Chapter 23: Congratulations

By the time Isaac was walking back into the university building come Monday morning, Isaac had calmed back down again. It’d taken him well over 24 hours to reach a state of mind fit to be amongst other humans with, but he’d reached it, clambering over the bodies of countless monsters to do so.

Flippancy aside, however, he’d gained a lot of stuff during that little, impromptu, grinding session. He'd leveled up once again, bringing his Level up to 6, then saved the rest of the XP.

Name: Isaac Thoma

Class: Rogue

Species: Human

Level: 6

XP: 2179/700

Health Status: Healthy

Mana: 150/150

Stats

Fortitude

30

Perception

25

Strength

12

Agility

18

Magic Power

15

Magic Regeneration

30

Free Points: 0 Stat, 15 Skill

Skills

Hundred Faces VI

Stealth VIII

Power Strike XI

Piercing Strike XII

Sundering Strike X

Knives XI

Sneak XI

Sweeping Strike I

Far Strike IV

Manifold Strike I

General Skills

Gralloch

Alchemy

Aspects

Aspect Skills

Specter

Spectral Shift

Hydra

Hydra’s Regeneration

He’d levelled up three more times and hit Level 6, putting points into Magic Regeneration and Fortitude until they’d both reached thirty. He now only needed two hours of sleep each night and regenerated 10 mana every minute, putting him well on his way to gaining a proper combat regeneration of the stuff.

Most video games operated on the scale that you were expected to get into a fight every minute or so unless you were exploring and forcing you to wait between encounters for longer than strictly necessary because your mana still hadn’t reached max capacity was boring. Video games were not meant to be boring.

Unfortunately, this was the real world where it would take half an hour to fully regenerate ones mana, and that was if Magic Regeneration was the same as Magic Power, which not everyone had because they’d chosen to pursue the shiny new Spells with a mana cost that was beyond them.

In the original timeline, Isaac had primarily focused on Magic Regeneration to the point where he got back mana every second, giving him incredible staying power.

He hadn’t had any big, expensive finishers among his [Skills] and even his strongest attacks were merely a properly combined set of lesser [Skills]. Having a bunch of tiny, cheap, yet well levelled attack [Skills] had carried him far and let him reach the point where could fight one of the strongest [Raid Bosses] to ever exist in a party of just three people, the only problem was that he hadn’t reached that level of power early enough to save humanity.

He wouldn’t be changing his general approach, just doing it a hell of a lot quicker.

And yes, a couple of points had gone into both Agility and Perception to give those a slight boost as well.

Unbalancing one’s Stats like that to optimize farming with very little need for sleep and a high Mana Regeneration actually wasn’t the greatest idea in the world, simply because it left you fighting monsters with your stats somewhere other than where you wanted them.

He’d fix it soon, though. Increasing Fortitude to ward off sleep had diminishing returns

Isaac actually had enough XP to bring himself up to Level 8, but he’d decided to wait to keep the XP boost for fighting above his Level as high as he could. There wouldn’t be any actual penalties until he was fighting enemies that were more than ten Levels beneath him, but a loss of a boost was still hardly optimal.

As for the [Skill] Points, he’d saved them, simple as that. Most people bought a bunch of [Skills] with them, especially when they sounded good without them actually having seen it in action.

While there were arguments to be made for having a lot of different [Skills], the fact of the matter was that there was only so much mana to go around. If you could grab a bunch of good, solid passive [Skills], that was great, but most [Skills] were of the active variety, meaning you had to pay to use them. In the end, a lot of people would end up focusing on their core [Skills], their favorites, which they not only knew everything about, they also levelled it up to a very high Level.

An old quote from Bruce Lee sprang to mind “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”

When practice translated to a literal, measurable increase in power, that was all the more true.

Isaac, meanwhile, knew what he wanted, what he needed, which [Skills] could take him to the peak of power, allowing him to save a lot of those mostly wasted points.

But while the Levels were all well and good, they were hardly the only things he’d gained. [Skill] Levels abound, putting two more of his [Skills] above the Level 10 threshold.

Sundering Strike (common, Level X)

User’s next strike will weaken the targets armor around the point of impact. This damage is permanent until it is fixed/healed. This effect can be stacked until the armor is destroyed.

This Skill can also be toggled to be almost undetectable, destroying any nerves or creature specific equivalent upon impact, or cause maximum pain by directly irritating whatever pain receptors a being might have.

Sneak (common,Level X)

Grants user basic knowledge of how to move stealthily, from avoiding making noise to reducing visibility. Higher levels of this Skill will allow the user to have an overall lessened impact on the world at large, to the point of near complete invisibility.

This Skill also has an active mode in which the User actively spends mana to reduce their impact on the world.

