by Pegaz
14,220,720,000 - Sins 100:1, Time - 4y 10m 21d 22h
Without another moment’s hesitation, John clicked the transfer button. He watched the Time Pool reflect the changes and then applied that time to complete the Shrink Neurons skill. The pain that came with completing the skill didn’t even make John blink; his body was used to it and had adapted.
From past experiences with levelling a skill up, he somewhat expected something like a surge of strength throughout his body. Strangely enough, nothing happened.
With a frown, he opened the system again.
Welcome to the Idle System 4.9.
Name: John
Title: Demon
Age: 38
Idlers: 227/227
Skill Points: 5
Life Pool: 3
Toxin Pool: 30.2B
Sin: 17.5B
Time Pool: 19m 54s
Immortality List:
Create Neurons - Idlers 0/227, Creation - 0/9
Misc List:
Maximum Idlers - Idlers 0/227, +1 Max Idlers - 226/2159
Maximum Workers - Idlers 0/227, +1 Idler Workers - 128/2061
Absorption - Idlers 0/227, Nutrients - 0/1
Absorption - Idlers 0/227, Option - 0/1
Absorption - Idlers 0/227, Resistance’s Elements - 0/1
Resistance - Idlers 0/227, Lightning - 0/1
Resistance - Idlers 0/227, Wind - 0/1
Resistance - Idlers 0/227, Ice - 0/1
Resistance - Idlers 0/227, Force - 0/1
Elemental - Idlers 0/227, Freedom - 0/1
Share - Idlers 0/227, Slots - 0/5
Having learned from past mistakes, John didn’t hesitate in putting all his Idlers into Max Workers. The system rang multiple times as John watched the skill level increase once every second. After a couple of minutes, the time between each level doubled. It continued to double until it reached above ten minutes per level, which was when John turned the Continue skill off.
Once the system was done with its current task, John went on to place all his Idlers into Max Idlers. The process followed suit to the one before.
While his Max Idlers were levelling, John looked over his first new Misc skill. He was hoping this would help Sarah, judging by the name.
Absorption
Nutrients: Absorb what the body needs to survive from the air.
Bonus for maxing all skill levels: You will never have to eat to maintain the body’s functions again.
Face cracking into a grin, John couldn’t help but chuckle. This was one of the skills he wanted the most! The skill he wanted most, of course, was something to wake Sarah up, but this one would still help her greatly. Knowing it could take months to complete even with all the new Idlers, John decided to bite the bullet and use a skill point to complete the Absorption’s Nutrients skill.
He checked the completed list afterwards.
Absorption - Water and Nutrients.
Satisfied, John added the skill into the shared list for Sarah.
John stretched his arms and stood up from his chair. With even strides, he made his way out of his room and into Sarah’s room where she still lay deep in her coma. As he gazed upon her sleeping features, John was struck by a sudden fear. What if there wasn’t enough fresh air in the cave? Would the skill be useless? If she absorbed all the nutrients in the air around her, wouldn’t she then starve to death?
John couldn’t take the risk. Taking care of his surroundings, he formed the strongest bullet he could and shot air holes into the corners of the room. He hoped that a sufficient amount of fresh air would be able to flow inside. It was a technique he’d used before to rid another cave of the foul stench, so he assumed it would work this time, too.
After completing his task, John returned to Sarah’s side once more. Taking a seat, he stared deeply into her sleeping face. His mind was churning over plans for his next course of action; he was almost overwhelmed to the point where he lost focus on Sarah altogether. After a few minutes of this, he abruptly snapped back to reality as his eyes detected movement before him.
Sarah’s eyelids were twitching.
Was she waking up? John shot out of his seat and rushed closer to the bed. He spread his arms across and leaned in. Face hanging inches above Sarah’s, he could feel her soft breath on his skin.
“Sarah…?”
His voice cracked as he called out to his wife. There was no response. He called out to her again and again. Nothing. The minutes passed with no sign of her activity except the repetitive flicker of her eyelids, back and forth. Every few seconds, the twitching would stop. Then, it would start up again.
Realisation hit John.
The skills were healing Sarah, trying to get her out of the coma! But the lightning had damaged the electric signals in her brain and the skills couldn’t fix that. Did the system even consider the brain to be an organ? If it did, then shouldn’t it be able to restore the functions of the organ and not just its structure?
Dejected and feeling as hopeless as ever, John let out a shaky sigh and sat back down.
Almost four months passed by. John levelled his Max Idlers and Max Workers skills up to the point where they needed over a month to reach the next level; each skill had gained 137 levels. With the skills working, he confirmed that the Absorption skill was maintaining the health of Sarah’s body.
During the whole span of time, John rarely left Sarah’s side. He sat next to her bed and ran through levelling tactics for the system. He didn’t want to use the rest of the sin points just yet; to make the best use of them, he needed to see how long each skill would take.
The Resistance skills were self-explanatory. With deep regret, he wished that he had these skills before Sarah fought with Chris. Had he shared them with her, there was a chance she would have walked away from the fight unharmed.
