Another fiasco.
Monster level increased by 10 (current: 51).
1037 meters reached.
The stone flew forward once more, only one of the modified creatures caught it midair and swallowed it before it could touch the ground. Not only that, but the rest of the monsters stopped their headlong rush, looked around, and charged Tailyn. They were so close that even his force shield didn’t help—the boy didn’t have enough room to throw out his hands. His body exploded in pain. The nearest monster pierced his shoulder through with a horn, and Tailyn’s vision faded. A salty taste appeared in his mouth, the space around him filled with damage reports, and regeneration showed him how long it needed to get him back in working order. But just then, with hope nearly lost, the boy felt his battle calm settle over him.
Nothing was important anymore. The pain disappeared. The white film that had settled over his vision was swept away as if by a gust of wind. Suddenly, the monsters were moving as slowly as turtles in mud, even the bastard who had caught Tailyn unable to keep hold of him. The boy jerked, the horn broke, and the boy landed on his feet.
There was no using his cards. They required holding up to his face so he could breathe magic strength onto them and bring their force crashing down on his enemies, and so it didn’t even cross his mind to use them. Taking a step forward, Tailyn placed a palm on the nearest monster and closed his eyes for a moment. When they opened once more, there was nothing human about them.
What had taken their place was a thick layer of blue noa.
The monster flew backward with such force that it was like a dozen enormous elephants had reared back and crashed into him. And as it flew, it cleared a path for Tailyn, though the boy didn’t even think about running. Mages didn’t run. They moved steadily forward, annihilating everything in their path. Even as a system message appeared to let Tailyn know what had just happened, his complete calm took it in stride.
You spent 5% of your mana on the Air Shove ability.
Tailyn didn’t know what a kilogram to square meter was, but he was only too aware that the result intellect at fifty-two got him meant he needed to push the attribute as high as it would go. The same went for his mysticism. Without the ability to quickly replenish his mana, he wasn’t going to be able to use his magic as fast as he would have liked. It was time to reevaluate his development strategy. But that was for later. He was too busy moving forward.
Monster level increased by 10 (current: 61).
1251 meters reached.
You spent 5% of your mana on the Air Blade ability.
Tailyn was in complete control. With the local beasts adapting, he had to continually come up with something new to surprise them, changing his attack every minute. He didn’t even check to see if they’d developed immunity to his shoves and instead began slicing into them with invisible blades. It was a terrifying spectacle: bodies shattered, spraying a dark goo everywhere that didn’t have time to disappear before it slowed movement and hide traps and ditches from Tailyn’s perception. In fact, it got so bad that Tailyn was thrown backwards a few times, erasing his hard-won his progress. A trap just about cut off his leg as the steel teeth dug all the way through to the bone. But even that wasn’t enough to break the boy’s calm. Instead, he simply polished off another +100% mana flask, threw his arms to the sides, and got to work on his next bit of magic.
You spent 35% of your mana on the Force Armor ability.
You’re spending 1% of your mana every 5 seconds to maintain the Force Armor ability.
The new ability cost as much as much as teleporting even without the maintenance cost, but that didn’t bother Tailyn. He had fifteen more complete mana regeneration flasks in his inventory, so his blue bar wasn’t going to give him any issues. Safety came first in that particular instance.
Monster level increased by 10 (current: 71).
1402 meters reached.
The air blade was retired, swept aside by a whirlwind of darkness that took the same 5% of Tailyn’s mana to use. But the modified monsters didn’t have a chance against it. Black strokes swept forward and backward, protecting Tailyn from them and letting him leisurely move forward toward his goal.
Monster level increased by 10 (current: 81).
You died!
Obstacle Course complete. Your result: 1688 meters.
Their latest modification had turned the monsters into absolute killing machines. Tailyn hadn’t even had time to think about protecting himself by the time one of their agile best threw himself forward and pierced the boy’s chest. One short burst of sharp pain later, the space around him switched back to the gloomy room in the ancient laboratory. His calm disappeared. His heart pounded so quickly it threatened to leap right out of his chest. But it wasn’t the battle that had his nerves on edge; it was the new messages that had done the trick.
Congratulations!
You proved your strength!
***
Reward received: Second chance. You have the opportunity to redesign your character, deleting parameters you don’t need and removing debuffs.
All your parameters have been set to Editing with the exception of permanent skills.
