Path of Darkness

by A P Gore

  Now all he needed was to create the flags. But where would he get some papers and a pen to practice?

  Chapter 23

  Suddenly a bunch of white paper and a blue ink pen appeared in front of him. Touching it, Jon found the paper crisp and new.

  Wow! The respawn room was a wonder. It could get him anything.

  Would it get him a burger or some coffee? Yes! Coffee, please. He ordered.

  System: Do you wish to order a coffee for 1 silver? Yes/No.

  “Can I get an expresso with two shots?”

  System: Do you wish to order an expresso with two shots for 1 silver? Yes/No.

  Grinning, he chose yes. A takeaway cup appeared in front of him, filled with a dark brown liquid. The smell. Oh god! It instantly gave him a foodgasm. His eyes closed, his mouth watered, and he licked his lips.

  God! He’d missed this fragrance badly. It had been god only knew how many days since he’d last seen this liquid. Before he went to prison, that’s for sure.

  Maybe he would have to die more often, if it meant having a cup of coffee.

  Why not start a coffee farm? Yes, he could plant the coffee trees himself. He would become a master farmer and establish a coffee empire. An empire made of coffee farms and coffee lovers. If he ever established a town, he would name it Coffee Town.

  Even the thought smelled like coffee.

  Sipping it like a king, he enjoyed the coffee to the fullest, and when he finished, he ordered one more cup. Only after finishing the second cup and ordering a third did he return his attention to the paper in front of him.

  His lips curled in a sad smile as he lifted the pen to draw the circle. In his whole life, he had drawn nothing on paper—not even when he underwent formal education for the first twenty years of his life.

  The result was clear. The circle never came out as a circle, nor anything near to the rabbit on original diagram. Sometimes the circle came out as more of a rectangle. It was like his pen had gained a mind of its own. The damn thing kept going here and there. How was he supposed to control it?

  Damn, he sucked big time at drawing. But he persisted.

  After almost one hundred tries, he drew a circle that looked like a circle and not like a plant bush. Yes, it was that bad before.

  One more hour passed, and he managed to draw two circles intersecting each other.

  Half an hour later, he’d managed to draw three almost perfect circles. Wow! He was improving. Now was the rabbit time.

  God, why couldn’t it be just a square or another circle. Or, better yet, why couldn’t it be a woman’s dashing figure? He bet he would draw that perfectly.

  Suddenly, he sighed. Thinking about a woman, he remembered his daughter Kiara. What would she be doing right now?

  The thought induced a tightness in his chest. Even in his digitized body, he felt emotions. He missed her, and it’d been a long time since he’d seen her.

  A lone tear dropped from his right eye. He hoped Kiara would benefit from the measly money he got from his contract with Baltazar.

  He stared at the ceiling. “Can I call my daughter?”

  “The calling function is enabled after achieving one thousand reputation points with a human town,” a mechanical voice replied.

  Really! His heart sang in joy. He would go to a nearby city and grind reputation. Reputation quests were common quests in the last RPG he’d played. Many players did that to get bonuses from the towns. How different would it be here?

  But to do that, he needed to draw this rabbit perfectly.

  With that thought, his speed increased, his hand moved rapidly, and he drew a deer. It totally looked like a deer. Was there a deer type formation?

  Damn, there wasn’t. The other two looked like horny deer.

  So, he continued. Drawing rabbits and avoiding horny deer.

  After some time, the timer in his vision displayed 1 hour remaining.

  Damn, he had to complete this before he got out in the world. He couldn’t keep coming back here for practice. Who knew if he would have time to draw in the game world, or what it would take to erase the formation symbol? He had no paper in the game world. Even if there was, he had no way of getting it. And he didn’t want to draw on the ground with his shovel, so he’d better learn it or die and come back again for more practice.

  After what felt like an eternity, he finally managed to draw the rabbit diagram.

  System: Congratulations, you have learned copying.

  Copying: 10% chance to copy a symbol on the target paper.

