by Pegaz
He put all Idlers into Max Workers and the time came up at 1y 3mo 8d. Three months later, he had enough Life Power to enter the next level.
Creating branches from his stomach to his shoulders was a walk in the park to him.
‘Ding!’
Congratulations on entering Rank 2 Level 6.
Just after seven months, he created branches from his shoulders to elbows.
‘Ding!’
Congratulations on entering Rank 2 Level 7.
Five months later, the skill Maximum Workers was completed. He put all the Idlers he could into Maximum Idlers, the time was 1y 3mo 8d. Another two months later, he created branches from his elbows to his wrists, completing his arms.
‘Ding!’
Congratulations on entering Rank 2 Level 8.
Seven months later, he had 90M Life Power unit and was ready to tackle the first life and death part of his cultivation.
He had an advantage over regular people, as he’d already been forced to create branches in his eyes when his Immortal Eye was formed. Starting with the neck, he went up to the top of his head. Surprisingly, the pain wasn’t as severe as he thought, so he sailed through it. When the branches he was creating met with the branches towards his eyes, it was like a fish in water. The pain stopped.
‘Ding!’
Congratulations on entering Rank 2 Level 9.
He completed all the branches throughout his body. Now, he just needed seven more months until he reached immortal Rank 3 with 100M Life Power. When he reached Level 9, all the skills that were unlocked opened, and he read all the descriptions.
Defence - Idlers 0/161, Wall - 0/5, Repair - 0/3, Drain - 0/5
Threads - Idlers 0/161, Life Threads - 0/1, Distance - 0/6, Thickness - 0/3
Threads II - Idlers 0/161, Strength - 0/3, Control - 0/3, Shapeshifter - 0/1
Elemental Attack - Idlers 0/161, Fire Fists - 0/1, Metal Head - 0/1, Wooden Elbows - 0/1
Elemental Attack II - Idlers 0/161, Water Knees - 0/1, Earthen Feet - 0/1
Defence:
Wall: Generates a Life Power wall covering the body.
Repair: When the wall is damaged, the speed of the regeneration is increased.
Drain: Reduce the amount needed when Idle. When the wall is hit or damaged, reduce the Life Power required to return to normal.
Threads:
Life Threads: Able to generate threads from Life Power.
Distance: Increase the length the threads can extend to.
Thickness: Decrease the threads width, at max level it is invisible to the naked eye.
Threads II:
Strength: Increase the amount of weight each thread can handle.
Control: Able to control more threads at a time.
Shapeshifter: Able to make the threads combine to whatever you can imagine.
Elemental Attack:
Fire Fist: Change Life Power to fire in your hands for attacking.
Metal Head: Change Life Power to metal in your head for attacking.
Wooden Elbows: Change Life Power to wood in your elbows for attacking.
Elemental Attack II:
Water Knees: Change Life Power to water in your knees for attacking.
Earthen Feet: Change Life Power to earth in your feet for attacking.
Six months later, he completed Maximum Idlers and put all Idlers in Defence’s Wall. The starting time was 1d 1h. The levels that followed increased the time exponentially.
Before the fifth level was completed, John stepped into Rank 2 Level 9 peak. He could break through whenever he wanted, but chose not to just yet. He wanted to make sure his foundation was solid. When he made a breakthrough into the next rank, each level in Shrink Stage would require John to shrink the neurons by 10% and generate another 100M Life Power. By Rank 3 Level 9. he’d need 900M Life Power. To get to Rank 4, he would need a billion Life Power units.
Before the Shrink Stage, the brain held 100 billion neurons. After the final level, though, then there would be enough room for 1 trillion neurons.
He only used just over five and a half years to get ready to reach Rank 3. He had just turned 29 years old. Even the best sects in the universe only asked for Rank 3 at 40 years old.
Chapter 38
First Closed-door Cultivation (2)
To John, checking his foundation meant going through the whole body and making sure the branches weren’t damaged. If he found he could create more, he would. He paid the most attention to his feet and hands, since they had been damaged before because of his Life Power. His skin Regeneration skill healed them, but John was still worried about permanent damage.
While he was checking his foundations, he waited just over three days for the Defence skill Wall to compete. If he broke through to Immortal Rank 3 while Idlers were still working, then something could happen again. That was also another reason he chose not to breakthrough just yet.
When he got the Wall skill to Level 1, a silver veil covered his body. It was so thin that John thought he could pinch it open. When he got it to Level 5, the thickness increased, but it was still only millimetres thick. He kept thinking, Turn invisible! while looking at the silver veil of Life Power and after a while, it turned colourless.
Then, he checked his Idle absorb Life Power and found that he was getting 1.7 units per minute.
The Scan skill is taking 0.8 per minute, so that would bring it down to 4.2. The Wall skill must take 2.5 per minute to use. That’s a huge amount. I need to get the Drain skill up next then.
After finishing his foundation check, he started his breakthrough to Rank 3.
‘Ding!’
Congratulations for entering Rank 3 Level 1. We have given you a reward of 1 skill point to place anywhere you choose.
Updating…
Welcome to the Idle System 3.0
Name: John
Title: A Selfish Punisher.
