The Land: Predators

by Aleron Kong

  The mention of his children grabbed his attention but only momentarily, as pure energy continued to flow into him. Focusing was difficult, but the question of whether to let the “Universe” decide for him hovered insistently in his gaze. Richter didn’t like the idea of relinquishing control, he never had, but he also didn’t like being a blind moron. The songs of the pixies were powerful magic. It seemed to him that disregarding the magic of friendly celestial beings as he made choices about consuming a celestial fruit would be a bad move. He selected “Yes” and hoped for the best.

  The prompts continued to cascade.

  Know This! One of your Primary Attributes has been chosen in accordance with your true desire to be increased. This boost is normally 1%, but for consuming the First Fruit you gain a +10% boon. Your chosen stat is: Intelligence.

  Adjusted Intelligence: 72.6

  Effective Intelligence: 73

  Richter’s mana points soared from seven hundred and eight to seven hundred and seventy-eight. As always, he searched himself to see if he could detect a change in his intellect, but he felt nothing. He didn’t have time to focus on it as more windows appeared.

  Know This! One of your Secondary Attributes has been chosen in accordance with your true desire to be increased. Your chosen stat is: Resilience. The boost for this Secondary Attribute is normally 10%, but for consuming the First Fruit you gain a +100% boon.

  Know This! You have increased a Secondary Attribute: Resilience. In every life trials arise, and many fail their tests. This Attribute is a measure of your ability to withstand the worst of conditions before succumbing to death. You may cling to the mortal coil with spectral fingers, holding onto life for a scant few additional moments than should be allowed by gods and demons. You will be able to withstand the blows of fate, with your head held high, bleeding and bruised and pale. You have no guarantee for success, but by birth and will your own Resilience has risen to +3.6. The base Resilience of most people in The Land is +1.

  Your base Resilience of +1.0 is affected by several factors:

  1) Endurance: Your Primary Attribute increases your Resilience by +0.35

  2) Resolute: The Quality you gained after your first death has increased your Resilience by +0.15

  3) Tortured, but Unbroken: Your ill-advised interaction with Auditor Nexus resulted in months of perceived pain. Only a fool would threaten a being with powers akin to a demigod in their own domain, but a long-lived fool may be the most resilient creature in existence. The experience has increased your Resilience by +0.3

  4) First Fruit of the Quickening: +100% to Resilience

  Total Resilience: +3.6 (base +1.8)

  The torrent of power began to slacken a bit, allowing Richter greater control over his conscious thoughts. He was still at the mercy of the celestial power, but the initial burst had been like standing next to a frozen waterfall when it first thawed and now he was merely being swept along in the stream rather than buffeted by it.

  As his reason returned, he reflected upon the choices that had been made for him. The fact that the Universe had chosen to increase Resilience, and not the other secondary attributes he was aware of like his new Creativity which would clearly be a boon, was somewhat disturbing. It was true that his stubbornness, a trait that had been termed by others as his tendency to be a “raging asshole,” had been both a blessing and a curse in his lifetime.

  For good or ill, it had definitely been necessary since coming to The Land. Death and pain had been constant companions, perhaps even more than Sion and Terrod. He could see the wisdom in increasing his Resilience, but he worried what it boded for his future… Then he saw the bit about Nexus, and his worry was replaced by the greatest annoyance he’d ever experienced in life. That walking anal pimple actually was kind of a god.

  More notifications flowed.

  Know This! Consuming the fruit of the Quickening increases the affinity of one of your skills. The choice given to all is:

  1) Choose a specific known skill and receive a 1% boost to the current affinity.

  2) Choose a known skill at random and receive a 5% boost to the current affinity.

  3) Choose a random skill, known or unknown, and receive a 10% boost to the current affinity

  Know This! For consuming the First Fruit, all of the above bonuses are increased by 10x

  Know This! Increasing any affinity above 100% will trigger an automatic increase in skill level. This increase will continue, decreasing the total affinity by 10% per level, until your affinity is 100% or less.

