17 – Lots of skills

Julian plunged his own blade into his chest, activating Seppuku and crying out in agony as the raging pain coursed through his body. He pulled it out, soaked in blood, and thanked Luck that he still survived with some miser health left. The skill had been as painful as an actual stab in the stomach would be, and immediately his vision registered a new meter: Bleed. It was half full, slowly emptying, meaning he didn’t have any Bleed condition on him.

This was according to plan. As soon as he recovered from the pain, he lunged at the mummified monster that was the boss of this dungeon village. He barely registered the muted gasp of his friend Cal’Eer when he saw him commit Seppuku, nor did he think of anything other than battle. He had very low Health, and couldn’t afford to make mistakes.

Suddenly blood was everywhere. It was not his own, but a black sludge that oozed out of the mummy with every cut and slash Julian inflicted, until after a few hits it literally exploded in a fountain of black blood. The battle went on. Despite the literal liters of blood on the ground had created a slimy surface all across the room, the monster was still healing. It was clinging to life, because however low its health was it was refusing to die.

Julian stared at his depleting stamina. The more damage he dealt to the monster, the fiercer its attacks became, up to the point where he had to let it heal or he would run out of Stamina and get stance broken in the middle of the exchange. He needed to change tactics, again, but he was coming out empty.

There is one option, I guess. As he thought that, his mind scanned the ring in search of the two small barrels of Black Powder he had scavenged from the Mesa Village above. It’s suicide for both of us in this enclosed space.

This wasn’t it. He was not even sure the explosion would kill the fucker, to be honest. And he would have to sacrifice himself, and Cal, to do so. On top of that, he thought, if Cal died then he would have wasted all that time he spent building a somewhat nice relationship with him. He didn’t think he would have the patience to do all that again, and he didn’t want to venture through the tower alone.

There had to be another way.

Suddenly a lightbulb lit up in his mind. The knife. The conveniently placed knife the system put beside the sign that pointed us to this very place.

His eyes widened as the realization hit, and he almost wanted to cry out in anguish at how stupid he had been for not seeing the connection earlier. Cal didn’t see it either.

“Cal! The knife!” he cried out.

Cal perked up. “Knife?”

“The one I gave you! The one we found on the hanged body!” he yelled, fending off increasingly fast attacks.

Cal’s eyes lit up. “The knife!”

“Use it,” Julian said. “I’ll keep the boss stunned just long enough to give you a window!”

He inhaled. He needed to perform two perfect Parry skill moves in a row in order to stagger this boss. Then, Cal would sweep in and crit it with the knife. Hopefully that was going to end this fight once and for all.

The world didn’t slow down as the adrenaline hit, but it all focused on a single point. He parried, once and then twice and as the mummified corpse slumped to the ground he was a but a watcher to the spectacle that was unfolded when Cal sweeping in, knife in hand, plunged the blade into the monster’s chest. It exploded in sparks and a fiery energy spread from it and through the boss, until only ashes were left.

+12000 Runes.

It was over. Julian threw the sword on the ground, and slumped against the far wall. Too bad the mummy disappeared… can’t loot crystals from it now…

***

“I don’t get it.” Julian said. He was sitting on the porch of the mansion, watching the sun set behind the Mesa from which he named the village. Cal was sitting beside him, feeding wood to the fire they had going in the small garden. They could have used the fireplace inside the house, but it was a very nice day for an outside camp in Julian’s opinion. All the relieved tension and stress, the nice breeze, the cool clean air… it was awesome. He was rested and clean after having used the mansion’s facilities, shower first and a good sleep on the double bed soon after, and he was enjoying the rest of the night.

“I need 4592 runes to level up, but if I assign the point I see the next level is going to cost me 4300. Why is it lower? Is the system throwing random numbers at me?” he wondered, saying what was on his mind out loud.

Cal hummed. “You have a weird system.”

“You can say that,” Julian said, “It keeps changing the rules of the game. There’s a sick intelligence behind it, I can sense it.”

This time it was in my favor, but who knows what’s it going to do next.

It was time to assign the new stats, level up and choose the skills. A moment Julian had been looking forward to since killing the boss, but which he had postponed so that he could savor it better, like a fine dessert.

+6000 Runes.

“What is this?” Julian asked after he saw the prompt.

“Your share.” Cal said.

Julian was confused. “Of what?”

“Quest reward!” Cal replied proudly. “8000 for killing the boss, 4000 for clearing the village, then split in half. You did most of the work, and thanks to you I even get the full runes for your kills. Splitting the quest rewards is the least I can do to repay you.”

Julian laughed. “Man,” he paused. “thank you.”

Cal smiled ear to ear.

Julian smiled back, a bit awkwardly, then went straight to business. 18000 runes strong, this was surely going to be a motherlode.

Julian V. Terror.
Level: 12 –> 17
Class: null

VIGOR: 16 (+10)
MIND: 10
ENDURANCE: 12 (+3)
STRENGTH: 10
DEXTERITY: 11 -> 14 (+3)
INTELLIGENCE: 10
FAITH: 10
ARCANE: 13 -> 15

Runes: 18000 -> 0
Runes needed: 4592 -> 9329

…and done. Rounded up ARC to 15, and brought DEX up as much as I could. Fuck the sword, those guns were something else. Sword’s almost broken anyway, like the rest of the armor, might as well ditch that shit. Actually no, I have other uses for that metal.

He nodded to himself, pleased with the many ideas that were already springing to mind. But, before any of that… skills time.

From the first set, he chose Tough to Kill. The invulnerability shield was too good to pass on, even thought Valuable Experience was a very enticing choice. In the end, the reasoning was that it was better to avoid death and grind a bit more than having to climb the tower multiple times because he died too much.

Freehand magic, no competitors. I want to do magic eventually, and this is one of the two skills I will need, might as well pick it up now.

What the heck is an Argus?

Ignoring the first choice because it seemed a bit useless right now that he had the guns, he needed to choose between the second and the third. In fact, it seems that I was a silly goose and didn’t read the skill description well enough the first time, because this suggests that I could use F-rank crystals to get all the way to +22 and not have to stop at +20. Unless the description changed? Is it because I have appraisal now?

Well, this means upgrading Appraisal suddenly becomes a very good thing to do.

He did so, hoping to bring consistency to the System one level of Appraisal at a time.

For the last two choices, he decided to go with Non-Euclidean Space 2 and Dodge Rolls 2. The reasons were simple: more space to store his stuff, now increased to 2.5 cubic meters per ring, and more i-frames per roll were a no-brainer.

After choosing his skills, he finally settled down to rest. The evening and early night passed quickly, with the two adventurers chatting about random, non-important stuff and Julian fiddling around with his Precision Morphing skill. He took out his armor and put on some comfortable clothes stolen from the house, and used the metal from it and the sword to make bullets and other things. Most were going to be useless, since he was still learning to use the skill, but before long he had a set of basic tools like hammers and saws always ready to use.