Alpha Zero (Alpha LitRPG Book 1)

by Arthur Stone

  Spices came in great varieties. And our caravan was transporting dozens of sacks, each wagon carrying a portion of the total load. Kashik’s wagon held the most valuable ones, while the cheaper ones were distributed among the others. Of course, “cheaper” almost never meant “cheap.” Generally speaking, the prices of spices ranged from expensive to very expensive to “king’s ransom” expensive.

  The sack I was tasked with recovering held the cheapest kind. Something along the lines of sprouted shalecrust seeds, which had been Teshimi’s specialty. He had been the clan’s only harvester to successfully grow the capricious plant on the local soil without detriment to its potency. Or lily mushroom pollen, harvested in the woods and groves along the relatively safe right bank of Redriver. Though slightly more expensive, it was nonetheless within the means of most farmers.

  All that is to say, the value of the bloody sack was negligible, yet far higher than the value of my life. Kashik wouldn’t feel even a pang of regret at the sight of me being torn to pieces by kote. Or rather, he would regret only the fact that the simplest method of salvaging the caravan’s property had failed.

  I couldn’t care less for his spices, but I did care for my life. And so I was exercising caution from the start, taking care with each step to avoid drawing attention to myself with splashes.

  Mother had tried raising me like a normal child. And that implied giving me an education. Lacking the means to hire teachers, she had taken my education into her own hands, only occasionally inviting specialists she deemed particularly knowledgeable to supplement her teachings. I had been too busy playing the dimwit to risk asking them clever questions, but one particular story about a rider being attacked by kote while crossing Redriver had caught my attention. Assuming the creatures to be similar to piranhas, I later asked others to tell me what they knew, and a couple of more stories cleared up the misconception. The kote weren’t anything like piranhas, after all.

  They were more like sharks.

  Kote were drawn by movement and smell. As long as I didn’t expose myself with either, the monsters might not sense my presence even a few feet away. Of course, these were only conjectures, but none of the stories I’d heard contradicted them. In fact, they only supported the hypothesis.

  My body may be scrawny, but it wasn’t small for my years. As I neared the wagon, the water level reached just below my midsection. The current had cleared the waters of murk, and despite my being on full alert as I scanned the area, I couldn’t detect any kote presence.

  Until the very end.

  The bloody sack was almost within reach when, suddenly, an enormous dark torpedo shape of the river predator splashed some thirty feet to my right. Startled, I glimpsed a bloodied ribcage in its jaws. More like half a ribcage by now. Somewhere around here raged the feast over the remains of the caravan’s unluckiest members. No, the feast is ending. There’s barely any meat left on those bones.

  The coachman had been able to free the horse, after all. The harness floated on the surface not far from here, all cut up. Good news for the horse, but bad news for me—I would have preferred for the ravenous fish to get more of a haul, not less. Otherwise, they were more likely to keep scouring the waters for seconds.

  And I didn’t want to still be here when that happened.

  Was that my imagination or had a subsurface wave hit my legs from a monster swimming nearby? Fear was a superb stimulant for the mind’s eye. Suddenly I thought I saw all of the Redriver kote swarming around me, occupying every inch of space of this body of water.

  Grabbing the sack in these conditions would be way too dangerous. I didn’t even know what kind of spices it held. In case of mineral dust from bitter lakes, I wouldn’t even be able to pick it up; in case of something lighter, I might still only move it a few feet before toppling over.

  So I tried to distract the kote the only way I could. Holding my hand out carefully, I lowered into the water the rags caked with blood, one by one. The current picked them up and began carrying them away, forming halos that exuded a very particular smell that many of Redriver’s smaller dwellers found very compelling. Insects and their larvae, midges, even freshwater shrimp. These were everywhere, and they weren’t about to let such goodness pass by unmolested. I counted on them making a commotion that might attract larger and deadlier creatures, leading them away from me.

  One of the rags was pulled underwater with a soft splash. A large back crested with black paired fins broke the surface next to another one. All of the nearby kote would hopefully join the party. Excellent. Now let’s see if my trick with the blueleaf stalk will work. Stories claimed that the beasts could sense poison, but they shouldn’t ignore rags soaked in blood. And I hoped to be far away from here by the time they realized the rags didn’t contain any edible treats.

  The sack wasn’t heavy at all. In fact, it was more of a pouch than a sack. In terms of volume, it couldn’t hold even twenty pounds of flour, and its current contents were similar to flour in density. The load would be a trifle to a normal person; alas, I was anything but normal. Before the attack on the homestead, I would have collapsed immediately upon taking the sack. Thankfully, having grown sufficiently accustomed to the amulet’s enhancements, my body didn’t let me down. Though not without difficulty, I heaped the load up on my shoulder, then turned back around.