Cost: 10 mana per minute

[Sundering Strike] had just gotten a little better and more sinister, but that was about it. The real boost was that he could now, in theory, use all of his [Strike] type [Skills] in a single [Manifold Strike] and it hit a little harder, but it was hardly game changing.

[Sneak], meanwhile, could now turn him into a hole in the world, something people’s eyes just slid over, easily missable unless he somehow drew attention. It was nowhere near as potent as [Stealth], but useful in its own right.

Especially over long periods or in crowds, where running around invisible would just raise one hell of a ruckus.

[Hundred Faces] and [Far Strike] had also gotten a bit stronger, but remained under the threshold for upgrading.

Now, he’d also gained a fuckton of experience and was debating on whether or not to spend it to upgrade his Level to 8 and was debating on whether or not to use it. On one hand, he’d gain power. On the other, it would reduce his XP gains.

Regardless of what choice he made about what to do right now, he’d be leveling before the end of the week until he hit Level 10 and evolved his [Class]. It might not be the most efficient method in terms of maximum level of power, but that ultimate limitation wasn’t the only thing Isaac had to consider.

He was also on something of a time limit because he’d eventually need to be strong enough to face certain foes, foes that were far stronger than his current Level.

And while he could, in theory, wait until then to increase his Level, the more practice he got in with the [Skills] unlocked by his new [Class], the better. [Class] Levels were not everything, sadly.

Lastly, he’d gained two additional [Skills].

Gralloch (common)

This Skill is quintessential for a hunter after the hunt is done. It teaches the User how to properly skin and clean a kill, separate out the important and valuable parts and reduces the risk of accidentally damaging any organs.

Alchemy (common)

When combining things with magical properties, many things may happen, some good, some bad, some just plain explosive.

This Skill is a catch all that supports these kinds of pursuits by granting basic knowledge and making its further acquisition easier.

These two had been earned by repeatedly making what could be considered an alchemical concoction in the form of the Corpsemelter acid and properly cleaning the monsters he’d killed. They were both things he could do normally since he knew how, but having them as [System] [Skills] helped quite a bit.

Now, it might seem like the mere existence of the [Alchemy] [Skill] made [Alchemist] redundant as a [Class], but that wasn’t actually the case.

Sure, it formed the basis for that [Class], but it was only one of many [Skills] it gave.

[Knives] and [Sneak] were also [General Skills] that could be gained through practice and formed the basis for the [Rogue] [Class]. But knowing which end of a knife went in the bad guy and mall-ninja level sneaking skills did not a [Rogue] make.

A slight smile crept back onto Isaac’s face as he recalled the events that had led to him gaining these upgrades. The monsters, the fights, all of that had been exhilarating after the darkness in his mind had escaped his grasp.

Normal social mores tended to frown on stuff like this, though. Fighting to burn off aggression … nope. Hell, there were people who thought violent video games were problematic, let alone fighting dangerous monsters in the depths of the wood.

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Several more Rock Golems had later fallen at his hands, large sheets of reinforced material to cover the sides of the shelter until he’d basically built himself a fort in the wood. A nasty carnivorous sheep had also died in short order, the wool making for an impromptu but good bed. Then he’d summoned another Giant Bullfrog and cooked it up.

Which creatures to summon to quickly build a shelter had been something nearly everyone had known in the other timeline, given how useful that knowledge was.

He’d also ended up using a still energized piece of Shadow Cat fur as an Elemental Source of Darkness to summon a Shade Drake.

Three meters long, four clawed limbs and a massive reptilian mouth that spat whatever breath attack that matched the Elemental Source used in the summoning, they were one hell of a threat. Also, incredibly fun to fight if you were strong enough.

The Shade Drake had breathed beams of pure darkness that clung to everything they touched, hiding it behind clouds of blackness so dark no light could penetrate it.

Its claws could tear through stone with casual ease, and it was fast as hell to boot.

Yet despite all that, it had fallen to his blade and dropped an aspect to boot.

He actually had done a few things other than killing monsters on the weekend. He’d deposited some of the money he’d bought from Calise at the bank and invested into quite a few stocks he knew would take off, finally feeling like it was reasonable that a person in his situation would do this stuff.

The problem with money and large scale monetary transactions was that they were on the record.

Deposit thousands of Euros with no obvious source? Busted.

Buy a house costing to the tune of hundreds of thousands of Euros with no obvious source or help? Busted.

Invest in a bunch of stocks that were about to take off the instant the thing that would eventually make that happen happened? Well, not exactly criminal, but certainly suspicious.

Of course, it would only ever be a problem if someone cared enough to look, but counting on staying under the radar while being a part of one of the most visible research teams in the world was just plain idiotic.

Besides, the first proper markets for monster bits were beginning to open, giving him a legal and traceable avenue for gaining cash.

Meanwhile, he had quite a bit of untraceable money to spend on bribes and less than legal stuff. And he had an avenue to trade items for said stuff directly via the same method, complete with a broker.

