Chapter 46: Advancement

As he waited for the others to get here, Isaac checked his Status.

Name: Isaac Thoma

Class: Undying Wraith

Species: Human

Level: 16

XP: 5761/3400

Health Status: Healthy

Mana: 27/300

Stats

Fortitude

45

Perception

45

Strength

30

Agility

50

Magic Power

30

Magic Regeneration

50

Free Points: 0 Stat, 3 Skill

Central Skills

Form of Horror XI

The Chosen Weapon X

Skills

Hundred Faces VIII

Stealth XII

Power Strike XVII

Piercing Strike XIX

Sundering Strike XVII

Blades XVIII

Sneak XIII

Sweeping Strike VIII

Far Strike XII

Manifold Strike X

Hunter’s Gaze IX

Phantom Step VIII

Unknown Fear VI

Bestial Regeneration II

Undying Focus I

Tools of Terror III

General Skills

Gralloch VII

Alchemy V

Aspects

Aspect Skills

Specter

Spectral Shift

Hydra (2 stack)

Hydra’s Regeneration

Redundant Organs

Dunkleosteus

Gills

He’d used some of his banked XP to level up to 16, the Level they’d assumed The Crusher would be, and then invested twenty points into both Agility and Magic Regeneration, bringing them up to fifty, then split the two remaining ones between Magic Power and Perception.

Of course, he’d also grabbed himself three new [Skills], which left only one more [Skill] he needed from this [Class], leaving him free to save his points for the next one.

Tools of Terror (epic)

An Undying Wraith is never unarmed, eternally equipped with the tools of his slain foes. This Skill allows the user to draw upon the natural weapons once possessed by any creature whose Aspect he holds.

Cost: 10 mana per weapon minimum, up to 50 mana for large weapons, 1 mana every second to sustain it

The first one was a basic extension of [Undying Wraith’s] use of Aspects, which let him mimic some of his Aspects’ monsters’ abilities, like the Dunkleosteus’ bony plates or a Hydra’s toxic blood despite not having taken those [Skills] when slotting them. For someone who fought using weapons like him, it was a bit of a niche ability, but so incredibly versatile that it would have practically been a crime to not get it.

Undying Focus (epic)

No matter what kinds of damage an Undying Wraith suffers, no matter how badly they are injured, one thing will always remain. Their undying willpower.

This Skill grants the user the ability to directly alter their perception of pain, including completely shutting it off.

WARNING! Completely removing one’s sense of pain may lead to injuries going unnoticed!

In addition, it prevents tunnel vision, therefore allowing the user to keep track of their goal without overlooking anything in the process and even block out mental attacks.

Lastly, Undying Focus allows healing and regeneration Skills to heal brain damage and even restore damaged memories without requiring specialized Skills on the part of the healing individual.

The second [Skill], on the other hand, solidly fell into the category of ‘I never want to use this because if I needed it, I was in incredible danger’. The first effect of blocking out pain was very much meh, especially given that pain grew to be less and less of a problem as one’s Fortitude increased, but the rest was incredible.

The resistance to mental effects alone made in invaluable, but the last one was even better. In the other timeline, he’d dealt with a lot of [Healers], [Doctors] and other healing [Classes], who’d explained to him how lost memories could be restored. Apparently, all of what made a person, well, them, was also contained in their soul and someone with the right [Class] could use that as a template to regenerate brain damage and restore any memories destroyed. Isaac had taken them up on that more often than he’d like, taking knocks to the head was an unfortunate occupational hazard.

Bestial Regeneration (epic)

No matter how good a fighter is, injuries are inevitable, given enough time. Therefore, this Skill is as invaluable as it is indisputable that it will find a use.

It allows the user to store excess mana generated by Magic Regeneration for the sole purpose of fueling the user’s regeneration Skills. This pool will be used to automatically heal any injuries sustained unless this Skill is explicitly suppressed and will used up before any regeneration Skills draw on the user’s mana pool.

This pool’s size is Skill Level*10

Up last was probably the most mundane of all his new [Skills]. Basically, it gave him an overhealing pool. But combined with [Undying Focus], it was truly insane. It allowed him to empty out his mana pool without needing to worry about being unable to heal and then also heal from everything.

It was a tad OP, but then again, this was an epic [Class], in the same category as the rest of the team’s cheat-like copycat powers.

A common [Class] might have cheaper [Skills], but even combined, four common [Skills] would only barely match an epic one if they worked together and even then, grabbing literal metric crapton of cheap [Skills] would only get you so far.

There were people who were already near Level 25 and shooting towards their next Evolution, but Isaac could easily kick any one of them around like a pinball with casual ease. Hell, Amy, Patrick or Raul could do the exact same even without Isaac’s decade of combat experience. Shooting up through the Levels on the backs of weak monsters was a perfectly acceptable way to go about that, passing through thresholds and subsequently evolving like that was not.

