As the pole finally shattered, a wave of air was flung from its location that threw the Avenger’s lunchbox to the ground. After the death of the Fouler, Seth had begun to throw his new glaive at the pole, experimenting.
It only took a couple throws before the glaive sliced clean through it. During this, Seth discovered that he never actually had to retrieve the weapon. After he launched it the first time, it only took a thought to dematerialize the glaive, and have it reappear in his hand. He went to retrieve the lunchbox and continued on his journey. Seth instinctively retracted the glaive, and it disappeared back into the vortex of his hand.
“So that was Presence of Doom,” he exclaimed breathlessly.
The name definitely did the ability justice. Thinking of the ability, Seth decided to see if there was any further description of its effects due to his use of it. After the menu popped up, he got distracted because the Quests and Notifications tabs were blinking along with Status. He began with the quests because he already knew what he was going to see.
-Kill one monster (1/1) (Reoccurring) (Reward: Random Home planet Sustenance) *Claim?*
Seth mentally assented and a gray metal box dropped from the air in front of him with a popping sound. He looked down at the box, wondering if his Foundation had created the box, or if the testers somehow sent it to him. Regardless of the circumstances in which the box arrived, Seth didn’t care. It had to have been close to ten or eleven hours since he ate that disgusting Lunchable. Between its small portions and the eight hour climb he endured earlier, he was absolutely starving for something else to eat. Seth crouched down and quickly opened the small box.
“YES!” he shrieked happily. Inside the box was something he had never dreamed he would eat ever again.
It was an All Star Nugget Kid Cuisine.
Seth openly cried as he devoured the small meal. He knew exactly how lame it was to get excited over the Kid Cuisine, especially to the point of tears, but he didn’t care. It was his absolute favorite item to eat as a kid. The days when his parents were too exhausted from work to properly make him a meal, they would give him a Kid Cuisine. Then they would let him eat it on the couch while they all watched a movie as a family.
His parents were usually asleep within ten minutes of the movie starting, but it never bothered Seth. He was aware of how hard they tried to balance work and taking care of him. A lot of the time they would come home late as well, so Seth had learned early how to take care of himself to an extent. As his thoughts finally turned back to reality, the old happy memories extinguished and his dire surroundings replaced them. Finishing his meal, Seth got back up and returned to the border he had been trailing for the last couple days.
“I suppose its back to the hunt.”
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Shilung was yet again scrolling endlessly through data on its console. It noted absently that its commander was approaching. Shilung began to sit up straighter in its seat when a feedback signal flashed before its eyes. Shilung whipped its attention back to the monitor and re read the signal over and over again while it thought to itself.
“SHILUNG!” a voice bellowed from behind the creature.
Shilung jumped in its seat as it quickly turned around in surprise. The commander was looming over Shilung and had apparently been demanding its attention over the last couple minutes.
“I am so very sorry commander, I was foolishly caught up with an alert over the monitor.”
The commander stood over Shilung for a moment, contemplating whether or not to reprimand the data analyst. “Well, what exactly had captured your attention so thoroughly that you thought it was acceptable to ignore your superior?”
Shilung flinched down in fear and shame at its actions.
“I apologize with all of my being commander, I was just distracted with the specific feedback I received from one of our subjects for this round.”
Shilung paused, waiting to see if its commander would stop Shilung before it continued.
“Do you recall the subject we spoke of earlier? Specifically, the one whom you ordered for its observation drones to be recalled.”
The commander shifted in place as its emerald tentacle wriggled in thought. “If I do recall correctly, was it not Subject 50? Wasn’t there a sizable chance that Subject 50 would end up perishing as a black hole?”
“Indeed!” Shilung exclaimed enthusiastically. “It seems although the subject showed signs of extinguishing, not only was a black hole not recorded, but it looks as if the cache for our quest rewards is also being slowly claimed by Subject 50.”
The commander grunted in surprise, a sign for Shilung that it peaked the commander’s interest.
“Random interesting fact: it seems as if this round of subjects go by the same timeline and dates as us too! After observing them all, they all follow each other's habits of sleeping and activity surrounding the same time zones. What are the chances of that!”
The commander gurgled in annoyance, realizing the data analyst was yet again going on one of its tangents. “The subject Shilung, I do not care about what time they live by.” Shilung stopped droning on and refocused on the topic at hand.
“My mistake commander, back to Subject 50. Over the course of the last three weeks, Subject 50 has been completing its reoccurring quest at a constant pace. It has killed numerous monsters on the planet, far exceeding the average amongst the other subjects. It also still has not completed its first testing quest. Almost every surviving subject has already completed this quest and either perished during the final test of phase one or moved on. It is unclear as to why it hasn’t due to our lack of observation drones but it seems as if the subject is refusing to continue for the time being.”