Age: 29
Idlers: 161/161
Skill Points: 1
Life Pool: 100.1M
Sin: 42,846
Immortality List:
Shrink Neurons - Idlers 0/161, Shrink - 0/9
Shrink Neurons:
Each level will shrink the neurons by 10%, but the amount of Life Power they can store will shrink the same amount.
So, if I get this level up first, then I would lose 10 million Life Power per level? And when my total Life Pool increases, that loss would increase too?
John left that skill alone for now. Instead, he put a single Idler into Maximum Idlers to check if the time had reset. It had. The first time with 1 Idler was 1s, so he put all 161 Idlers working in there.
‘Ding!’, ‘Ding!’, ‘Ding!’, ‘Ding!’, ‘Ding!’, ‘Ding!’, ‘Ding!’, ‘Ding!’, ‘Ding!’, ‘Ding!’
The time needed for the skill even after ten levels was still 1 second. After the 45th level, the time went up to 2 seconds, then 4, then 8. After 11 hours, John had gotten a total of 57 Idlers.
John got surprised by the number of extra Idlers he got, but nonetheless put all the Idlers he could into Maximum Workers. When each level finished, he put more into the skill. He got 57 levels in Maximum Workers. He now had 218 Idlers and workplaces too.
He got seven more levels in Maximum Idlers after fourteen days. Same for Maximum Workers. The next couple of levels would take months, so he worked on the other skills first.
John got both Elemental Attack skills up first, since they had the least amount of levels. First was 18h, but it doubled each time. The second was 1d 12h. The third completed Elemental Attack. Elemental Attack II started at 18h, with the second skill at 1d 12h. That completed the skill.
Looking at his hand, he clenched it to a fist and made Life Power cover it. He envisioned turning it into a fire, and a blue flame burned on top of his fist. Lifting his arm and unclenching his fist, he looked at the flame. In the centre of his palm and the centre of the fire was a small black dot. John assumed it was the hottest place and where the flame was coming from. Turning his
palm over, he saw another black dot below his knuckles on the direct opposite side of the other.
He placed his hand on a rock near the lava. The lava couldn’t melt this rock, but when the black flame touched it, it completely melted.
The blue flame has the same intensity as the lava, but the black flame is much hotter. My palm attacks will hurt a lot more than my kicks now.
He took out a large mirror he took from a noble he killed and checked the metal head. Checking the wooden elbows, water knees, and earthen feet attacks, they formed a cover around the area. Their colours were grey, blue and brown.
So, hands and knees are blue, elbows and feet are brown, and only my head is grey.
Next, he got Threads first skill up to activate the ability. The time needed was 18h. When it completed, he concentrated on his finger, and a silver-coloured, hair-width thread came out of his finger. He could control where the thread was going, and it could stretch to about a foot. He found a small rock close by to where he was lying down. John made the thread wrap around it and lifted it off the ground, but that’s all it could do at this point.
Looking at the skills list, he levelled Thickness up. The first three levels took almost four days to complete.
Knowing the time needed would continue to double, John figured it would take over two years to complete the Threads skill.
He put all Idlers into Threads II’s Shapeshift and the time was 18h. When it finished, he was able to create a hundred threads from his right forefinger. They were now too thin to be noticed by the naked eye, but John could sense them. The max length was still only a foot.
He made all the threads spin around each other while travelling up and he made a half a foot-long stick. The shapeshift could make the threads combine together to form objects. If he got the distance, control, and strength skills, he could make swords, shields, or any other weapons from it too.
John raised Thread II’s Control and Strength next. The total time to complete all the levels was about three months. He figured that the threads would be one of his primary attacks, so he completed the whole skill.
Next, he put all Idlers into Distance skill, and it took over two years to complete. The amount of threads he could control climbed to a million. They could go as far as 100 feet away from him. Each thread could lift a hundred pounds of weight. They could also come out of any part of his body like the feet, knees, and even the eyes—but that last one was uncomfortable.
Continuing his test, he made ten swords, each made from 100,000 threads. The swords could fly up to 100 feet around him. He tried slicing a large rock with a sword. The rock was split down the middle like a hot knife through butter. The surface was as smooth as a mirror.
John could form anything he wanted with the threads. Clubs, swords, shields, spears... Even a gun, though the bullets couldn’t be formed out of threads. However, John could feed the gun his Life Power through the threads, and the bullets would form inside.
Since John was no longer using all his mind for cultivating, he turned the Scan option back on and checked his stats before leaving. It was time to try and help his master.
Name: John
Title: A Selfish Punisher.
Age: 31
Idlers: 0/225
Skill Points: 1
Life Pool: 137.2M
Sin: 42,846
Misc List:
Maximum Idlers - Idlers 0/225, +1 Max Idlers - 224/2159
Maximum Workers - Idlers 0/225, +1 Idler Workers - 126/2061
Defence - Idlers 225/225, Repair - 0/3, Drain - 0/5, Time - 23d 18h 42m 15s
Completed List:
Defence - Wall.
Threads - Life Threads, Distance and Thickness.
Threads II - Strength, Control and Shapeshift.