And to top it all off, he’d brought both [Manifold Strike] and [The Chosen Weapon] above Level 10. The former now simply gave a slight boost to all [Skills] used and the exponential increase in cost was now slightly lessened, while the latter let him absorb one additional weapon as an alternate form. In the end, the choice was rather obvious and the Kriegsmesser vanished into motes of light that were immediately sucked into the knife.

He looked it up and down, admiring the sleek blade, edge glinting in the light. And then it was suddenly more than twice as long as it shifted into its new form, returning to the smaller knife once more. And the weapon’s Status sheet wasn’t looking to shabby either.

Weapon: Old Reliable

Once merely an ordinary Ka-Bar, this weapon has been refined and strengthened by the Skills of a Rogue, bathed in the blood of countless powerful monsters and finally claimed as The Chosen Weapon of an Undying Phantom, transcending its old purpose and limitations.

Ever-growing with its wielder, the Old Reliable will not only gain strength, but entirely new powers as it is used in legendary battles and bathed in the blood of the enemies that fall in them.

Mana Pool: 200/200

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Forms: Ka-Bar, Kriegsmesser

Skills:

To Me: Calls Old Reliable back into the wielder’s hand in a straight line, costs 10 mana, at a range of a maximum of 10 meters.

Always Armed: Teleports Old Reliable into the wielder’s hand from anywhere in the universe. The minimum cost is 50 and scales with distance and interfering effects.

Eternity: Old Reliable is as eternal as its wielder. So long as he is alive, this weapon has the opportunity to be reborn. Doing so will require all of the materials used to build it in the first place, as well as 500 mana. This cost will have to be paid by an external source.

Shapeshift: Old Reliable can now shift between Forms at will, every shift costing 1 mana.

Duplicate: This Skill calls out as many of Old Reliable’s forms as the user wants, having them exist simultaneously until it ends. This costs 10 mana to activate and 1 mana per minute for every manifested weapon.

“Honestly, I didn’t expect you to go beast mode against that thing. It looked like you were about to just chop that thing into bits with your knife.” Amy commented, having used flight [Skill] to get here faster than everyone else. While Isaac had been off powerlevelling the police and fire department, the others had started working towards making good use of their own epic [Classes].

“Eh, it was either that and use the Stat boost to keep dodging while using just [Sundering Strike] to dig it apart or kiting it for an hour while my mana regenerated. Those all-encompassing strikes are pretty expensive in terms of mana.” Isaac said, then decided that he was sounding a little too flippant after a battle with a monster whose Tier was synonymous with mass deaths and devastation, so he added “With the stat boost and longer limbs, I could have disengaged at any moment if need be, so I was perfectly fine.”

“That certainly looked pretty cool, though a little too savage for my taste. Less ‘skillful martial artist dismantles monster’ and more ‘kaiju battle.” she commented.

“Eh, I had to find the core. Digging around its chest like a dog wanting to burry a bone was pretty inevitable.” Isaac shrugged “Can you lift this thing? I wanna see if I can get the pieces of my sword back.”

“It’s a little too heavy.” Amy shook her head “So the sword’s gone then?”

“Probably. I’ll take it to my [Blacksmith] and see if I can get it fixed.” Isaac sighed.

“Wait, where’d the other weapon go?” a young woman in a military uniform asked, having just arrived with an entire troop of people, both in military uniforms and protective gear designed for the safe handling of power tools.

“Soulbound gear can be pretty nifty.” Isaac flashed her a smile, holding up his right index finger and as if by magic, his kabar appeared on top of it, resting on the tip of its blade, not injuring him in the slightest. Then, Isaac let his hand drop back to his side, the blade beginning to fall yet it vanished before it could travel more than a few centimeters.

“I can see that, I don’t suppose you could tell me where to get one of those things?” an older man with a single silver star-thing wrapped in a laurel wreath on his shoulder pads asked, having arrived with them.

“It’s a part of my [Class]. Started out as a [Rogue], then evolved it with Aspects from a Lesser Hydra and a Specter.” Isaac told him. That part was practically public knowledge, after all, so there was little reason to hide it.

“Those are a little pricy, aren’t they?” the man asked.

“Only if you buy them.” Isaac said, deciding to not elaborate further. Anyone with a brain could deduce that he summoned privately, but that didn’t mean that he wanted to outright say so in the presence of high-ranking officials.

Mind you, summoning itself wasn’t illegal yet. The precedent for people being responsible for the things their summoned monsters wrecked had been set within days of Initialization and codified into law, at least here in Germany, last week and the rest of the world was, for the most part, in a similar state.

But a simple ‘no summoning, under any circumstances, ever’ law had not been passed, and it would have been rather difficult, anyway. After all, a lot of people did summon and it was beneficial. For example, Bailey’s research group, but that was only the very beginning. The industrial uses for monster materials were still in their infancy, but it was clear they existed and could change the world, never mind the military applications that were clear as day. All of that meant that simply forbidding it out of hand was not an option.

