47 – Easy with the right build

Julian walked towards the shadow in the distance, never letting his eyes wander away from it as if fearing that it would disappear like a real shadow. It was not moving, and he was still pointing his weapon at it, so he should have been feeling confident but the closer he got the more he could feel that something wasn’t right. The sensation of wrongness grew to the point it could not be ignored when he was close enough to see the shape of the man, and he noticed that he was translucent and completely still, like a carboard cutout that was only projecting a shadow of a person instead of actually being there. He was about to demand that the shadow reveal itself when suddenly it slipped away, melting into the surroundings like water, disappearing in the swaying grass without a trace.

What the heck was that? Julian wondered with wide eyes as he studied the ground where the shadow was, but despite his best efforts he didn’t find anything out of the ordinary there. Just wet soil and grass, like everywhere else.

He was at the top of a low hill that gave him some minor height advantage over the nearby land, but spotting something just slightly darker than a shadow soon proved to be impossible in the low grey light of the overcast sky. A task made even more difficult by the rain blurring everything. Julian shrugged, wondering if he was making things up or if the shadow was indeed real. With all that’s happened to him in this tower so far, losing his sanity was not something he could rule out outright.

It’s improbable, but not impossible. However, isn’t the fear of going insane a good telltale sign that you’re not actually going insane? Or is it just a legend?

He shook his head and chuckled. It was fine that his brain was second guessing itself, but he was definitely not losing his mind.

With the shadow out of his mind, for now at least, Julian decided to go back to hunting the monsters that hid beneath the waves of the shallows. This time before disturbing the beast with his magic, however, he decided to try the strategy he came up with earlier. And the strategy was, to put it simply, to use Seppuku on his gun to make the monsters bleed from the distance without needing to go melee on them, and possibly even kill them.

This all led, however to a stalemate where Julian was now staring down the barrel of his gun, with a grimace on his face, and wondering just how he should go about plunging said gun into his chest. He was scared to even activate Seppuku, not knowing what to expect.

Well, let’s see. He thought, mustering up the courage. He knew pain, he could deal with pain.

He activated the skill. Immediately, an urge assailed his mind like all the other times he had activated it. The urge, akin to a primal need, told him what he needed to do and in this case, it told him that he had to impale himself with his gun. Barrel first, all the way to the handle. He breathed in, and then out, and closed his eyes.

With a violent jerk the gun was plunged into his gut, and a spray of blood stained the shirt and then the waters red until Julian was standing in a pool of his own blood. He pulled the gun out with a scream, the pain vivid like the image of his own bleeding guts despite his eyes being closed, and without the adrenaline of a fight to drown it down to a manageable level the pain threatened to be too much. He gritted his teeth and managed not to keel over in pain, and opened his eyes. A Bleed status bar was one third of the way filled and, focusing away from it and onto the dripping red gun that he was holding in his shaky hands, he wondered if he even did the right thing. A Health potion replenished his HP and made the pain disappear, bringing clarity back to his mind.

I swear if this jams the gun…

He almost cursed. This was self-inflicted pain, much different than using a skill in battle. And although the pain was no more, thanks to the healing potion and to how the system handled the pain, the aftereffects of it could still be felt like an echo in his mind.

The water trembled. Sniffing the blood in the water, something rapidly approached from the center of the lake. The telltale waves told Julian that it was not one creature, but two, and he stared down at the lake from behind his gun, ready for them to emerge. They didn’t, and instead the waves grew ever closer as the monsters approached unseen beneath the surface.

Not gonna let you, sorry.

A magic missile shot out from behind Julian’s back, where his hands were moving frantically to cast the sorcery. Then another, before the first could even touch the water, all the while the bloody gun was being held precariously between Julian’s thighs. He grabbed it before it could fall and waited. The impacts of the magic projectiles with the water happened almost at the same time, thanks to the control he had over the Homing version of the Magic Missile. And when they did, for a long second the water seemed to calm itself down to a smooth mirror, before it erupted into two twin mountains of heads and scales that rose up until they stood towering and menacing, scanning their surroundings.

Julian aimed and shot. He frowned and thought that his gun was broken, because he didn’t feel the usual kick of the recoil. But the blue streak was there, and he tried to put the thought out of his mind for now and focused his gaze on the Trudger. Using Eye of the Beholder to zoom in on its body, he followed the blue streak of the bullet until it disappeared into the Trudger’s flesh. Where the shot impacted against the skin of the beast a small red dot appeared, and a spray of blood that soon slowed down into an ooze fell onto the slimy scales, washed away by the rain to be diluted on the rest of the body. The beast roared in pain and its heads all snapped towards Julian, homing on him like lasers.

