana and structure cold. The ancient books talked about how metal gets fragile when it’s really cold, and my hands are right on the destroyer’s body. If we really push it... Actually, let’s come back to that later. We need cold. And a lot of it!”
“Sure, I’ll start now,” Valia replied with a nod as she stepped out into the open area. Holding her arms out to the side, the girl reached for the mountains, summoning them to come to her aid. And that was when the dance began. But instead of simple circles, which definitely wouldn’t have been enough to conquer the mountains, Valia gave in to the power of emotion. A tambourine appeared out of nowhere in her hand to give her rhythm and sound. And that was exactly what she needed.
Tailyn stared open-mouthed at his betrothed. He’d never suspected a dance could be so wild and animated but at the same time incredibly enchanting. Almost as though she were being shocked, Valia jerked, freezing in uncomfortable positions like some kind of grotesque figurine. With a strike of the tambourine, she swept lightly into the next figure. A blue cloud of mana formed around her, a delicate stream pouring off into the snow. Or rather, into the snowman. That time, it wasn’t a vortex or blizzard whirling around the smithy—a creature made of pure, primordial cold was standing just a couple dozen meters away. It had answered the girl’s call and was watching the bewitching dance as it hungrily absorbed the mana. As the latter spread to fill the area, the insatiable creature gingerly poked its way forward in an attempt to get at more of the blue goodness.
Crouching down, Tailyn was ready to leap forward, only the snowman was in no hurry to rush the smithy. It shifted its weight from one leg to the other, prepared at any moment to dash off.
Just a little more! Tailyn said, and Valia downed her fifth flask. The mana was pouring out of her and into the voracious element. One step. Another. A third. The snowman came right up to the smithy, soaking in every last bit of mana. And just as Valia drank her tenth flask, Tailyn leaped. The element’s enormous hulk didn’t let it move quickly, and the boy was able to thrust his hands into its icy body. Just as the lightning hadn’t harmed Valia, cold had no power over Tailyn. He absorbed the power and immediately sent as much of it as he could into reality.
The boy’s hands were bathed in a blue light, and the cold hit the destroyer’s body. Notwithstanding the resistance his sticky was putting up, he was able to fight through with at least his fingers—there wasn’t any of the green substance under them. His mana level dropped precipitously, and he had to beg the system to give him enough for what he was trying to do. The level three armor he was wearing wasn’t Vargot and its attachments, which meant he didn’t have integration with the flasks he needed to restore his mana.
The snowman was only halfway absorbed when Tailyn’s mana ran out. Realizing it wasn’t going to be getting anything else, the creature disappeared in a huff to go about whatever other business it had going on. Valia finished her dance, collapsed on the ground, and was whisked off to reality. Her half there toppled onto its back as she fell into a deep sleep—the stress had done her in.
Tailyn squeezed out the last few drops of cold and pressed down on the destroyer’s body. If it wasn’t going to work then, it was never going to work. With a light crunch, he felt it give under his palm as the metal proved incapable of standing up to the freezing temperatures. It had happened exactly as the ancients had described. As the new cavity opened up, sticky hurried forward to fill it completely.
Just then, the destroyer fired off an electric charge...
The explosion was so loud that Tailyn’s mage outfit wasn’t sufficient to keep him from going deaf for a while. And even the green gel wasn’t enough to completely contain the agonized machine’s death throes. But after continuing for a few moments, the destroyer’s insides were finally reduced to cinders. Sticky conducted electricity beautifully, unlike the machine’s outer shell, and the attack meant to kill Tailyn was redirected deep inside a space it never was supposed to enter.
Tailyn didn’t know how lucky he’d gotten—one of the first blocks the electricity had destroyed was a self-destruct mechanism designed to trigger a local Armageddon covering a radius of a hundred meters. Even sticky wouldn’t have been able to hold it back.
You destroyed a non-level creature.
All your attributes and skills were increased by 5.
Note! Error detected...
Resetting to previous configuration.
Humans who have not yet reached level 20 cannot boost the base value of their attributes and skills past 15...
Finding a solution...
Solution found!
You can upgrade 1 named item.
***
Level +3 (14).
Crystal +3 (4).
Named item level +1 (8).
***
Select an item to upgrade (Matilda, Vargot, Valkyrie).
Vargot was the obvious choice. Without his armor, Tailyn felt bare. It was better to go without a weapon than without his protection.
Analyzing Tailyn Vlashich’s activity to identify the most applicable upgrade...
Upgrade applied: removed attribute requirements for Vargot and its expansions.
Note! This does not apply to future Vargot expansions.
***
You successfully upgraded a named item.
Level +1 (15).
Crystal +1 (5).
***
You are the first person since the exodus to kill a destroyer. Great deeds demand great rewards.
You received access to a remote terminal.
The nearest point where you can receive access is indicated on your map...
***
The emperor declared you a threat.
Missions initiated for the destruction of player Tailyn Vlashich.
Because the mission was accepted by the Crobar hierarchy, the situation requires a rebalancing.
New attribute available: Protection. Would you like to accept it?
Protection. Description: an attribute that defends your person and equipment from hacking attempts. Integrates with Enhancement (for attempts to hack your person) or the maximum level of the items you’re wearing (for attempts to hack your equipment).
What a silly question that was. Of course, Tailyn needed the attribute. And that just left one small problem to figure out: what to do about the mage killers.