Elemental Freedom was the ability to use the elements in any part of his body freely. He could use metal elements on his feet, fire on his forehead, or switch them around as he pleased. No longer would he have to kowtow on metal to control it.
Absorption - Option gave him the option to use the skill Absorption - Resistance’s Elements.
Absorption - Resistance’s Elements gave John the ability to absorb everything he was resistant to and turn it into Life Power. He could then turn it into Toxin Power.
John’s Resistance’s Elemental included fire, water, earth, metal, wood, light, dark, time, and space. When he completed the other skills, other elements would be included.
John opened the system, then put all Idlers into a new skill.
Welcome to the Idle System 4.9.
Name: John
Title: Demon
Age: 38
Idlers: 0/364
Skill Points: 4
Life Pool: 1
Toxin Pool: 36.7B
Sin: 17.5B
Time Pool: 19m 54s
Misc List:
Maximum Idlers - Idlers 0/364, +1 Max Idlers - 363/2159
Maximum Workers - Idlers 0/364, +1 Idler Workers - 265/2061
Resistance - Idlers 364/364, Lightning - 0/1, Time - 14d
14 days with 364 Idlers. That comes out to 300 years total.
Chapter 2
*Spoiler*
John went back into the fourth tab and converted all the sins he could into time.
17,529,512,700 - Sins 100:1, Time - 6y 12d 21h 5m 27s
He clicked the transfer button and checked the system.
Sin: 15
Time Pool: 6y 12d 21h 25m 21s
Because the Misc skills took fourteen days for the first level, he used the Time Pool to finish them off. Eight skills at fourteen days each added up to four months worth of time. All but the Share skill were completed and removed from the list.
He placed the Idlers into the Share skill again; the time came up as 1mo. John used the Time Pool to complete the whole skill. It kept doubling for each level, so he spent another two months, four months, then eight months. The whole skill cost him one year,
three months and fourteen days to complete, but he figured it was well worth it.
Options:
Absorb - Off
Completed List:
Absorption - Water, Nutrients and Resistance’s Elements.
Siders:
Share: Able to share skills with other Siders.
Slots: Add one slot per level.
Resistance:
Elemental: Fire, water, earth, metal, wood, light, dark, time, space, lightning, wind, force, and ice resistance—as long as they make the attack from these elements, then you are immune.
Elemental Attack II:
Water Knees: Change Life Power to water in your knees.
Earthen Feet: Change Life Power to earth in your feet.
Freedom: Use any element you can use in any part of your body.
John was tempted to turn the Absorb option on, but decided not to while he was on his master’s planet. The only skill left that he could level up was the Create Neurons skill. He checked its description.
Create Neurons:
Creation: Each level creates 100 billion neurons. Once level 9 is complete, the user will have 1 trillion neurons total.
He placed all Idlers into the Create Neurons skill. The time came up as 1mo.
600 years for the first level? Getting more Idlers and Worker Spots is becoming a priority as the system updates.
If the skill times double each level, then the ninth level would need 153,600 years to complete. I would need to be Rank 5 to survive long enough for this skill to complete even 1%. Unless I reach Rank 9, I wouldn’t live long enough to see this skill completed without more Idlers.
When this skill finishes and I have 1 trillion neurons, the max Life Power I can store will be 1 trillion, just like everybody else. Sarah and I use Toxin Power, though, which is five times stronger, so we can store 1 trillion Toxins instead...
John used his Time Pool to level the Create Neurons skill up a few times. He spent one month, two months, four months, eight months and sixteen months from the Time Pool to get it to Level 5/9. The sixth skill came up as 2y 8mo, but John only had a little under a year and ten months left inside the Time Pool.
John calculated the time needed to complete the skill. After the sixth level was complete, it would take 5y 4mo for the seventh level, 10y 8mo for the eighth level, and the final level would take 21y 4mo. That totalled up to 37y 4mo for those three levels alone.
That was far too long. He wanted the skill to help Sarah wake up, but the only way that would happen was if he reached Rank 5 and prompted the system to update again.
Accepting his decision, John used the remaining four skill points to complete the level and reach Rank 5.
If anybody in the universe—no matter who they were, how strong they were, or how long they’d lived for—knew that John had spent less than six months to get from Rank 3 Level 8 to Rank 5 Level 1, they would keel over in absolute shock.
He checked the system after it finished updating.
Welcome to the Idle System 5.0.
Name: John
Title: Demon
Age: 38
Idlers: 364/364
Skill Points: 0
Life Pool: 1
Toxin Pool: 36.7B
Sin: 15
Time Pool: 1y 9mo 26d 21h 24m 31s
Immortality List:
Neuron Storage - Idlers 0/364, Compress - 0/9
Misc List:
Maximum Idlers - Idlers 0/364, +1 Max Idlers - 363/2159
Maximum Workers - Idlers 0/364, +1 Idler Workers - 265/2061
There are no new skills! Why?! Give me the skill to wake Sarah up!
Thoughts of Sarah never waking up flashed through his mind; a sharp panic began to rise in the back of his throat. His vision blurred as the racing fears bubbled up...
‘Ding!’
Emotional state back to normal.
