Courtney interrupts the two of them to ask, “So do these things have any drops? We didn’t ask with swarm cats and look how that turned out.”
Peter shrugs, “Yubjub’s drop some great loot and their body has natural spacial magic in it. The yubs on the other hand are worthless. All the valuable stuff is on the other side of a dimensional wall from us and I can’t get to it.”
Rosha shakes her head and laughs, “Of course it would be. Though we weren’t going this way for money in the first place, it would be nice.”
Jason nods, “The skin would be useful to help pay off a favor someone did for me.”
Peter rolls his eyes, “What? You expect me to carry the heavy duty magical equipment needed to bridge dimensions everywhere? These things aren’t even supposed to be here.”
Jason sighs, “Whatever, it doesn’t matter for us. You’re the one taking a loss right now because we won’t be getting mind pearls from them. Though I‘d say we should pick up the pace.”
Peter laughs, “This was just a single yubjub. Things get harder much quicker than you expect with multiple master minds involved. Look at the fight. Part of what made it so easy was only one of them to four of you. Once we get more yubjubs in on the action, they will focus their efforts. Swarms are bad because an outside force allows them to work together. These things don’t need an outside force. They already are one being.”
Courtney shrugs, “At least they get affected by illusions and can miss their attacks. As you’ve pointed out, our group is very reliant on avoidance to reduce damage. That my shadow form will work at 100% against the yubs is a thing to rejoice about.”
Peter scratches the back of his head and grimaces, “Yeah, about that. So you might have noticed the yubjub is a multidimensional horror? Well, your shadow stuff is also multidimensional. While it can work, all it takes is for the yubjub to notice and shift itself closer to the shadows. Then your defense won’t be doing so good.”
Courtney throws her hands in the air, “Of course they can get around my defense! How am I even supposed to defend when nonsense like this keeps popping up?”
Peter shrugs, “At least you learned this early on. I’m sure you already realized shadow creatures could get around it. Now you know more of the things that can get through your defenses. Also to add on, magical light and darkness based attacks can deal about half damage to you. There are also some other elemental magics which can pierce it because of them drawing from their own elemental planes of existence.”
Courtney rolls her eyes, “So what I hear is that any attack which draws on any other dimension will be able to pierce my defense?”
Peter laughs, “What? Did you expect your defense, especially at this level, to be perfect? Or even near perfect with a few edge cases? Look at Jason. His ability to dodge is breaks ahead of where it should be at his level. Yet here we are in a kingdom whose dominant form of monster negates it. No defense is perfect, and that is why I wanted you each to have at least two forms of defense.”
Courtney sighs, “Of course I knew it wouldn’t be that easy, but still. I was hoping a racial defense would do better.”
Peter shrugs, “The benefit of it being a racial defense is it will scale will you. The more powerful you are, the deeper you will hide in the shadows. You’ll end up better at hiding in shadows than the halflings. Though that isn’t the most fair of comparison for them. They cut themselves off from the shadow plane. It would make no sense if they then in later levels connected to it.”
“While you are a pantherkin, I am going to guess the actual specifics would be a shadow pantherkin. The system just doesn’t show that kind of stuff until enough of the bloodline activates. But let me tell you about the deep rainforests of the shadow plane. While there are some larger threats, it is the shadow panthers who control the place. So while the halflings escaped the plane, your ancestors still rule a corner of the place. One of your direct ancestors might even still be alive there if such a thing is possible with travellers. This means there is no problem with you delving deeper into it.”
Courtney frowns, “What do you mean I might have an ancestor there? Of course, that wouldn’t be possible. While there has been a rumor or two of our bodies coming from actual beings in NeoRealm. Those rumors are all disproven and came from idiots trying to claim being a direct descendant of some ruler.”
Peter with a small smile shakes his head, “Not those idiots. Rather, people like you. People who have taken on the bloodline of a peak existence. Even the System can’t just replicate a bloodline like that. Though I guess the way I said it gave the wrong impression.”
“I don’t mean the System literally had your body birthed and grown for you with a family tree behind it. Rather, during the creation of your body, the System interwove in some of a shadow panther’s bloodline. You have an ancestor just like some have an ancestor because they absorbed a drop of blood from some peak existence to gain their power. About the only bloodline out there that comes from interspecies shenanigans is from dragons. And that comes from their ability to polymorph being a non-magical ability. You can’t just use normal magic to turn into something and spread your bloodline like that.”
Thanks for chapter
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What you are saying is that the bodies are made from an concept or essence or stuff like that?
And with species who have plenty of different bloodlines players won’t have an inheritance since their concept/ essence is too diluted/ mixed to have any true ancestry.
Meanwhile if all members of a species originates from one source/ bloodline the same must be true for the artificial body created from that kind of concept/ essence even if no member of said species were involved in the creation of the player body?
Have a good day
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I've been trying to write this comment a few times and have been having some trouble with it. Instead I'm going to try and talk about how player bodies work and see if that gets what I mean across.