But now he knew that the bullets worked, and there was enough distance between him and the two beasts that he could shoot many times before he was in range of their heads. Fearing a possible ranged attack from the monsters, he shot bullet after bullet with incredible speed, refilling the empty chambers straight from the storage rings as he shot, sparing no expenses. He had a mountain of bullets to go through, after all. His fire was mainly aimed at the closest of the beasts, only sometimes sparing a bullet for the other to keep it distracted.

In a matter of seconds, the hide of the Trudger was riddled with holes and the dense, red blood gathered in the water like a chemical spill. Then Julian shot another few times, and what happened made his eyes widen. It had already happened with the boss mummy on the second floor, but he had almost forgotten and seeing it happen now, with a beast this large, was entirely different. The monster literally exploded in a fountain of blood as soon as the final bullet touched it, having no doubt sent its Bleed meter to full. Every single one of the many holes in its thick skin exploded in a torrent of blood, but it didn’t stop there. Every orifice and hole also exploded with blood, and the three pairs of heads became like hydrants that spewed their red fluid all over the lake. A moment later the flow stopped and the beast, soaked in its own blood, collapsed on its shaky legs and died. The runes appeared before the last head had hit the water.

+3380 Runes.

Julian switched targets and began to shoot at the other monster. It was dangerously close now. He was almost in range of its heads, but he was calm. The thing didn’t have any ranged attacks, or it would have used them by now, and all Julian needed were a few seconds. He shot with deadly precision, hitting the heads first and then the body, just because he could, and also because he was curious about the damage multiplier he got from headshots. The Trudger barely managed to walk three steps towards Julian on its slow stubby legs before it too met the same miserable, bloody end. It had taken a third less bullets than the other this time, Julian noticed, confirming that the heads took more damage and also made the Status meter fill up much faster.

+3380 Runes.

The fight was over. Julian scoffed, almost not willing to believe it.

This easy? It was this fucking easy? He thought about the earlier fight with Irradiated Star, and how long it took to take down the monster. And yet, now with the right choice of weapons… I just need to shoot at them from a safe distance with Seppuku enabled guns, and I can take them down without even needing to dodge once? This is crazy.

With two more F+ Crystal Cores resting in his rings, Julian set out to hunt more monsters. If he could manage to find a good herd of Trudgers, he could kill them all from afar and farm a crazy number of runes with almost no effort.

Except for the effort needed to create the bullets which is, let’s be real, almost trivial with Precision Morphing. I could even make a small factory machine to automate the process.

His mind went to the still thrashed main room of his underground lab and he frowned. Maybe later, he thought, I don’t need to automate the process just yet.

His eyes went to scanning the horizon. It was getting late, and the light was dying but he was confident that he could find at least another Trudger before nightfall. Something moved in the distance, beyond a small hill that obstructed part of the view of a lake, and he set out towards it. As he walked, he inspected his gun. It was clean now, after the skill had run out and the rain had washed away all of the blood.

There was something wrong with it earlier. It didn’t have quite the kick it used to have. Let’s see… Appraisal.

>Tammy Jr. Uncommon Rarity. Magically empowered revolver that uses slight fluctuations in the M-field to accelerate bullets. Built out of F+ Crystal Cores and rare metals by Julian V. Terror. F+ DEX Pierce damage. Additional damage depends on bullets. Part of a set. A widowed weapon, longing for a partner that is no more. -15% Damage. Only a Quest will restore it to its former power.

Oh, that explains it. A Quest it says? What kind of—

Ah, the irony. I have a depressed weapon.

The Trudger fell in the water, kicking up a wave of water that split into droplets that mixed with the rain and washed over the nearby wetlands. Its death went almost unnoticed, and Julian simply moved on from the lake in search of another, looking for more stuff to kill while his mind was elsewhere. Darkness fell on the pensive traveler.

I need to prioritize things here. I have three quests: Path to Power I, Ventilation, and Valiant Shadow. I have enough cores to restore the lab’s power and keep the reactor going for a very long time. At minimum power, at least. I also have a lot of runes, but I don’t want to use them until I gain access to the updated level-up math, which is locked behind Path to Power.

The choice is obvious, he thought as another 3380 Runes were added to his Status, I need to clear it as soon as possible. Let see… I need to go to the White City and find a hidden room. Sounds like a pain. However… Maybe Methias can help me?

Deciding that it was too dark to keep hunting, Julian retreated to the Oasis. Tomorrow would be spent in search of the White City, hoping that he wasn’t lost. And in the meantime, he decided to try to see if maybe he could force himself to step foot into the lab again, but he didn’t count on it.