Elemental Attack - Fire Fists, Metal Head and Wooden Elbows.
Elemental Attack II - Water Knees and Earthen Feet.
Chapter 39
Michael
John walked towards the entrance of the hole he dug over eight years ago, and then he dug back up towards the surface. It took less than an hour to get to the surface because he used his threads as a big rotating drill. With Scan turned on, he could see a creature near the top of the hole. It was Rank 3 Level 3.
He reached the top and created a sword out of his threads. Before the creature could even react, he decapitated it. John had learnt total control of the threads.
It took him a few minutes to get used to the sun’s brightness. Only after that did he fly towards the house.
He wasn’t hurrying, so although his speed was fast, it did not damage his feet. The travel covered 1,200 miles and took a few hours. When he got within 5 miles of the house, his Scan picked up ten people inside, sitting down or training. Nine of them were Rank 3, between Level 4 and 6, but one person was Rank 4 Level 1.
This Scan skill is brilliant. While the Life Vision and Immortal Eye can be used much further, Scan is passive and catches everything.
The skill even picked up the sins of each person. The one with the least amount still had over 700 points.
Landing less than 5 miles away from the house, he walked towards it. He wanted to see their reactions. When he was less than a mile away, the people inside finally noticed him, and they immediately gathered together. John knew these people were from the Rogue sect because the system alerted him.
Their Sins must be from Greed. Assassin work doesn’t generate Sins usually.
The Rank 4 man was at the front of the group. He had his sabre out and pointed at John. “You’re the traitor of the sect? The description matches. You have made us wait for over eight years.”
John used Immortal Eye on him.
???
Rank: 4
Level: 1
Status: Memory Manipulated.
Scan can check the levels and sins, but not status? Suppose, you can’t have everything.
“I’m not a traitor,” John said calmly. “You’ve had your memories manipulated. I know you don’t believe me, but I’ll tell you something you should believe. Attack me and you’re dead.”
He checked every other person there to confirm they all had the Memory Manipulated status. John stood there for a few seconds, waiting to see what they would do. Of course, they ignored his warning and launched an attack together.
John put his arms in front of him and opened both his palms. A sword formed in each hand. His left hand was holding a sword which had a blade length of ten inches. His right hand held a sword with a blade length of twenty inches. Both weapons were silver.
The people surrounded John in a full circle. Those facing his back attacked, hoping to get in John’s blind spot.
However, John could see them attacking and spun 180 degrees. He used his sword in his left hand to deflect their attacks, and his right sword to attack their waist. As intended, the sword went straight through both attackers, and as soon as they dropped dead, John formed eight more swords behind the remaining people. The new blades lunged forward through their backs.
Does this mean the entire Rogue sect have placed a hit on me? Or, are only a few people manipulated to target me?
He opened the world map tab and zoomed in as much as possible. Then, he moved the icon of himself into the corner of the map, so it didn’t get in the way. When he finished the preparations, he went inside the house, stepped on top of the rune and disappeared.
Appearing above the rune in the small room behind his master’s throne, the first Scan showed that his master wasn’t around. From this vantage, however, he could see the treasure room. Moving the icon of himself, he put it in the treasure room and teleported.
Inside, there were millions of Life Stones. John grabbed them all and stocked them inside his Storage Space. He also took all weapons, armour, and even the things he didn’t usually need. He also found different types of ingredients, runes, books and blood. There were over 10,000 Grade 9 Life Stones that he had taken. He was doing this just in case he wasn’t able to help his master remove
the memory manipulation. If he managed to help his master out, he’d return everything.
After he cleared out the treasure room, John moved the pin on the system map to teleport back into the small room he was at before. Carefully destroying the floor around the teleport rune, he put the slab of stone with the rune on top inside his Storage Space. Finally ready, John opened the door and walked to where his master usually sat. It was still empty. There were no clues whatsoever as to the Sect Head’s location.
John went to the mission hub teleport rune and stepped on it. When he opened the door, he turned Life Vision on and looked around the mission hub. At the East wall, there were hundreds of people. John turned Immortal Eye on and checked each person. Not one person there had less than 1,000 Sin points. Each of them had the Memory Manipulated status. The highest ranked person in the crowd was Rank 4, so John didn’t panic. He created his two swords then walked towards the East wall.
The people that had their memories manipulated were acting like zombies. As soon as they saw John, they attacked instinctively, just like animals. No matter how much they got hit, it didn’t stop them. They carried on fighting until death. Because of their lack of tact, it only took John a few minutes to kill more than half the people.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
His attackers froze, and so did John. He didn’t need to turn around to see who it was.
“Never thought the first partner I did a job with would be in on this,” John uttered in a grave voice. He turned around. “Was it all an act... Michael?”
Michael Jones
Rank: 4
Level: 9
Sin: 639,449
The person who was slow clapping at John’s performance was none other than Grand Elder Michael Jones.
The rugged blonde smiled. “And I never thought a little brat like you would almost ruin our plans either.”
“Please tell me that you’re not going to disclose your plans to me just because you think I’m already as good as dead,” John sneered. “I know we’re enemies, but have some common sense, please.”
That had actually stunned Michael. He was really looking forward to that part.