An hour later, with nothing significant having occurred, his practise was over. Immediately, he took a sideways step into what he considered to be his new system room. On the nearest monitor, he could see his body trudging tiredly to the cleaning loop and walking through it.
Tom grinned.
All the boring routine was being removed, because he could come here. Instead of the drudgery of being six, he could escape to do more fun things.
He smiled, just the way he had been doing all day. It was bubbling up constantly from within him, surprising him at random times.
And Corrine, he was sure, would be waiting for him impatiently.
He strode toward the door that led to the shared biome,s and then stopped just before he stepped through.
It was subtle, but the Curated List had a small asterisk next to it.
At a thought, it opened up, and he stared at the two new entries in surprise.
<ul>
<li>Trait: Spatial Storage – Cost 17 – Discount 96% </li>
<li>Trait: Dimensional Body – Cost 95 – Discount 90% </li>
<li>Divine Affinity Fruit – Cost 7000 – Discount 95% </li>
<li>Skills Pack: Lightning Starter – Cost 9 </li>
<li>Skills Pack: Earth Starter – Cost 9</li>
<li>Skill: Shadow Spear – Cost 12 – Discount – 30%</li>
<li>Skill: Living Wood Enhancement – Cost 14 – Discount 20% </li>
<li>Precognition Ritual Knowledge – Cost 28 – Discount 95% </li>
</ul>
The reason for the two unexpected new lines was clear. He had openly considered selling his services, and DEUS had reacted to his plans and taken steps to help him. He suspected he knew what both entries represented, but he decided to check them, anyway.
Skill: Living Wood Enhancement – Tier 3
Allows the user to improve the tier of a piece of wood. Level of tiering up is only limited by skill level.
Note: This can be delivered in three ways.
<ol>
<li> Immediately granted.</li>
<li> If spatial storage is available, as a skill stone.</li>
<li> If spatial storage is available and a relevant training trial is accessible, it can be taken as a skill plan to be used within the trial. </li>
</ol>
Personalised Advice: If the skill is invested into the training trial, you will have 65% chance of acquiring after 40 hours of training and 99.7% after 65 hours.
Overall, it was a pedestrian run-of-the-mill skill, and it was not one that he would have thought about searching for, let alone buying. The discount didn’t draw him in, either. Twenty percent felt like a joke. Out of all the discounted items, this was already the least appealing. If he had been getting a seventy percent reduction, then his viewpoint might have been different, but twenty? It felt almost insulting.
However, that thread of thought was a moot point, and one he had to suppress. DEUS had highlighted this skill for him for a reason. With it displayed in front of him, and if he cleared his mind, he could acknowledge the value of acquiring it. With all of his various disadvantages, using his ability to tier-up both his weapon and armour to a higher level would even the battlefield slightly.
“Still not buying it.” He muttered to himself. That, by itself, wasn’t sufficient. It wasn’t terrible as such, but, given the crappy discount and probably little true combat utility, he was hesitant. The only thing that swayed him away from rejecting it permanently was the personalised advice. It was a tier-three skill that he was effectively guaranteed to get with April’s help within a month and a half; possibly even shorter than that, if he invested more than ten hours a session on it. As much as he might like to pretend otherwise, that was huge.
Yes, it was a crafting skill, but just the benefit it would give to his title was potentially worth those fourteen coins.
“A maybe. I’ll leave it as a maybe,” he said finally.
The moment he made the decision, the text on display changed to the next item on his agenda. The responsiveness was a form of low-level mind reading, but that was something that he was well and truly used to.
Consumable: Precognition Ritual Knowledge.
Consuming this item will give you memories of three days of intensive tutoring by an expert on Precognition Rituals. It will build upon and consolidate existing knowledge, and has no limitations on the knowledge of the person using it.
The reason for the massive discount was because this was not a reward that had been intended for someone who could be best described as an apprentice crafter. The consumable was there to be used by a master craftsman, or possibly a grandmaster - one to push them to the next level.This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The thought of someone like Tom using something like this in the outside world would be anathema to anyone who knew how valuable the knowledge crystal truly was.
Tom agreed with them, but he was also very conscious of the massive discount attached to it. That told him that using the crystal was going to be required. Hopefully, it was only going to be necessary to use this to get his ritual design upgraded to the tier-three level to help those in the open section, and not to create the first sellable items which could be immediately useful to people in his bucket. No matter how it played out, it was clear that DEUS wanted him to purchase and use it to better arm her champions with the knowledge to keep them alive.