  Know This! Increasing any affinity above 50% will trigger an automatic awakening of the skill, awarding the recipient skill level 1.

  In accordance with your true desire, the Universe has chosen to increase a random skill affinity by 100%

  Congratulations! You have learned the skill: Cloud Running. Few outside of the Sky Monks of Yunfei Monastery have ever learned this skill. The feline monks which call the monastery their home, the Fordij, may have some passing resemblance to snow leopards, but they are far from animals. Their culture is among the richest and most venerable in The Land. Their martial arts make them a force on par with almost any fighters in The Land, but what they are most known for is the skill Cloud Running. Focusing their chi, they can glide on the air for short periods of time. True masters of this skill can climb to the highest heights with nothing but air beneath them. +0.25s of aerial glide time. +2% strength of jumps.

  Congratulations! You have reached skill levels 2, 3, …, and 10 in Cloud Running. +2.5 seconds of aerial glide time. +20% strength from jumps.

  Congratulations! You have advanced from Novice to Initiate in: Cloud Running. You may now jump upon non-solid surfaces. Using pure gaseous mediums to jump again increases the Stamina required by 200%. Other mediums drain less Stamina depending on their density, viscosity and other factors.

  You have received 1,250 (base 2,000 x 1.25 x 0.5) bonus experience for reaching level 10 in the skill: Cloud Running.

  XP deficit remaining: -98,783

  Enjoy these gifts, Richter of the Mist Village. You could have chosen many different paths that would not have allowed this celestial tree to bear fruit in The Land. Your unselfish choice to allow Elora to bond to the Quickening has not been forgotten. The Quickening itself is a being of pure energy that normally does not directly notice the lives around it, but in this moment in time, you are thanked.

  Had the tree just thanked him?

  Consuming the fruit of the Quickening is the first step in evolving your own nature. In all the realities and dimensions of The Land, a celestial chaos seed would be a formidable monster…

  And what the hell does that mean, Richter asked himself. The flow of energy had finally ceased. Nothing was left of the glowing silver fruit, not skin and not seeds. Behind him he heard Hisako speak, “Watasachi wi forsuto ne kanza shimateru.” Every other sprite reverently repeated the phrase. Richter’s Gift of Tongues ability triggered, ‘Heavenly Forest, we thank you for your love and gifts.’ It seemed appropriate, so the chaos seed said the words himself with all solemnity.

  Then a massive grin broke out over his face. He was surrounded both by comrades who had stood by him through fire and blood and hundreds of celestial fruits. It was time to show his people just how smart they’d been in choosing him as a friend!

  CHAPTER 55 – Day 144 – Kuborn 34, 0 AoC

  Richter was about to reach for another fruit when a glimmer caught his eye. Looking down, he saw the forgotten silver rind of the First Fruit. With everything that had happened, he’d completely forgotten the outer shell of the swirling silver universe he had just consumed. He picked it up and examined it.

  You have found:

  Truesilver Rind of the First Fruit

  Durability: 138/138

  Item Class: Rare

  Weight: 0.1 kg

  Traits: This rind is from the First Fruit of the Quickening. Comprised of truesilver, it is anathema to abyssal creatures. It is also deadly to those of the demon
ic and hellish planes. Evil creatures will not be able to stand its touch. A smith of sufficient skill might be able to forge this rind and others of its type into an ingot of truesilver. What a weapon that could make!

  If I ever thought that this tree was not amazing, I take it back, Richter thought with awe. Truesilver had been one of the rarest and most precious metals one could find when he’d thought The Land was only a game. It was actually a bit of a running joke to send noobs on werewolf hunts armed with silver-tipped crossbow bolts. The precious metal did absolutely nothing. One werewolf king had actually been reported to wear thick silver chains as “bling” while he slaughtered ill-prepared adventurers.