Even with the system’s help, he had to tell himself to calm down. His thoughts wandered, gradually losing steam and landing on a spark of hope.
If getting to Rank 5 couldn’t fix the problem... then maybe getting to Rank 6, 7, or 9 will!
When he calmed down back to his normal state of mind, he took a deep breath and put all Idlers into Max Workers.
The skill levelled up once every second again. After 230 levels, the time required to level the skill increased. He followed the same procedure he had for the previous rank. When the skill reached over ten minutes of time between levels, he turned Continue off then put the Idlers into Max Idlers. This time, instead of spending four months to get to Level 22 in both skills, he used the Time Pool.
He checked the only new skill in the system.
Neuron Storage:
Compress: Each level compresses the units inside the neurons, each level increases storage by 1 trillion units. At level 9, the user can store 10 trillion units.
A thought struck John as he read the description.
The description never specified if it meant Life Power or Toxin Power—it just said units. Does it mean it doesn’t matter which one I store?
John recalled a description he read about the ranks. To reach Rank 6, he needed at least 1 trillion units of Life Power. That converted to 200 billion Toxin Power units. He only had about a fifth of that amount needed. If he continued cultivating the way he was used to, it would take him another eight years and five months to harvest the right amount.
John put all Idlers into the Neuron Storage skill. The time came up as 1mo. The original time would have been around 1,000 years—a whole millennium! He used all the Time Pool to reach four levels. The times totalled to one year and three months altogether. The fifth skill came up as 1y 4mo—he only had 2mo 26d 21h 23m 50s left in the Time Pool— but he used it all.
Immortality List:
Neuron Storage - Idlers 616/616, Compress - 4/9, Time - 1y 1mo 1d 2h 36m 10s
Most cultivators couldn’t pass Rank 6 because of the natural defence. It started when you entered Rank 6 because the sheer amount of Life Power at that stage was near uncontrollable. It only got worse as each level progressed; the requirement for each of them was another trillion Life Power on top of the previous amount. All this while having to strengthen the branches throughout the body.
Even though the neurons had space to store the amount, most cultivators couldn’t control it, let alone store it. If they couldn’t gain more Life Power than what they were losing, they would lose enough Life Power to drop back to Rank 5. Then, to reach Rank 7, they would need to reach the maximum Life Power possible for cultivators—10 trillion! It only became controllable when they finished strengthening all cells in the body and reached Rank 8.
The strengthened cells of Rank 8 wouldn’t let Life Power through; only the strengthened branches could release Life Power. The cells pushed the Life Power inside the body towards the neurons where it was then stored.
For me, though, to get Rank 7, I would only need 2 trillion Toxin Power instead of 10 trillion Life Power. It should be an amount I can still control. That means that at Rank 8, while everybody else will be stuck at their limits, I will continue gaining Life Power and transforming it into Toxin Power.
In terms of only Life Power, Sarah and I will be five times stronger than anybody else in the universe…
The only thing we’d need to fear are these soul attacks I’ve read about. Though I’ve only read a little and don’t understand it all yet, if our souls are strong enough then we would only need to fear the people above Rank 9.
Title: Rank 5!
Chapter 3
Leaving
John tried to plan out his next course of action.
To gather enough Toxins to Reach Rank 6, it would take him less than nine years, but the skills would take much longer. Without the Time Pool, it would have taken him over thirty years to get to Rank 5! The skills to get to Rank 6 would take him over thirty years, too, but John couldn’t help but contemplate about Rank 7. It might take over fifty years or even a hundred years if he had to guess. Rank
8 could take hundreds of years, and Rank 9 could take thousands. John fumbled with his thumbs, a bit distraught. Was there another way he could level up faster?
I need to gather sins in the billions every year while I gather Life Power at the same time. That’s the fastest way to get Rank 6 and higher. It’s the fastest way to wake Sarah up.
John looked at the system’s description of the sins and one sentence caught his attention.
If someone uses a borrowed knife to do any of the crimes because of the seven sins, they both generate points.
John smiled.
I can work with this. While I gather Life Power, I can get people to do things for me to generate sins. Then, when they’re no longer useful, I can kill them and double the number of sin points I get from them!
But I’m not sure if this will work. I’ll have to test it. Even if it does work, it will only work on mortals that are too afraid to act against me. They’re the only ones I can scare into following my every command.
Settling on his plan, he walked out of the cultivation caves and went through the teleport rune inside his master’s house. Arriving inside their home on the Sword Sect’s planet, he teleported again to the worker puppet chef. Without speaking a word, John teleported his worker back into the cultivation room.
Now with the puppet in the room where Sarah was sleeping, John ordered the other fighter puppets to stand down. He gave the cook puppet a command to make sure Sarah read the note he left upon waking up. The chef was also ordered to make sure the air holes were always open and free of creatures, and if it wasn’t, he would tell the fighter puppet who would then deal with it. This was the best John could do to protect Sarah in his absence.
Before he left, he scribbled a small “PTO” on the corner of the note, turned the parchment around, and wrote down another brief message. Turning the note back around and placing the helmet on one corner to keep it in place, John smiled and leaned over to kiss Sarah goodbye.