  What the f-k? It was drawing. He was drawing. He should get a drawing skill, not copying. The game developers must have shit for brains. They didn’t even understand the difference between an artist and a copy machine.

  Whatever. When he finally got the design down on paper, he pulled out the black pen he had received along with the journal and started drawing on the blank flag.

  A prompt appeared.

  System: Do you want to draw on the blank flag? It will require 200 Spirit to erase the drawing. Yes/No.

  Damn, 200 Spirit. Emptying him in one go? The system was evil.

  Well, what other choice did he have? He selected yes and began drawing on the flag.

  The first try was a failure. When his drawing was completed, the ink lines mixed with each other and formed something that looked like two-year-old’s scribble. Again, the system failed to recognize a master sketch artist. He’d better go up there and teach those knucklehead game developers a lesson or two. He’d better.

  But it was no good, so he had to erase it and start again. When the first drop of Spirit touched the flag, a black thread popped out of it and sucked the remaining Spirit from his body. Thank god, he had a good reserve now. He wasn’t ready to donate his blood.

  After the fifth try, he finally managed to draw something that looked like the formation symbol, but before he could do a happy dance, a prompt appeared.

  System: The symbol matches 65% of the original symbol. Do you wish to imbue it in the flag? Warning, a % match determine the effect of the formation. Yes/No.

  He only had twenty minutes left, and he’d better be prepared. Worst case, he would return and finish the work after dying again.

  The next three flags achieved seventy percent, seventy percent, and sixty-seven percent matches. He imbued them anyway.

  System: Congratulations, you have completed a set of formation flags for the formation Lock.

  You have obtained 100% progression in Formation Painter. Formation Painter +1. 2% success rate while drawing Formation Symbols.

  Finally. A painter. Jon jumped to his feet and did a happy dance. Now it was time to teach Grimish a lesson.

  Chapter 24

  The clock in his vision ticked slowly, reaching toward zero. Jon’s blood pumped, and adrenaline rushed through the veins. A flurry of emotions raced through his mind. This was it; he was getting out to face Grimish.

  Perspiration beaded his forehead as the counter reached zero.

  A black portal with shiny silver edges opened in front of him, offering the view of the shrine and the cold weather at the outpost area. Morning sunlight illuminated the shrine with golden rays, but it looked unnaturally quiet, like someone was waiting for him at the other side.

  Someone probably was.

  As he stepped through the portal, a breeze of fresh morning air and the taste of dew enhanced his mood. This was the perfect morning for a farmer. In the real world, he’d always woken early to enjoy the morning dew—when he wasn’t in prison, anyway.

  He glanced around, searching for the old man with the white beard and yellow teeth. Instead, a shovel came swinging at him horizontally.

  But Jon had expected this, so he threw his body to the right.

  The shovel barely missed him.

  Rolling on the stone-paved ground, Jon received 10 damage and a cut across the face, but the pain wasn’t severe enough to stop his advance, so after rolling he dashed for his farm.

  A chuckle so
unded behind him, and Grimish caught up in less than a second. The shovel came for him again.

  This time, Jon was ready. Throwing his flags left and right, forming a rough rectangle, he jumped forward.

  Do you wish to activate the Formation Lock for 30 seconds? Cost: 200 Spirit. Yes/No.

  Frantically he selected yes and rolled forward while the Spirit slipped out of his body in one go.

  A near-rectangle of energy formed between the four flags and rippled across Grimish, stopping him in his tracks.

  Swiftly turning on one leg, Jon cast two Acid Vines on the small grass patch next to Grimish, and then he waited for his Spirit to refill so he could cast Earth Spike.

  Grimish’s face hardened. “Where did y—” he shouted as the first acid spray hit him and dealt 100 damage. Jon hoped he had invested heavily enough in Dexterity that his other attributes were low and he didn’t have much Health as a result.

  When his Spirit bar filled to twenty-five percent, Jon cast Earth Spike on the ground Grimish stood on.