All active attributes and skills in your release are available to you.
Current level: 100.
Bonus received: 188 additional parameter points.
Chapter 9
You have 60 minutes to edit your character.
JUST MOMENTS AFTER unlocking the ability to make changes to himself, an uncomfortable timer popped up in front of Tailyn. It was just like the System—it offered an incredible opportunity with one hand; it limited it with the other. But what made it so incredible? Unlike tears of Alron, which basically performed the same reset, it didn’t come with the sneaking doubt that you might not be able to get back everything you lost. Even complete access to all attributes and skills didn’t make a difference. Was regeneration an active parameter, for example? How about card saturation? Both of those had been pulled from the available list with antiquated agreements, so what were the chances they wouldn’t be up for selection? There was an enormous risk. And that risk was missing when it came to Tailyn’s situation.
But the most interesting difference between the two reset paths was that additional lines had appeared in the character table:
Mana debuff: -1000 (Correct entry: 100 parameter points)
Changed named item parameters (Correct entry: 100 parameter points)
Birth restrictions (Correct entry: 300 parameter points)
The prices were tough to stomach, which was why Tailyn took some time to think. The boy knew he could rule out making changes to the second line—the named items he used were free of requirements as it was. And judging by how high their level was, any new acquisitions were going to take a substantial parameter investment, which the crystal ban lasting the next almost ten years made untenable. The only way Tailyn was going to pick anything up was after he introduced it to a dragon’s tear. There were no other options.
The mana debuff raised similar questions. It didn’t get in the way of using cards since real mana worked with percentages instead of absolute quantities, making the total amount of mana he had irrelevant. The spell quality was the same either way. Of course, there were issues recharging cards, particularly if that was something he was going to be doing regularly, only he didn’t. Card drawing and recharging weren’t anything he had an interest in.
And that meant the only debuff he really needed to check out was the one about birth restrictions. He’d never even heard of that. Without ever noticing problems, where had it come from? That was his starting point.
You deleted Herbalism: Ordinary Loach, Ordinary Daisy, Ordinary Lavender.
128 free skill points received (128).
***
You deleted Alchemist: Alchemical Fire, Acid, Cold Explosion, Shield Restoration Potion.
164 free skill points received (292).
***
You spent 300 parameter points
(292 skill points, 8 bonus parameter points).
Birth restrictions removed.
Character modified.
While the System was changing something in its databases, Tailyn found himself frowning. He didn’t like the fact that he could only spent skill points on skills. They didn’t work for attributes. That put a damper on his plans, definitely making it a positive that he’d spent most of his useless parameters on removing those restrictions. It made him wonder if tears of Alron had the same feature.
Bonuses received:
— All store sections unlocked.
— Parameter point totals required to boost parameters past level 100 reduced. Current values: 3 parameter points for levels 100 to 150 (was 10), 10 parameter points for levels 151 to 200 (was 30), 20 parameter points for levels after 200 (was 50).
A curse rolled off Tailyn’s tongue, one dirty enough that he was glad the reptiloid was still unconscious. Why was the god so unfair? Why did those whose parents were able to pay for the bonus when they were born get everything while simple people like Tailyn or Motar had to settle for crumbs? Did the god really care for nothing but gobbling up gifts?
Somewhere deep down inside, Tailyn felt a tiny crack open up in his absolute faith in the System. A perfect being wouldn’t brook that kind of injustice. It should treat rich and poor identically—everyone was equal in its sight. But no. What Tailyn believed in shattered. The System cared nothing for inequality, simply doing what was in its own best interests to maximize what it earned for every bit of help it offered. Even the hour Tailyn had been given was a testament to that.
The boy glanced over at the two remaining robots contrary to the god’s will, though he looked away immediately. No, he was mistaken—the god couldn’t be that callous. Presumably, he, puny boy that he was, had missed something, some great hidden meaning that reduced most of the planet’s population to second-class citizens. There had to be a secret his young mind hadn’t yet understood. In an effort to distract himself, Tailyn pulled up his list of attributes to see what he could do without...