Without that pressure to immediately consume it, the correct way to maximise the value of the treasure would have been to buy it and then spend a decade improving his level and understanding of the specific ritual to an unbelievable level; to become so knowledgeable in the single niche spell that he could not only carve it in his sleep, but also redesign it on the fly. Only then, after he had promoted his abilities to the absolute pinnacle, would the treasure be used, and Tom was sure that, in those circumstances, it would create epiphanies that would push the crafters abilities beyond what hard work, luck and persistence would ever be able to unlock.
As it was, he had too many things to spend his coins on, and, before he could afford to buy anything, he had to actually win a fight. Tom sighed at that thought; based on the scenarios they had run, that might take months.
With thoughts of future artefacts and power-ups running through his head, he stepped through the door and onto blue grass.
Corrine was pacing back and forth, waiting for him. A spell that comprised a mixture of flame and wind was swirling above her outstretched hand. There was something fascinating about it. The intensity of its mana lines was incredible, and they were so sharp and refined. Looking at it, he felt he could peer into the depths and see the spell form. It was like he was an instant away from comprehending all of it.
It winked out of existence abruptly, and he realised that Corrine was staring at him with a very self-satisfied grin. While it had felt like he had been studying the dancing flames for mere seconds, he realised that wasn’t true. He had been entranced for far longer. Perhaps for over a minute.
The way she was looking at him made a lot more sense.
“I thought you’d be immune to something like this.”
“What are you talking about?” he blustered with some hope remaining.
She laughed loudly in response to his attempt at stone-walling, then winked.
“It’s an attack spell which also has a subtle hypnotic effect. Makes you see it as fascinating.”
On one hand, he knew he had fallen for it. On the other, it felt like he shouldn’t have. “Um… can you create it again?”
A smaller version of the previous spell appeared, hovering above her outstretched hand. This time Tom was on alert and he felt no desire to stare at it. There was still a slight psychic pressure, but it was easy to resist, and the only reason it had worked the first time was because he had known he was in a place where he was a hundred percent safe.
She nodded appreciatively when he met her eyes, clearly not enthralled by her spell.
“If I’m on the alert, it won’t get me.”
“I can’t do it now due to a lack of mana, but if I were to make it four times stronger?”
Tom shook his head. “Not even close. Unless the psychic strength increases by orders of magnitude, it doesn’t stand a chance of affecting me if we’re in hostile territory, let alone during a life-or-death duel.”
“Which means you definitely have stronger mental resistance than most do,” she said carefully. “I’ve been testing this, and it’s strong enough to impact most people in the lower child bucket.” Then she frowned. “Unfortunately, not anyone in my cohort. By the time they reach my age, they’ve rounded out their skills, which includes getting the mental resistance abilities.” The ball of flames had been steadily growing, until it had nearly reached its initial intensity. She pouted when it was clear it wasn’t going to enthral, him and then it vanished. “Come on. I’ve got people you want to talk to.”
He followed her as she led him through another one of the portals. It took them to a room filled with even more gateways. There must have been over forty of them, and it was clearly communal space, because the temperature remained perfect for him.
“These lead to all the other community spaces,” she explained. “It’d take a while to learn them, but you can guess at where they go based on the carvings.”
She did not break her stride, but, despite her pace, Tom had time to examine some of the frames they were passing. The first showed people exclusively flying, which probably signified an aerial environment.
“Would I die if I went through?” he inclined his head at the portal.
She glanced at him and laughed. “A full GOD shields death, yeah. There’s always a rumour of a rookie going into that or the magnum pool one by accident and dying, but no one’s ever fessed up to it when I’ve asked.”
They were almost at their destination and the next frame he examined featured symbols that had something to do with being blacksmith; then time was up. Without pausing, Corrine led him through one of four identical doors that showed seats and books.
Once he had stepped through, he appeared in an occupied conference room. Vturalta from earlier was present, along with Amkhael. In addition to them, there was a four-legged two armed feathered person, and a massive double layered centipede the size of three linked train carriages. It filled the room - it must have been sixty meters long and had over a hundred legs, and then directly above each of them was an arm. Just like the legs, there were too many arms to count, and this wasn’t a dumb beast. Most of the hands held a weapon - usually a ranged one, but there were shields mixed in there along with long spears.
He was thankful he was in a neutral territory with a full GOD’s shield, because, even knowing they were friendly, that centipede was intimidating. It could kill him a hundred times over before he could react. While it was the most physically imposing creature here, the others gathered, Tom was sure, were just as deadly. Amkhael, after all, had crushed the construct like it was inconsequential - something Tom was sure it could just as easily do to him.
All four of what he hoped were only open competitors stared at the two of them.
Corrine smiled confidently. “This, guys, is Tom.”