It would still take quite a bit of time, but he’d eventually have the money to get all the stuff that could be got with money.

There were now also a bunch of Aspects lying in his apartment, neatly sorted into piles of ones to sell, ones to keep and ones to gift to Bailey.

But what a bounty it was. Isaac had maxed out the number of Specters he could kill and gained three Aspects in the process, killed a few more Lesser Hydras and gained two of their Aspects, one from a Shadow Cat and a Rock Golem each.

Then he’d also summoned a few Earth and Water Elementals, for building material and drinking water, respectively, and gotten one of each of those.

The Shade Drake had also dropped one, luckily.

Lastly, he’d been summoning and knifing Apparitions using a Tier 1 circle on the way back to max out the use of his Mana Regeneration, just having them appear and then disappear with the sound of a bedsheet tearing as a [Piercing Strike] empowered dagger ripped through them. Those were actually pretty rare, getting one required either a lot of luck or fighting these things till judgement day, simply because they were so low level. So between the general low spawn rate of Aspects at those Levels and the fact that it was nearly impossible to gain the ‘kill an opponent with a higher Level’ bonus …

…this thing was so rare Isaac was tempted to just mount it on his wall. Being a Tier 1 Aspect, it was basically useless anyway.

Right now, though, he didn’t know which ones he was going to actually use. In the end, the main use for Aspects was gaining [Skills] that weren’t available in your own [Class’] [Skill-Tree].

But he had all the [Skills] he wanted right now, so he’d be waiting for his Evolution before choosing his next one. Besides, all of the Aspects he had right now either gave him what basically amounted to [Rogue] [Skills] or ones that were entirely foreign to his build.

Isaac did decide to hold on to one of the Hydra Aspects to be used as an eventual bribe in addition to the Shade Drake and Shadow Cat Aspects.

He’d also gotten a surprise that had been quite a bit less pleasant. Someone had filmed part of the fight against the Swamp Knight and, of course, posted it online. Given how drunk the person holding the phone had been, the footage was incredibly shaky and hard to watch, making it difficult to identify him, but it was still annoying.

His involvement in that mess was a matter of public record for anyone who cared to look for it, but it was still not something he was happy about.

Isaac’s phone chimed with an incoming text. He pulled it out to see that it had come from Bailey.

‘Meet me at the bio campus’ post office.’

Of course, just where that damn thing was located was mentioned nowhere. Ah well, he’d just bug some random person he ran into.

And that was what he ended up doing. Two short conversations later, Isaac finally spotted it, though he mostly just recognized it because Bailey was standing right next to it.

“Nice weekend, Isaac?”

“Yeah, I went camping.” Isaac told him “Also, catch.”

Isaac tried to toss him an Aspect of the Specter, but Bailey ended up fumbling the catch, which ended with the gelatinous orb dropping to the ground. Then, when Bailey tried to pick it back up, it ended up slipping out of his grasp. And again, until he eventually managed to grab it. Then, his eyes went wide.

“Wait, you actually got one? Do you have any idea how much these go for?”

Isaac actually didn’t know what the current price was, it was still in constant flux, just that it was insanely expensive, far more than the ten thousand he’d sold his first batch for. He might even have been upset about essentially taking a loss on that sale … if that whole thing hadn’t been mostly about setting up supplier relations with Calise. And the money he had gotten would be enough for any short term expenses.

“Obviously. I hit the maximum number of Specters, though.”

“And? What was it?”

“A little over a hundred, but I’m not sure, I didn’t keep very good records in the beginning.” Isaac said. It should have been exactly one hundred, but he’d killed a lot of them while under levelled, thereby raising the threshold.

"Seriously though, do with that what you will. Use it, experiment with it, something I haven't thought of, anything that would help you with your research." Isaac told him.

"I think I'll be using it once I have the XP." Bailey said, sounding a little shaky "I won't forget this, promise. Thank you."

“Anyway, why did you call me here?” Isaac asked, smoothly ignoring the sudden rising awkwardness.

“For …” Bailey opened the door to the post office, revealing literal piles of mail “… all this crap.”

“Holy shit! What’s all this about?” Isaac yelped.

“Last Thursday. Or maybe Friday? That mess got pretty late.” Bailey told him, scratching his chin thoughtfully.

“So, congrats and thanks?” Isaac asked.

“Congrats, thanks, requests for data, suggestions, corrections, bribes for you guys to butter you up before they poach you … a lot of stuff.” Bailey explained.

“So, what pile is ours?” Isaac asked, looking around the room that looked incredibly messy.

“All of them. They already handed out everything else, but this department isn’t exactly laid out to transport this much on top of everything else.” Bailey told him.

“Yeesh. Please tell me there are bags to gather everything in?”