Chapter 4
Your Device Control level is insufficient to strip the destroyer down to parts. Required: 500.
IT WAS A HUGE SHAME, but there was no loot to be had from the destroyer, and device control wasn’t really coming through with flying colors. The fact that there were so few machines like that in the world meant it just wasn’t worth boosting the skill. It wasn’t enough for Tailyn to hope he might come across another one. Of course, device control also helped hack the equipment other creatures were wearing, but that was so situational that the boy was starting to seriously consider getting rid of the skill altogether. If it hadn’t been for Valkyrie, he would have. He and Valia had seven tears of Alron, so he could have used one to wipe out his superfluous parameters. But there was no point thinking about that until he got to at least level twenty.
Getting into the guts of the machine didn’t work, either, despite the 10% bump Raptor afforded him. For as long as sticky remained active, hacking battered away at the sky-high parameters the machine came with. But the effort was ultimately futile. As soon as sticky wore off, the destroyer crumbled away into a dark dust. The holes that remained in the body of its conqueror were all that was left of it.
The first thing Tailyn did was drink a lesser regeneration potion. After that, it was wriggling out of his half-melted armor, the destroyer’s electricity having robbed the outfit of its flexibility and comfort. Valia’s head appeared above him.
“Finally! Tailyn, I got a mission to take you out. Want to hear what the emperor set your price at? A named star, a hundred thousand coins, and a legendary coin. Sweetie, if things get tough, we may just have to turn you in.”
“I’ll turn you in!” Tailyn shot back indignantly as he pressed one last button. Vargot slipped into place, the air conditioning system kicked into gear, cool air swept over the boy’s face, and he finally felt safe. It was going to be all anyone could do to break through his level eight armor.
Deciding he’d neglected his parameters for too long, Tailyn pulled up his table and frowned. Something was missing.
Status table
General character information
Tailyn Vlashich, head of Mean Truk, betrothed to Valia Levor
Alchemist
Level
15
Age
12
Coins
1845
Gold
1813
Main parameters
Shield level
9712
Mana level
10762
Physical attack
132
Magic attack
1842
Named item level
8
Companion level
6
Attributes
Enhancement
15
Mysticism
17
Intellect
15
Armor
15
Wisdom
15
Perception
15
Regeneration
15
Agility
15
Strength
15
Concealment
15
Cartographer
15
Integration
15
Resilience
15
Marauder
15
Monster Knowledge
15
Anatomy Master
15
Scanner
15
Hacking
15
Frankenstein
15
Shooting
15
Coordination
15
Protection
1
Skills
Alchemist
Points invested:
167
Herbalism
Points invested:
60
Linguist
Points invested:
1
Mining
Points invested:
15
Mentality
Points invested:
17
The line about the tax was gone. Tailyn shook his head and looked again, but it still wasn’t there. Quickly checking back through his logs, he figured out that it had happened the moment the emperor banished him from the empire and assigned a destroyer to hunt him.
Valia, I need your help. Something strange is going on...
Activating his wings, Tailyn flew up. His betrothed opened her eyes wide—he hadn’t said anything about being able to fly.
“So, without the empire, the god doesn’t need anything from you?” Just like that, Tailyn shook the foundation upon which the empire was built. Everyone knew they could rest at ease so long as the miners kept coming up with crystals—the god wouldn’t punish them. But what had just happened to Tailyn turned that picture on its head. The god didn’t care about people outside the empire.
“Hey...could the crystals not be for the System?” Tailyn asked. “What if the emperor was the one who came up with the tax? He’s a function, so he knows what you can use them for... Himself, for example. Or something else. Remember what Olsen said? Crystals are diluted noa. The ancients wanted to collect noa for some reason, so maybe the emperor is just continuing their work.”
That seditious line of reasoning was enough to send shivers down both Valia’s and Tailyn’s spine. What if everything people believed turned out to be one big myth? Or even a lie. Apparently, even the god didn’t mind them using crystals on themselves...
The terminal the system had given Tailyn was on the other side of the mountain range, about fifty kilometers from the city. After checking his map, the boy could only throw up his hands. There were several ways through the mountains, only they all took a few weeks. It was just one more useless gift.
There was a big meeting in Mean Truk the next day. Tailyn was forced to spend a crystal teaching the lix shaman how to speak human, while another twenty were laid out in the sun to start charging. Surprisingly, neither Forian nor Valanil were happy to see the city population growing. But it was the latter who explained their position.
“There are a hundred and eighty of us now. That’s a hundred and eighty coins a day going toward food, and that’s to say nothing of shelter, warmth, clothing, tools, and weapons. Where’s all that going to come from? Sure, you brought a generator, a few tents, and enough food to last a couple days, bu
t that’s not enough. We really should send the people to Culmart.”
“Two weeks in the Gray Lands?” Tailyn replied in surprise. “There are more lixes than night creatures out there. How is a large group like that supposed to get through?”
“Whatever shot they have is better than starving to death here. We would need a hundred and forty thousand coins to keep them fed for the year—you know as well as I do that the lixes ate all the animals in the vicinity. There isn’t enough time to start farming. And we can’t trade with the neighbors because we don’t have any neighbors. Do you have any idea what you got yourself into, my boy?”
Isr Kale's Journal (The Alchemist Book #4): LitRPG Series Page 6