  Where those stories came from was truesilver. This gleaming metal would lay low vampires, ghouls, weres and any number of malignant creatures. He’d even heard that light reflected from truesilver could damage certain monsters, though he’d always doubted that particular tale. Seemed overpowered to the max.

  Richter looked at the silvery undersides of the thousands of leaves above, held on branches of the same color. All connected to the large octuple helix of the trunk. If the entire tree were made of truesilver, then it had an amazingly strong natural defense against malevolent creatures. It also made it even more important to keep the Quickening hidden and protected. Richter had been told that his Core buildings were enough to go to war over but it had always seemed a bit of an over-exaggeration to him. A living factory of truesilver and fruit that improved both primary and secondary attributes though… He had to keep it secret.

  He put the precious rind into his Bag of Holding. Krom would wet himself when he saw it. Elora flew up to him. She held both hands out and closed her eyes for a moment before smiling.

  “I can feel the celestial spark within you, my lord. It may take years, but I believe that if you continue to consume the fruit of the Quickening, you may one day become a celestial.”

  “That’d be nice,” Richter said with a chuckle, “but I can’t complain about what I’ve already gained just from eating the First Fruit. What matters now is that you and your children partake of the fruit as well.”

  Her mouth dropped open, “You would share the fruit with my people?”

  “It is your bonded tree,” he reminded her.

  “But it is your land! And you are my lord! Even my bonded tree that has made me and my children celestials came from you, Lord Richter!”

  Elora’s face was so earnest, that mixed with her small size and youthful face, it was all he could do not to die from the adorableness of it all. It was like puppy-sliding-on-kitchen-floor cute! He knew that would hurt the diminutive queen’s feelings though, so he just said, “I am blessed to have the service of such a wonderful people as the celestial pixies. Even more so, I am blessed to have you as a Companion, Elora.” Her face lit up and she gazed at him with just a touch of adoration. He continually had to remind himself that inside that small but womanly body there was still a child who had barely lived any life at all. She was someone who needed guidance in many ways.

  Even in this sweet moment he couldn’t pass up an opportunity to fuck with someone though. “If you feel like your people shouldn’t have access to the fruits, I’ll just give them to-”

  “No, no, my lord,” she interjected quickly, just a thread of panic in her voice. “I would be honored to accept.”

  “You’re sure?” he asked with mock seriousness. “Because I could easily give them to someone else.”

  She started to look genuinely distressed, “My lord, you were so generous to offer and I do not want to ruin this for my people. Please forgive my rash words!”

  Richter winked deliberately at her, “Then I need you to say that you want them. Say ‘I want the fruit!’”

  She looked at him in surprise, then smiled a bit bashfully. She rose to the challenge though. After straightening her small back, her four multicolored wings vibrated faster than his eyes could follow. Formally she stated, “Lord Richter, as your vassal and caretaker of the Quickening, I ask that you allow myself and my children to partake of the fruit of this celestial tree.”

  Richter cocked his head as if he was considering the manner with full gravity, but he ruined it by chuckling. Elora lasted another full second, before covering her mouth coquettishly, and laughing. Then she blurted, “I want the fruit!”

  The chaos seed bowed grandly, “Then you shall have it, my lady. How many do you need?”

  “My children can make do with less than you require due to their diminutive size. One fruit should be enough for four of them. I am considered tiny so I will need half of a fruit, if that is acceptable, my lord.”

  Richter looked at his familiar flying with the still singing pixie children and thought he knew just the tiny creature that could use the other half. “Of course it is, my Companion. Let’s gather the fruits and see how many there are.”

  “Oh, I know that. The Quickening is level two so it produced two hundred fruit.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Elora gave a small laugh, “Of course. The Quickening is my bonded. There are few things about it that I do not know.”