Attributes
Intellect
52
Mysticism
52
Wisdom
52
Armor
52
Regeneration
52
Perception
52
Strength
52
Agility
52
Cartographer
52
Concealment
52
Resilience
52
Integration
52
Monster Knowledge
51
Marauder
51
Scanner
46
Anatomy Master
51
Frankenstein
59
Shooting
51
Coordination
51
First of all, Tailyn decided that his days as a card user were behind him. The boy had gotten a kick out of what he’d been able to pull off during the local mission, and normal life no longer held any allure for him. And that meant his intellect was his top priority. It determined the power and duration of all his spells, though mysticism was important, too—mana restoration speed was critical for anyone out to tread the slippery path of pure magic. But even those two were useless without an attribute that cut spell costs. Spending 5% every time he wanted to scratch his nose wasn’t going to work. So, with the reptiloid still unconscious, the boy had nothing better to do than ask the System for help. The answer came back quickly enough to restore some of his confidence in the god. As long as it was meeting him halfway, it couldn’t be evil or the enemy. Tailyn was just missing something.
Optimization. Description: an attribute that streamlines human abilities. For each level, Optimization reduces the restoration speed and cost of abilities by 0.2%, up to 50%. It also impacts all active companions.
That was exactly what Tailyn had been looking for. Without the slightest hesitation, Tailyn grabbed the attribute and invested one hundred of his bonus parameter points in it. Both he and his dragon were going to be able to use their abilities much faster. For the dragon’s fire breathing, the attribute reduced the recharge time from forty seconds to thirty-two seconds. That may not have been enough, but it was everything in battle. The System instantly reacted to the change:
Optimization +100 (100).
The formulas for your main parameters have been modified as a result of your Optimization.
***
You spent 28% of your mana on the Force Armor ability.
It worked.
Tailyn couldn’t hold back a happy shout when he saw that the spell cost had been reduced by 20%. But while he couldn’t wait to try everything else, time was ticking.
Intellect was critical. Mysticism was, as well. Wisdom... The boy glanced over at the dragon. Without the attribute, legendary cards would have been out of reach, and that meant he had to keep it at thirty above his dragon’s level. The golden creature was at just level eight—the attribute’s level fifty-two was plenty.
Regeneration was staying; armor was on the chopping block. Perception... That one was more yes than no given how useful it was to find the connections between things. Strength and agility were gone. No longer did Tailyn dream of jumping and hauling around large rocks, and he could use simple magic to replace what those two attributes did for him.
But the boy paused for a moment. He needed to check. Not exactly sure what he needed, he imagined his body filling with flexibility, fluidity, coordination, even strength. And the System didn’t make him wait long.
You spent 4% of your mana on the Athleticism ability.
There it was, rendering coordination obsolete regardless of how important the latter was for flying. Athleticism gave him everything he needed from all three of those parameters for a hundred seconds. The boy just had to remember to activate it in time.
That thought made him pause.
What if he forgot about activating athleticism in the heat of battle and fell off a cliff, for example? What if he couldn’t jump or lift something just because he hadn’t thought to activate his ability in time? A chill ran down the boy’s spine. Was cardless magic really to be trusted? He thought for a few moments about leaving strength and agility just in case—they’d gotten him out of many a tight jam...
No, the god couldn’t have missed coming up with something that kept mages from constantly worrying about potential problems. There had to be something that activated spells automatically.
Mentality – Automation. Description: a skill that activates magic abilities automatically. The number of abilities the skill can launch at once increases by 1 with each 50 levels.
If there was anything Tailyn could do, it was count. The skill was definitely a useful one, only it brought up an issue that negated its entire upside. If it activated two skills at once, it would cost the boy 8% of his mana every 120 seconds even after optimization. And that was exactly how much he’d been planning on investing in his intellect. Would his blue bar be able to recharge? Mysticism wasn’t all that fast, regenerating mana every hour rather than every minute. With 40,000 mana right then, regenerating 20% of it with his mysticism would have taken half a lifetime, and that was only with the debuff that was strangely coming in handy.
Tailyn stopped short.
Swiping everything aside, he went back to look at the line describing the mana debuff. It cost him 1,000 for being slow to respond during the mekbar local mission. But while the ability to edit the line implied that it could be removed, Tailyn had other plans.
You deleted Alchemist: Lervan Potion, Yeti Potion, Salamander Potion, Basilisk Potion.
164 free skill points received (164)
***
You spent 100 parameter points (64 skill points remaining).
Mana Burn debuff adjusted.
Character modified.
Tartila Mine (The Alchemist Book #5): LitRPG Series Page 12