  Negative numbers started popping up over Grimish’s head, and his scream’s frequency increased. His red life bar depleted with every second, and in less than ten seconds his HP was reduced to a mere 100.

  “So, what—” He screeched. “Your farm— I’ll kill—” He died before completing his sentence. His body vanished from the earth, and only a shovel dropped on the ground.

  Jon grinned evilly. While working on his diagram, he had thought about this. Ten minutes before the timer had finished, he had run a few permutations on the formation and learned many things. For example, a formation didn’t need to be a perfect square to work, nor did the flags need to be stabbed in the ground. Whatever position they were in defined the area of effect.

  Picking up the shovel Grimish had dropped, he put it inside his bag. Surely, he would have some use for it. Now he had to wait for Grimish to respawn so he could kill him again. According to the game wiki, respawn time depended on level. For the first four levels, it was level +1 hour and then 5 minutes for each level. So, the game penalized the user without going too overboard. If it was player level +1, then the player might just spend their lives in the respawn room. That would be bad, unless you could have your woman with you. Of course, that would be absurd.

  Jon chuckled at his naughty thoughts.

  Hearing footsteps, he turned and spotted Kron running toward him.

  “Jon...” he gasped, his chest heaving like a machine. “Your farm...”

  Jon furrowed his brows. Grimish had said something about his farm too, or tried to, anyway. Jon ran toward his farm with all his might.

  “Damn you!” He screamed as he spotted his destroyed farm. Not a single crop stood. Everything was ruined.

  Chapter 25

  Jon dropped on his butt, hitting the hard-packed dirt road. His crops—crops he had grown by spending his Spirit and Stamina—were in ruin.

  Every single seedling had been pulled apart and thrown on the ground, and it didn’t look like an earth elemental’s work. It was like someone—Grimish—had destroyed it purposefully.

  “What am I going to do now?” He ran his hands through his long hair. This was cheating. Why was the f-ing bastard so hell bent on destroying him?

  He would pay for this.

  Kron caught up to him, his chest still heaving like a machine.

  “Where is Grimish’s farm?” Jon asked.

  “He has already harvested it.”

  Jon punched the ground in frustration, but it only brought him pain. Small stones pricked his knuckles, making them sting, but he endured it. He would make Grimish feel ten times worse pain when he respawned again. That bastard had cost him two days’ hard work.

  “Do you have a spell for rapid growth?” Kron asked.

  Jon shook his head. “It’ll take two days to grow the crop again with my...” Wait. He had the formation flags, and there was a Formation of Amplification in the book. Would it work? And Kron had four flags which he might be able to use, too.

  “Kron, are you finished with your week’s harvest?”

  Kron nodded.

  “Would you loan me your flags?”

  Kron scratched his beard for a moment. “If you sign the contract.”

  “Contract?” Jon’s right eyebrow shot to the sky. “What contract?”

  “Yes, a contract for loaning. You can have any type of contract. Loan, borrow, wager, reward, dual, death, slave. Everything you can think of.”

  Jon sized up Kron. “So, what do you want in return?” If Kron wanted money, he had it. Heck, he would have given it for free, cause Kron had helped him a lot in last few days.

  “Nothing. Just promise to return the flags on Monday. Sorry, but we don’t really know each other.”

  Jon nodded. It made sense. All Kron was asking for was his items back. That was a given. Jon didn’t like cheaters. “Okay, let’s sign it.”

  System: Do you want to establish a contract with player Kron6789?

  Terms: You will return the flags borrowed from him on Monday.

  Yes/No.

  Jon accepted the terms.

  After he received the flags, he studied them carefully. The symbols marked on them were similar to the Formation of Amplification he had in the book, but Kron’s flags had one less circle while the book’s had three circles and another rabbit diagram in the intersection point.

  Placing the flags in his bag, he walked to his hut and pulled his bottle of seeds out. This was going to take a lot from him.

  But before anything, he set a timer for Grimish’s respawn. He couldn’t miss that one.