  Richter just nodded. With the sprites helping, he collected all of the fruit in short order. Elora had been exactly correct. One hundred and ninety-nine silver fruit rested in a loose pyramid at his feet. Including the First Fruit, that made two hundred. Twenty-four were allocated for Elora and her brood. He opened each fruit in turn, handing over the glowing inner flesh and pocketing the truesilver rinds. Except for the fact that the First Fruit had been a bit bigger, each other silver sphere looked exactly the same.

  As the pixies ate, the colors of their wings deepened. He didn’t need to split each fruit into sections. Four pixies just latched onto one of the glowing spheres, like the four points of a compass. They greedily drank in the celestial energy. Once each quartet finished, they shot into the air laughing. Elora went last, and shared the fruit with Alma. As the dragonling ate, prompts sprung up in Richter’s vision.

  You have elected to feed your familiar fruit from a Quickening. As a creature, she lacks skill affinities. In exchange, consuming the celestial power increases all her base Primary Attributes by +5%. In addition, each level she gains provides 1.05 Ability Points applied retroactively.

  Before his very eyes, Richter saw Alma change. Her body became sleeker and her wings lengthened a bit. Her fangs grew sharper as did her claws. The sooty color of her scales that made it so efficient hiding at night grew to a richer black.

  More notifications filled Richter’s view.

  Alma’s Total Adjusted Ability Points: 4.85

  Finally, consuming the fruit has instilled a celestial spark inside of the psi dragonling. The effects of this can be far reaching, but the immediate consequences are:

  1) +1% Attack and Defense vs Evil, Abyssal, Hellish and Demonic creatures, magics and effects

  2) +1% bonus to personal healing

  The +5% increase to all of her stats was awesome! Because of her size, it didn’t make much of a difference in regards to Strength, but it made a big difference to Intelligence and Wisdom. Her mana pool had increased from eight hundred twenty to eight hundred and sixty-one in the space of a minute. As great as that was though, Richter was honestly more excited about the boost to her ability points.

  Now that she was level thirty-eight, gaining additional points was proving to be especially difficult. She only got one per level. Eating the fruit had just given her a free point, and once she reached level forty-one, she’d get another! He had a strong feeling that getting her to level seven in Psi Bond was something that needed to happen sooner rather than later. Richter had no idea about what a “celestial spark” really was, but anything that protected his girl was something he could get behind. He summoned her status page and this time changed the interface to see her attribute distribution. The chaos seed liked how his little killer was progressing.

  Name: Alma

  Level: 38, 71%

  Race: Psi Dragonling


  STATS

  Health: 130

  Mana: 861

  Regen/min: 51.84

  Stamina: 180

  Regen/min: 10.8

  ATTRIBUTES

  Strength: 5

  Agility:34

  Dexterity: 35

  Constitution: 13

  Endurance: 18

  Intelligence: 86

  Wisdom: 86

  Charisma: 18

  Luck: 18

  SPELL POWER BONUSES

  Air 50%

  Life 50%

  RESISTANCES

  Air 50%

  Mental 100%

  Life 50%

  ABILITIES

  (Unused Points:4.85)

  Psi Bond – Lvl 6, points to next level: 5

  Psi Blast – Lvl 3, points to next level: 3

  Brain Drain – Lvl 7, points to next level: 7

  Psi Channeling – Lvl 2, points to next level: 2

  Richter closed Alma’s window and opened Elora’s instead. His Companion’s stats had improved just like his own, though he didn’t know what secondary attribute she had increased. It was clear that she was becoming a force to be reckoned with. Her Dexterity was insane! The three points that were auto-allocated into the stat every level, coupled with the modifier from her being a tiny creature, had almost put her over a hundred points.

  Name: Elora

  Race: Royal Celestial Pixie

  Disposition: Ally

  Profession: Herbalist

  Level: 22, 34%

  Liege Lord: Richter

  Alignment: Lawful Good (3)

  STATS

  Health: 140

  Mana: 410

  Stamina: 200

  ATTRIBUTES

  Strength: 5

  Agility: 40

  Dexterity: 95