“Yep.” Bailey said, giving him a pair of folded up plastic sacks. Isaac just sighed and began to shove every envelope he could into them, wishing he’d invested a few more points into Strength.

Ten minutes later, he stumbled down the corridor towards the meeting room with one bulging sack slung over each shoulder.

Rather than fumbling with the sacks while opening the door, or, God forbid, putting them down, Isaac just phased through the door.

“Holy …” Patrick yelped and jumped away from him, fists half raised in a surprisingly decent combat stance, though he dropped them once he recognized Isaac.

“Ah yes, you get superpowers and all you do with them is go through doors without having to open them.” Amy chuckled.

“So, mail?” Raul asked.

“Mail.” Bailey announced, having come in through the door the normal way “A metric ton of mail. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to help me with that, let’s separate them into normal congratulations or brownnosing, requests for data or suggestions for corrections and one just for hate mail.”

“You really think we got hate mail?” Raul asked.

“Yes, but it won’t be obvious at first. The kinds of phrases where someone insults your mother to your face but dresses it up in so many flowery phrases that by the time you realize you want to smack them, they’ve already run off.” Amy suggested “Academia can get nasty.”

“Actually, that’s exactly what meant. Hardly worth reading, but it helps to know who your enemies are.” Bailey added “Just read all of these and when you see something that you think everyone else might like to hear, read it out loud.”

So that was what they did. For hours. Only occasionally did something deserve to be even just commented on.

“I think I got one of those disguised insult ones.” Patrick announced “It’s from a professor from California and he’s complaining about us snatching up his research topic and writing a paper while he was still writing the funding proposal.”

“Too slow.” Bailey shrugged “Fighting for funding eats up so much time, it’s great to have a proper mandate.”

“And that is?” Isaac asked.

“Hm?”

“What is our mandate, exactly? I think knowing the actual wording might be useful.” Isaac clarified.

“Find out anything about the [System] you can. Get any data that is available. If something is liable to blow up, ask first.” Bailey told them with a grin “Basically, it’s that simple.”

But once that little discussion was out of the way, things returned to normal. Requests for data, people pointing out flaws in their arguments, complaints about research topics being stolen and, of course, congratulations from people who weren’t being sore losers.

Suddenly, to everyone’s surprise, Isaac burst out laughing.

“Hey Adam, do you actually know Dr. Frankenstein, or just have a friend with a … unique sense of humor?”

“What are you …” Bailey started to say, then caught the name on the envelope and froze “Please tell me that isn’t something too offensive?”

“Eh, depends on your definition of offensive. It’s a humorous description of new experiments that are possible now that there are humans that can survive that kind of stuff, obvious satire. I can see how someone could easily take that the wrong way though.” Isaac shrugged, only for Bailey to grab the paper out of his hand.

“You’re … not mad?” Bailey sounded puzzled.

“Mad? This is dark, dark shit. In other words, exactly my kind of humor. Might want to separate this stuff from official mail before someone else reads the contents, right?” Isaac suggested.

After some begging and cajoling, the letter was passed around, but then things returned to normal. Finally, two hours after this thing had started, they were almost finished.

“Alright, so we have the commendation from the police, which will go on the wall once I’ve had it framed, a bunch of nasty messages for the files, and some requests for data that we can pass on to IT. Now, it’s time for the gift baskets!” Bailey announced, finally letting them at the things they’d been looking forward to since the very beginning.

“Who is ‘Samuel Barnes’?” Amy asked, looking at Isaac “And why is he sending you, personally, booze?”

“He’s a friend, the guy who hosted that party.” Isaac said, slightly grumpy.

“What’s wrong?” Amy raised her eyebrows at his reaction. Clearly his poker face had been insufficient.

In response, he grabbed the bottle of Stroh 80 from the basket, opened it, and held it out for her to sniff.

“Smell that and tell me I should enjoy it.” he told her.

“… how can anyone drink that?” she grimaced, holding the bottle as far away from her as she physically could. Patrick and Karl wisely decided against taking a sniff, but Bailey and Raul did stick their noses above the open bottle and subsequently proceeded to treat it as it were a biohazard.

“Once again, how can anyone drink that?” Amy repeated herself.

“You don’t. You put it in a cocktail and light it on fire, or use it in a cake, but you never, ever drink it raw.” Patrick said.

“I can see that.” Bailey said, distaste still evident on his face.

“Oh, and by the way, Isaac, I’m working on getting you dinosaur bones. Mensch und Natur actually did give up a T-Rex tooth, but that species it so big it’ll end up Tier 4 and we’re not allowed to summon those yet.” Bailey told them all.

“Dinosaur?” Amy asked.

“I’m guessing we’re taking advantage of the Prehistoric Summoning List?” Patrick asked.

“Ye-“ Isaac started to answer, but was cut off by a [System] Screen popping up without his input. A very familiar screen. Uh-oh.

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