It was, of course, possible to declare summoning the exclusive privilege of the government and the people they gave exceptions to, but anyone with half a brain could tell how that would go. Either there’d be literal riots, people would summon in secret and without oversight, or both. None of that was good.

“That was certainly one hell of a fight, kid.” the man continued, Isaac internally rolling his eyes at the form of address “If a civie can do that, what do you think a trained soldier will be able to do?”

“Fly faster than a speeding bullet, jump over buildings in a single bound, beat up everyone with a shield?” Isaac suggested flippantly.

“I think you’re mixing up your heroes there.” Amy stage whispered, elbowing him in the side.

“Point is, there’s a great deal of possibilities out there, especially past Level 10 and the first Evolution.” Isaac finished.

“To be honest, I’ve read a dozen reports on that, but I’m still not entirely clear on how that is supposed to work. I don’t suppose you could explain it in a way that doesn’t require a Doctorate in Systemology?” the man asked. At this point, Isaac resolved to memorize the rank insignia of every military he would likely encounter so he could tell at a glance how rude he could be to a given person and still get away with it.

Then, he heard Bailey mention his name from over where the body lay. It had clearly been in casual conversation and the only reason he heard it was his high Perception, but it nonthelesss made for nice excuse.

“I’m really sorry, but Professor Bailey just called for me.” Isaac announced and made head over.

“I didn’t hear anything?” the man gave him a look, but Isaac just threw him a smirk and tapped his ears.

“I suppose there are benefits to having underlings with a high Perception, namely, not having to yell to get them to come over. Mrs. Shaw can tell you everything you want to know.”

And just like that, Isaac swiftly headed off, leaving Amy alone with the brusque officer.

“You asked for me?” Isaac asked, stepping up to Bailey.

“No, I … actually, I could use you over at the body. The titanium is shredding the rotary saws.” Bailey turned around for a moment to talk to him, then returned to his conversation.

What followed were a few of hours of dismantling a gigantic mass of inert metal, digging the shards of his blade out of said chunk of metal, debriefs and arguing over the distribution of the loot. There’d been rough agreements hammered out ahead of time about who’d get what, but now that there was an actual golem to fight over and its durability had been handily demonstrated by the ruined power tools and sheer amount of power drawn used the plasma cutters that had also been employed had awoken people’s avarice.

But once that time had passed, the team left levitating along an entire limb of the Golem, as well as few of the titanium bones that formed the core of the monster that Isaac had dug out. He’d be getting one of those to turn into a new sword later. While he’d gathered up all the shards of his old Zweihänder, he doubted it would be repairable. He’d needed to drop by Stagmer’s blacksmith’s shop anyway. He’d do that after work tonight.

Isaac sighed and rested his head against the car window as the landscape blurred past outside, deep in thought. His own personal circumstances might have been a hell of a lot better than they’d been at this point in time the other timeline, and Bailey’s progress had been massively sped up by his presence, but the world still looked much the same.

Sure, the situation was massively chaotic, and changes took time to propagate, but the lack of progress was still quite disheartening. Already being aware of the automatic summoning issue was a huge win and shouldprevent, or at the very least, mitigate, a few future issues. But whether or not that proved true remained to be seen.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Amy asked, looking at him from the driver’s seat.

“Eyes on the road.” Isaac mumbled.

“I’m keeping a [Scry] on the road, I can look at both things at once.”

“Trust me, ‘my superpower makes this perfectly safe’ isn’t an excuse that cops accept, I learned that the hard way.” Isaac grumbled.

“Still, you ok?”

“So-so.” he sighed again “That was a damn tough monster. Maybe not as destructive as the Stormheart Gestalt, but how the hell would you stop it? Artillery? By the time that thing goes down, the shells will have levelled everything within a couple of city blocks, even if they all hit.”

“In that case, you can help me get a long range teleport and then I can drop you on top of the next big summon’s head and then you can take care of it.” Amy winked at him.

“I’m chasing a few leads towards that end, but I’m waiting to outlevel the spatial monsters by quite a bit before I fight them. If they’re able to turn the world into an M. C. Escher painting, I’m going to be in trouble.” Isaac replied “But the instant I feel ready, I’m going to tell you.”

“Can you take the wheel for a sec, I wanna check if hell has frozen over?” Amy asked.

“Meaning?” Isaac asked sardonically.

“Isaac Thoma, not jumping straight into a fight with a monster. Something terrible has clearly happened.” she winked at him.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up.” Isaac replied, unable to stop himself from chuckling “So, like I said, I’ll see if I can find something with a portal power or something and call you when I got one.”

“Thanks.” Amy said, returning her gaze to the road “By the way, how’s your house coming?”

