Chapter 16: Chapter 16: Id

Mila

“What is wrong with Aalam?” The sage leaned back in her chair again, but this time she was frowning. “Well, quite a bit.

“First, there is something wrong with that family. Uniquenesses have the same grades as classes, skills, races, and the like with Heroic, Fabled, and Mythic being the three grades higher than Legendary. Unlike most other things on the same grade scale, however, uniquenesses, like bloodlines, can have a grade higher than Legendary at G rank.

“Your Shadow Princess is a Fabled uniqueness and that’s a higher grade than I ever expected from anyone on Earth, but that family, both have Mythic uniquenesses. And the one with a uniqueness helpful with Law comprehension isn’t the one who has mastered the equivalent of fourteen early Law Eggs.” Nana Xara paused for a second. “Make that fifteen.

“By the gods, I wish that boy wasn’t insane.”

Nana Xara looked over at the wall for a second, her focus seemingly elsewhere, then she turned back to Mila. “The problem is what Mythic uniqueness he has. In English, I think it would be translated as Id, of Id, Ego, and Superego fame.

“You know what a berserker is, right?”

Mila nodded. “In Earth’s fantasy stories it's someone who trades sanity for power. They’re usually strong and fast rage machines.”

“Pretty much.” Nana Xara nodded. “Well, berserker uniquenesses are a whole category, where the user can enter a state where the effectiveness of one or more of their stats are raised for a cost. For most berserker uniquenesses, the cost is a decrease in effectiveness of another stat or stats, but uncontrollable rage is also common, and for most there is a time limit in which the user can stay in the state and they are weakened for a while after they exit it.

“Id is a very high end berserker uniqueness. The user can stay in the berserking state for years, not minutes. The boost is to the Spirit stat, arguably the most useful of the nine base stats, and is by a factor of 12, which is ridiculous, the maximum any type of boosting ability can reach. The problem is people born with this uniqueness on mana filled planets generally don’t survive to adulthood. And those who awaken it in a tutorial have never once passed.

“The berserking state of Id doesn’t make a person any different. It doesn’t make them angry. It doesn’t make them horny. And it doesn’t make them think they’re invincible. But it’s generally considered far worse than berserker powers with those types of effects because it is much more unpredictable.

“Id completely removes the user’s inhibitions.” 

Mila thought about it for a second and realized how that could be worse. Someone in a berserker rage might attack everyone around them, but the effect of the rage would be obvious and people could avoid the berserker. Someone with a lack of inhibition, however, might be completely happy, then get annoyed at someone for something minor and slit their throat. Were someone super horny due to a berserker power, they still might take some precautions when they tried to rape someone, but if someone without inhibitions wanted to rape someone they just would, consequences be damned. And if someone thought they were invincible, they still might think twice before taking an action and make a slightly better one instead, but someone without inhibitions wouldn’t.

Aalam was an odd case, however. He was a high functioning autistic, logical to a fault. Thinking about future consequences and making detailed plans was innate to his very being, so the types of issues he’d cause from a lack of inhibition would be different than normal. More importantly, however, he was very introverted.

Aalam would like nothing more than to stay in his lab doing experiments and, because he was Aalam, he was unlikely to blow himself up. The bigger risk while he was in there was he might stop eating or sleeping, but, as a soulform, he didn’t have to do either. Until the next challenge, he was unlikely to leave unless he needed to get something, and she could do that instead.

He had most likely made some ridiculous plan for vast cosmic power, especially as Nana Xara had given him all the necessary information to make an optimized build, and those plans almost certainly involved doing some crazy things in the next two Nightmare difficulty challenges, so that was the greater danger.

Aalam’s stats were already five times higher than normal, however, and his Luck was very high, while his Spirit already exceeded what was normally possible for a trial taker, so it was entirely possible he wouldn’t get himself killed.

But what about after? His lack of inhibition would be an advantage in some cases. If he was his normal self, for example, he wouldn’t have started making use of her just because he knew she was competent in areas he understood himself to be lacking. His pride would have gotten in the way. And quick actions were usually far more useful in a fight even if they weren’t ideal.

His sexual fantasies wouldn’t be much of a problem, given they always consisted of a more intellectual connection than a physical one, so she wasn’t much worried on that front.