  First, he placed two batches of fifty seeds on the bedroll. In the future, he would have to get a table for himself, or make one. It would solve so many things for him. If he had to practice his formation symbols on the bedroll, he could kiss progress goodbye.

  Something to keep in mind for the future.

  Picking up one seed, Jon slipped some of his Spirit into it. As he cut the Elemental Shield spell in half, a thin green line of Spirit slipped from his palm and entered the seed. It pained, but he gritted through it. The seed pulsed with a strange energy, and then a neon green light surrounded it and disappeared. A smile played on Jon’s lips; he hadn’t expected he would succeed on the first try.

  How wrong he was.

  As he was about to cast perception on the seed, it burst and a green mushy substance plastered his face.

  Damn, it smelled rotten and tasted like shit—not that he ever ate shit, but it probably tasted like this.

  A chuckle attracted his attention.

  Jon turned and found Kron standing in the hut’s door. “What? Are you mocking me now?”

  Kron shook his head. “No. Just put one Mana in it.”

  “You mean one Spirit?” Jon picked up another seed and glanced at it. It made sense. Before bursting, the seed illuminated with a green light. Maybe he’d fed it too much Spirit. But how would he insert only one Spirit?

  By experimenting.

  That was his only option, so he continued experimenting on other seeds with his spell cut time. After ten seeds and fifteen minutes of pain, he stopped bursting seeds into green goo. That was an improvement.

  Congratulations, you have shown the most suicidal dedication of the whole BlackFlame Online. I bet even the God of Pain didn’t suffer so much pain.

  +1 to Pain Attunement.

  +1 to Spirit Cycling.

  -1 to Intelligence for next 4 hours for your stupidity. At this rate, you will turn into a rat soon enough.

  The game kept penalizing his Intelligence. Thank god, his main stat was Wisdom and not Intelligence. Otherwise, he would have been in trouble already.

  When he finally succeeded at imbuing 1 Spirit in the seed, he checked it with his perception.

  Weed Seed

  Quality: Average

  Interesting. Somehow, the last time he’d imbued a seed with his Spirit, it had achieved Normal quality, but this time it was only Average. Putting it
aside, he continued imbuing the remaining seeds with 1 Spirit each. By the time he’d finished imbuing all two thousand seeds, he’d received another +1 to Pain Attunement and +1 to Wisdom.

  Now he wanted to try something new, so he cast Purify on one of the seeds. Spirit slipped out of his palm and entered the seed, encapsulating it in a shower of green energy. The process continued for two seconds, and when done the seed glowed with a faint green light.

  Jon hurriedly cast perception on the seed.

  Weed Seed

  Quality: Superior

  20% chance to grow two weed plants.

  It had jumped two levels and it gained a special property. When he’d cast Land Heal on the crop that first time, he’d upgraded some crops to Superior quality. This time he would start with Superior seeds. Would that increase the crop to Excellent?

  Maybe.

  He kept that seed separate from the others and cast Purify on nine more. Casting Purify on all two thousand seeds would take forever, so he wanted to test the waters on a batch of ten first. This way, he could explore the effects of stacking the spells on each other.

  Now the real work was all that was left.

  Grinning, he ran outside and started his daily work. First, Mold Earth, then planting the seeds and then casting Land Heal. Kron lingered nearby, watching him work. When the first sprout grew golden, he cast perception on it.

  Excellent Weed Crop

  Quality: Excellent

  Used in ale making. Provides +2 Constitution for 8 hours when consumed raw and +3 Constitution when converted into beer.

  So, the crop quality had increased. He ran to the side area where he had planted the test batch of Superior seeds he’d cast Purify on.

  Contrary to his expectations, only two seedlings had gained Magic quality while eight remained at Excellent quality with similar properties to his other crops.

  Weed Crop of Growth - Used in ale making.

  Provides +1 Wisdom for 5 hours when consumed raw and +2 Wisdom when converted into beer. 10% chance to improve the quality of the beer produced.