“Slowly. I’ve managed to properly cover the ground in fallen rock monsters during my off time and Karl fused them into a proper foundation. Now I’ve got a couple of shipping containers there to give me a little shelter and storage space, but I’ve got a looooooooong way to go.” Isaac told her, pulling his head off the window as he sat up straight.

“Still, your own house at your age? That’s awesome.” Amy said.

Isaac shrugged “Those Aspect trading platforms are up properly now, you could easily afford to buy one too if you sell a dozen or so.”

“By the way, how’re things going on your end with collecting those?” Amy asked.

“So-so. The monsters I fought for the cops dropped a few, but those mostly went to the police department, as per our contract. The ones I got went to Bailey, but I think they just got used traded to other departments and universities for favors.” Isaac said.

“Huh, that’s nice of you.” Amy said “But let’s talk about something more cheery. Any big parties happening this weekend?”

They ended up talking about pleasantly mundane topics for the rest of the drive back to the university.

Half an hour after arriving there, they’d dropped off samples with everyone who needed them and were walking back down into their own department.

“Someone’s here.” Isaac said nonchalantly as they stepped onto the stairs to their rooms “Waiting in the conference room.”

This was almost certainly a benign visitor, but even if they were, a warning couldn’t hurt. And if they were hostile, it would be invaluable.

“Ah, he’s early.” Bailey commented, intriguing Isaac. This could be … interesting.

Straining his ears, Isaac tried to figure out who was in there. He was pretty sure it was a man in there, but he wasn’t speaking, so identifying him via his voice was out of the question. In theory, it was possible to figure out who someone was without looking at them via their breathing, but that was an incredibly difficult [Skill] to master and required a massive amount of Perception.

Bailey having called the man here narrowed it down some, but he still had no idea who it could be. Then again, they were about to see who it was.

“Good afternoon, Peter.” Bailey greeted the Dean as he walked in through the door.

Isaac stepped to the side after entering the room so he could let the others in and took in the scene. Dean Kass sat in the chair next to the one Bailey usually occupied, a tablet laid down and pushed to the side from where he’d likely been working while waiting, with five piles of paperwork resting on the table.

“Good afternoon, Dean Kass.” Isaac greeted.

“Afternoon. Is there something I can do for you?” Patrick asked.

“Actually, this is about what the university can do for you.” Kass said, gesturing to the paperwork before him “Please, sit down, and I’ll explain everything.”

They obeyed and Amy levitated one of the piles over to her.

“This is the paperwork for registering in a course for … System Sciences?” she frowned.

“Yes”. Kass told her “We’re currently working towards creating a new faculty to teach that, we’re about to register it as an actual course students can sign up for come Wintersemester and it will be largely based on your work. As such, you could practically teach most of the [Classes] and once you sign up, we can give you a Bachelor’s degree the moment the course if approved and legally recognized. As far as the thesis goes, you’ve all been working on various papers with Adam, so that’ll count for that.

“You’re also going to get a Master’s once we’ve got enough to actually set up a program. At that point, you’re likely going to be in a position to be writing a Doctor’s Thesis and gaining that title as well.”

“That seems a little fast.” Patrick observed, tone neutral.

“From the inside, you’ve likely not had the perspective I have. You’re doing groundbreaking work and judging by the sheer number of angry letters and calls my office has received from people who saw their dreams of fame disappear as you guys wrote their paper before they could, you’re very much ahead of everyone else. You deserve this. And if you check the second page, you’ll learn about the raise which you also deserve.”Kass added.

“I’m guessing that’s code for ‘bribe so you won’t take one of the countless offers you’ve no doubt received’?” Isaac suggested.

A lot of people had been trying to hire away Bailey after the impact he’d had on a global scale, but the Professor was closely aligned with their university and loyal to it, unwilling to leave. They’d also tried to hire away his team and kept doing so, in the hope that they weren’t quite as attached to their current position.

“Well, I wouldn’t put it quite like that …” Bailey said, trailing off.

“… but that’s still what it is, isn’t it?” Amy finished his sentence for him.

“Look, there’s something I want to say.” Isaac said “I’ll take the raise because it is, well, a raise, but I’d stay even without one. This team has already discovered so many incredible things and even turned some into practical applications. Beyond that, we helped save a goddamn city. I ain’t leaving.”

“What he said.” Patrick said “The pay doesn’t matter as long as I can live off it. We discovered the biggest trap in the history of the world before anyone set it off when that thing with the slime happened. Other people might pay better, but here, I know I’m working towards something that has the potential to save everyone.”

“I agree with the drama queens.” Amy shrugged, leaning back in her chair.

The rest of the evening was spent filling out paperwork and making in-person funding requests now that they had the Dean here as a captive audience.

When Isaac realized how many concessions they’d wrangled out of him by the end of the day, he actually felt a little bad.

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