  And turned to stone. Because the next wave that pushed at my feet definitely wasn’t my imagination. I even saw the shadow of an enormous kote as it nearly brushed up against me. The beast might have been the largest one in Redriver, the size of a man-eating croc. It was moving toward its splashing cousin in the wake of the floating rags, and had nearly smashed right into me with its ridged nose. What if the thing belatedly realized that I wasn’t a snag or a lump of algae, and went back to check?

  And how else would it check if not with its teeth?

  There was a much larger splash downstream, as if made by a galloping horse. I looked askew to see a medium-sized kote surrounded by the fins of several others, clearly intrigued by their cousin’s boisterous state.

  The beast was indeed behaving strangely, keeping to the surface as it twisted and turned every which way and smacked its tail on the water periodically. In the gaping jaw, amid two rows of sharp crooked teeth, I glimpsed scraps of dark cloth. And a bright yellow stalk as well.

  My plan had worked. Not exactly how I had envisioned it, but it had worked.

  Blueleaf was an interesting plant. It was rarely found on the right bank, but the left bank abounded with its creeping bushes. Its stalks were similar to steel in terms of elasticity, losing this attribute a few hours after being cut. Children entertaining themselves with this material had to keep cutting fresh stalks. It had been an easy thing to notice when observing the local life.

  The stalks were peeled, sharpened from both ends, and spun into tight braids before being wrapped with cloth. I had counted on the kote swallowing it whole. And the creatures’ digestive acid was extremely potent, frequently utilized in certain alchemical recipes as a highly effective solvent. In other words, there was a chance that the cloth would quickly perish in the beast’s belly, releasing the wooden spring. The trick was similar to that used by Eskimos when hunting polar bears, only they used whalebone concealed in a frozen lump of fat. The fat would soften in the bear’s warm belly, and the destructive agent would straighten, its sharp ends inflicting fatal wounds from the inside.

  Kote were known to sense poison and similar dirty tricks. This one might have suspected something as well, but its hunger and agitation hadn’t allowed it to avoid the fragrant lure. And as it chewed the cloth, the stalk sprung free, skewering the jaw above and below, and now it couldn’t shut its mouth. But there was more to its strange behavior. The monster fish was moving as though it had been partially paralyzed, whether from sheer shock or from some serious injury.

  The behavior of the other kote suggested that a new feast was shaping up, this one of the cannibal variety. More and more of them were gath
ering, swarming their sickly cousin. Still at risk of being rammed into by another rushing beast, I kept moving. Quickly enough to increase the distance, but not so quickly as to get noticed.

  Cause if that happened, I wouldn’t last a minute.

  You’ve dealt significant damage to the kote. The kote has died. You are one of numerous creatures responsible for its death. Your actions are recognized as your first ever defeat over an enemy: kote (partial involvement).

  Kote defeated!

  You receive:

  Lesser Symbol of Chi x2

  Talent Mark, Scent of Blood x1

  First defeat of an enemy: kote (partial involvement). You receive:

  Lesser Symbol of Chi x2

  Lesser Personal Attribute Embodiment, Agility x1

  The messages caught me at a midway point to the shore. I didn’t even need to look within to read them, having grown sufficiently accustomed to the changes to note them without any additional straining. Not every detail, sure, but that wasn’t necessary.

  So the wounded kote had been finished off by its bloodthirsty brethren. Still, the Order had determined that my contribution to the kill had been significant enough to warrant a generous reward.

  So generous, in fact, that I should think long and hard about my next steps. My existing knowledge was perhaps too deficient to maximize this opportunity.

  Largely because my knowledge on the matter was pure theory. And theory unbacked by practice was, by default, deficient.

  Chapter 11

  Like Water in a Sieve

  Degrees of Enlightenment: Unknown

  Attributes: none

  Skills: none

  States: none

  When trying to find analogues to the local realities, it was easier to imagine that I’d gotten stuck in a video game with all the bells and whistles conceivable, and not kidnapped from my home world with the aim of being sacrificed.

  Classic role-playing games measured a character’s development by their level. In Rock, the equivalent was a character’s degrees of enlightenment—milestones achieved only after accumulating a certain amount of chi. My situation on that front was just as pitiful as on all the other fronts—I was still a big fat zero. The one change was that a new ring-shaped indicator had been unlocked, displaying how much chi I still needed to accumulate before achieving the next milestone, or, in gaming lingo, “leveling up.”

  The degrees themselves weren’t helpful. They didn’t add to the natives’ strength, agility, stamina or magical ability. Each seventh degree reached unlocked a new talent, and though that could be quite valuable, you couldn’t claim that it made the person an order of magnitude stronger. So, if you didn’t delve into the details, you might dismiss the local equivalent to a “level” as little more than a status number.

  However, the truth was that this number determined a great deal. For starters, each degree came with a cap (limit) to its associated attributes. There were five primary ones in all, which I called Strength, Stamina, Agility, Perception, and Spirit. The first three are relatively easy to get and develop. In most cases, they were available from birth, meaning even commoners were afforded this set. The last two, on the other hand, were much more difficult to acquire, typically reserved for nobles and their inner circles.