The commander leaned forward in mild interest. “What reason could this subject possibly have for refusing to continue? It doesn’t matter, change its quest and cut off its supply. Send one observation drone back to watch Subject 50.”
The commander turned and stomped away, calling over its shoulder, “The subject will be forced to continue if it wants to live.”
-----------
Seth put down the trash of his most recent meal. To his immense annoyance, the food he was given for his latest kill was a literal pineapple.
As he had progressed with the last three weeks, he had gained a slew of new information and food. The food he got was completely random, so he has had anything ranging from meatloaf to a raw cabbage. Sadly, he actually had received the raw cabbage twice now, despite the odds. It didn’t really bother him though; he had killed so many Foulers that he had lost count. If he had to guess, it was probably over a hundred at this point. Seth turned toward his destination and set foot back to his camp.
About three days in, Seth had found the location of the third and final pole. The pole was in a cave that Seth found in the black glass biome. The cave itself went incredibly deep and it took Seth hours before he finally found it. The reason Seth had denied to destroy it yet was simple, he was not ready for what would happen afterward.
It was clear to him that once he destroyed the last pole, there was a high chance that whatever the tier three monster was would make itself known. That's why Seth had been stockpiling food at his makeshift camp on the surface next to the cave. He had also been relentlessly killing all the Fouler’s he could find to train.
“Not to mention they disgust me.” Seth muttered.
Another thing he had gained over the last couple weeks was knowledge. After looking at his Notifications and abilities, Seth discovered that the glaive he had was actually not the ability Presence of Doom.
Unknown:
-An ability unlocked by Presence of Doom; through pure instinct, you have formed a truly devastating weapon of unknown origin and abilities. (Low DE Cost)
Anima Thief:
-An ability unlocked by Presence of Doom; you steal the anima of any mortal killed by your hand. The stolen anima can be channeled by the user. (Varying DE Cost)
Seth soon came to the conclusion that each aligned ability is basically a seed to which more specific abilities can be created. He also had no idea how to channel the “anima” he had collected so far. As for the Eye of Opposition, Seth had minimal success. After days upon days of headaches due to Mental Block, Seth had finally received an ability from his efforts.
True Sight:
-An ability unlocked by Eye of Opposition; you can see concentrations of dimensional energy and you can see through camouflage abilities that are equal or lesser than your power level. (Moderate Ongoing DE Cost)
As Seth’s camp came into view, he went to go check his attributes one more time. He had been monitoring them closely and noticed he had begun to stagnate in his growth a couple days ago.
Level: Tier One
Intellect: Class D
Constitution: Class B
Might: Class B
Intuition: Class C
Resolve: Class A
The thing that did not make sense to Seth was his Resolve attribute. He had checked, and apparently it went from D to A right after his fight with the first Fouler he killed. The more Seth tried to figure it out, the more frustrated he got. The blinking light of a notification went off in Seth’s view. His brow furrowed in confusion as he opened the menu and navigated to his most recent notification.
-Quest Update: The quest: Kill one monster (0/1) (Reoccurring) (Reward: Random Home planet Sustenance) has been temporarily withdrawn by the issuer.
“About damn time.”
Seth had been expecting the testers would cut him off sooner or later. Obviously the experiment needed to continue and he was sure they wouldn’t let him just sit around. This was Seth’s main reason for stockpiling food all this time. If he had to guess, the pile he had accumulated would most likely last him another week if he properly rationed it. Unfortunately, a good portion of his pile was made up of food that didn’t last long. He tried to eat all of the perishables first and save the processed stuff that would last for later. When Seth arrived at his camp, he loaded up the Avengers lunchbox with an apple and a cantaloupe, then set off into the mouth of the cave.
He had also been working on a project down in the cave for the last week. This allowed Seth to discover that he could actually now see in the dark. Instead of blindly walking through the endless maze and most likely dying, Seth had found that he could see the outline of every facet and detail of the tunnels. It wasn’t exactly the same thing as regular sight, it was more like a live picture in purple light. After finally memorizing the path through the tunnels, Seth had begun to prep the area around the last pole.
It turned out the pole was actually fixed into a wall on the far side of a large chamber in the cave. Because of this, Seth instantly got “boss room” vibes. What further pushed this idea was the fact that every instinct in Seth’s body screamed at him to run when he entered the cave for the first time. It took a full week before he mustered the courage to brave the tunnels. Even as Seth journeyed down into its bowels for the umpteenth time, he still felt the effects of the cave at full blast.
The only reason he was no longer afraid was due to the fact he had mentally steeled himself before entering.
No matter how much the testers want him to fight the monster, it wouldn’t happen until he knew damn well that he would win.