A player's body will be exactly like any other member of their species. In normal instances, these bodies will not be directly related to any other member of their species in the game, but they will be related. Think of it like how every human has human DNA, but that doesn't mean when analyzed you will be able to link your DNA personally to someone else's DNA.
In NeoRealm's past there have been some players who have specifically created their character to look like some historical figure, generally some important royal family. Then they would try scam their way into being part of the royal family or bypass some inheritances bloodline requirement. However, when they tried this it was easily disproven because it is a magic world and so they had enchantments, rituals, and formations to test such things. There are even some player groups who have analyzed those spells enough to realize that while not completely based on it, the spells and what not partly use DNA.
However, there are some bloodlines that don't quite fit that because of their source. The shadow panther is a very good example of this. They originate from a peak existence which means someone who has reached lv499 (or greater if they manage to escape NeoRealm and the System). Any being that reaches that point will have something "unique" about them which if it can be passed on to its children will represent a "True Bloodline".
Not all peak existences can pass on their abilities and so in some sense a true bloodline is rare. On the other hand since they represent power, they tend to get passed around and spread even if that can cause the bloodline to degrade. Also, people will try to steal the bloodline. Also, when a member of a true bloodline manages to reach lv499 themselves, that doesn't automatically create a new bloodline. Sometimes it can, but unless the being has specifically moved in a new direction it tends to at most reinvigorate the true bloodline and add a bit more depth to it.
Some of these true bloodlines manage to degrade and spread out to the point that it becomes endemic to a species. Once again, the shadow panther is a good example of this. At some point a pantherkin worshiped, served, or in some other way got close to a shadow panther and then there was kids now bearing the shadow panther bloodline. This quickly spread through the pantherkin species until you would be hard pressed to find a pantherkin that didn't at least have some minor speck of the bloodline.
Also, species can have multiple true bloodlines, humans being a classic example of this as despite the fact it is very hard for them to actually develop one. They have a tendency to steal them and there are enough of them with potential that even though rare, some peak humans will develop a true bloodline. The thing about true bloodlines is that they are a jealous and territorial thing. Once one true bloodline awakens in a person, it will wipe out all other true bloodlines. The only way to have multiple true bloodlines is either through multiple related bloodlines which develop when someone with a true bloodline develops their own but doesn't fall too far from the tree (really common with dragons). Or, if someone manages to balance the bloodlines.
Players however are special. They are created by the System and a key feature of a true bloodline is that the System doesn't really have control over them. So how do players develop a true bloodline? The System cheats. A diluted true bloodline can't be used by the System to develop one in a player and a pure true bloodline is completely out of the System's control in the sense that it can't duplicate it. However, the System can manipulate it at a courser level, IE the blood itself. So lets use the shadow panther again. Somewhere in the shadow realm a shadow panther fights some other being and is injured enough to bleed. The System will then sneak in and take that blood.
And as Luck would have it, a true bloodline doesn't depend on DNA but rather concepts and similar so the System has an in. In fact, the System's inability to manipulate a true bloodline helps the System here as it can basically just command everything in the are the blood is to become nothing, leaving only the essence of the true bloodline behind. Though this is why the System requires a purer true bloodline to make this work as a partial bloodline would be damaged/destroyed by this act as it would depend on the blood itself to some degree.
Anyway, the System uses that true bloodline essence and weaves it a player when they are being created if the System judges that they should have said true bloodline. Not a lot though. If measured against blood, there likely wouldn't even be enough for a full piece of DNA, let alone a blood cell or some such. However, part of a true bloodline is the fact that it can be awakened as long as any amount of it still exists in a being. This means that while not likely, a player will have a chance to awaken the true bloodline and expand upon it, in theory.
The System isn't going to waste true bloodline essence so it won't keep putting the essence into a player over and over. That means that depending on how likely the System thinks it is for a player to awaken a true bloodline, the more likely it is for the System to keep weaving a bit of it in after every death. However, once a true bloodline is awakened, things change.
The System does all it can to keep things separated, but the true bloodline essence at that point will follow the player through death. This has special meaning to it. After all, with each death the player will be given a completely new body. To follow the player between deaths means that the true bloodline is connecting to something that isn't born anew after death.
As luck would have it, a true bloodline needs the holder to have some kind of cultivated power within them to cause any sort of effect. That means that a true bloodline can't fully follow a player even if awakened as until they do develop their own power, the System is artificially powering it. So in NeoRealm without a core, the System can shut down a true bloodline. And of course IRL people currently don't have any method cultivating power.
@Akhier I just realized something, when Rachel and Courtney start cultivating, if they awaken a Bloodline due to Courtney’s Already stirring Bloodline she’s actively cultivating and Rachel being a rabbitkin and not a human that those bloodlines will be able to follow them back to the real world and changing their real bodies to fit said bloodlines due to having a power source for said bloodlines to use.
@Forsaken0ne It's suddenly very interesting that the reason Courtney picked this race was because it felt right instead of picking a race to enhance her healing ability.