  If you failed to develop the attributes afforded by a degree before reaching the next one, there would be no do-overs. Suppose you were a lowly peasant’s son, having achieved the first level by virtue of simply being born and inheriting from your ancestors all of the presents innate to nearly all newborns. Your parents were too poor to nourish you with precisely the right spices to optimize this essential growth period. As a result, you weren’t able to max out more than six attributes at this degree, and their number might not even correspond. If you raised them all, you would end up with one attribute at three, another at two, and the third at one. This was the most common distribution, and those who achieved it were referred to as “pure omegas.” The unluckiest ones who failed to reach even this were known as “lesser omegas, “pseudo-omegas,” “bottom omegas” and other such epithets reserved for the dregs of Rock.

  For those like me.

  Most peasants raised their Stamina to three, Strength to two, and Agility to one. It was the optimal build for the type of work a common laborer was born to do, meaning to toil by the sweat of their brow from dawn till dusk. Once these six attributes were maxed out at one degree, the peasant could “level up” and start working on maxing out the next set of six.

  And so on and so forth, degree after degree. The process was potentially infinite, limited by only the grave. And death, too, could be delayed by developing harmoniously, unlocking the right skills, avoiding harming one’s health with bad habits, paying healers for timely rejuvenation treatments, and, of course, utilizing spices.

  Attributes were more than status indicators, but actually increased one’s strength, stamina, and so on. Furthermore, attributes were key to unlocking and developing all sorts of useful talents.

  And talents could be quite a serious boon. For instance, unlocking a Marksman talent and adhering to certain conditions made it possible to become a pretty good archer without so much as ever handling a bow. Such a path, however, was not advisable, as harmonious development necessitated practice to “lock in” any theoretical gains.

  Sticking with the Marksman example, to get the talent you first needed to acquire the talent mark, whether personal or common. Defeating opponents with this talent granted a small chance of getting it yourself. Or you could luck into a situation and be rewarded with it, as had happened with me when treating the wounded soldier. Failing that, you could train like a madman until the ORDER deemed you worthy of acquiring the talent mark as a prize for your dogged persistence and efforts.

  Without any Agility though, you still could not unlock it. This world’s conditions were harsh. Once you did pump your talent to level 10, your progress would stop until your Enlightenment reached 2nd Degree—and your Agility reached 3.

  I wasn’t one hundred percent sure about the numbers, but only about the main principle. The big takeaway was that you didn’t need to attend academies, apprentice with artisans or trainers, or even train yourself. Though all of those things were obviously helpful, they weren’t nearly as important as developing your own hidden parameters.

  Teshimi’s success in growing spices was rooted in more than just his magic touch. He had possessed a number of relatively advanced attributes and talents that enabled him to excel at such a difficult task. The plants he had worked with required special care that could only be provided by an appropriately skilled caretaker. By executing him, mother had killed the proverbial golden goose, and Camai had been right to be flabbergasted, as the clan had had no other who could have replaced a master of Teshimi’s caliber, meaning not only his degrees of enlightenment, but the required sets of attributes and other talents besides.

  Grooming a new master was always an option, but one that would take years and years, as the process of developing one’s talents was both long and expensive.

  So where did that leave me, a tragic anomaly in the world of Rock as a thirteen-year-old teenager with zero degrees of enlightenment? I hadn’t gotten the first degree at birth, and the defect hadn’t been rectified despite mother’s considerable efforts. All attempts to fill me with chi had been futile.

  Like filling a sieve with water.

  But something had changed in the attack on the homestead. I had gotten access to a kind of interface with which I could now observe and partially manage my inner parameters. For instance, the partially filled ring symbolized the degree’s progress. If I filled it to full with chi, I would finally unlock what others received as their birthright. That was how insignificant this achievement truly was.

  Insignificant, yet so very difficult for yours truly.

  If not impossibly difficult.

  If the numbers indicated in the parameters of my present—and pitiful—degree of enlightenment were true
, I would need to accumulate eight hundred and eighty-eight units of chi to move on to the next degree. Three 8s, three symbols of infinity. That hardly felt coincidental.

  But let’s put that aside.

  The events at the homestead had partially filled my ring. During my first introspection, the counter had been at sixty-two units. Meaning I had eight hundred twenty-six to go.

  Though technically not impossible, that number still felt well out of my reach. As far as I knew, your average newborn received about a hundred chi at the start of their life, which was enough to reach the first degree of enlightenment. From then on, some had to accumulate more than others to keep advancing, but only because their affluent parents weren’t just raising their kids, but actively expanding their vessels. After all, the more of the primordial energy one imbibed, the more opportunity they would have in life.

  So, in a way, I was one lucky bastard, my “infinite” vessel having been stretched to the max from the very start.