Were he to ever interact with people vastly more powerful than him, however, he wouldn’t be able to keep his mouth shut even more than normal, and the result could be deadly.

“So, you’re not even going to consider leaving him, are you?” Nana Xara had an amused expression on her face by this point, and Mila felt a little self conscious knowing the woman had likely seen through her entire thought process. “It’s kind of cute.”

Nana Xara’s face then became sterner and she tapped her cane on the ground again, causing the chairs they were sitting on to merge into the floor, leaving both of them standing. “But are you sure?”

Mila thought about it for a second. “I think so.”

“He hates you, you know.”

Mila found that idea reasonable, but it didn’t change her mind. She’d given him pretty good reason. Still, she wanted a bit more information. “What makes you think that?”

“He saw you and then immediately comprehended the Law Egg of asphyxiation.”

Mila didn’t know how to respond to that. “But isn’t it a good sign he didn’t try to strangle me?”

“Honestly?” Nana Xara relaxed her expression and it reminded Mila of the look Diana would often have on her face whenever Mila was leaving her and Aalam’s apartment before she and Aalam actually got together. “I have no idea. It’s probably not a good idea to try flirting with him, though.”

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Then a System message appeared in front of Mila’s eyes.

 

The Yin Yang Sage has offered you and Trial Taker Aalam Alvaro a quest.

 

Partners in Crime (Legendary)

 

Aalam Alvaro must accomplish the following:

1. Achieve at least a middle grade Law Egg for each of the main elements
2. Craft at least one artifact of Common grade or higher with infusion of Law power from at least 12 middle grade or higher Law Eggs
3. Have a Citizen class with two Legendary skills and one free slot
4. Not die

 

Li Mila must accomplish the following:

1. Achieve at least 3 Law Eggs
2. Have a Citizen class with two Legendary skills and one free slot
3. Not die

 

Rewards: One Legendary skill orb from the Yin Yang Sage’s collection for each trial taker, guaranteed to help optimize the paths to power of both

 

Do you accept?

Yes/No

 

“I’ll give you a couple pieces of advice before you accept, Mila.” Nana Xara had a serious expression on her face. “First, while no one has ever done it before, Id is only a Mythic uniqueness and it seems to be the start of a uniqueness line, so it should be possible to advance it three times, and, as it already gives the maximum stat increase, it’s likely an advancement would greatly reduce the lack of inhibition. This is only a theory, though.

“Second, one thing that is known about the Id uniqueness berserker state is that it is very easy to enter but very difficult to leave. I don’t know how bad the effects of leaving the state are, but I wouldn’t recommend doing so in the tutorial. The chances are high, with you around providing an agitation factor, he’d enter right back in and the results would be him weaker than he could be for the absolutely stupid things he’s planning. So, I would advise against trying.

“Third, and this is probably the most important, don’t over-rely on the Luck stat. It represents an influence on fate and is incredibly useful as a result, but in the tutorial it has a far more magnified effect, the Luck stat of trial takers greatly influencing the nature of the challenges. Its effects outside of the tutorial will be far, far less and you should probably find a way to tell Aalam that.

“Finally, don’t expect cool quests like this in the future. I just happened to have two Legendary skills which would be perfect for you and Aalam, but, to give them to you, I needed to give you a quest which no one should normally be able to accomplish. There are rules about this given the deal I made with the System and I can’t even give my own apprentice presents. She first has to qualify for a reward one grade lower of the same type for me to give her anything.”

Mila bowed to the woman and then accepted the quest, the confirmation telling her Aalam had already accepted it as well, but, while she was looking at the ground, she heard a sharp clink of wood on stone and when she looked up the hovering robots were back and Nana Xara was grinning again. Then the robots immediately started to attack her and she had to start dodging.

“I promised you a detailed training regimen, so here it is. As you do not need to eat or sleep, you will live in this room when not working to keep your boyfriend from killing himself. Every day you will self-train with the teachings of your legacy artifact for four hours, especially focusing on Law guidance and energy control. The control methods for qi, psyforce, and mana of the so-called Weaponmaster, while crude, will set a good foundation for you if you survive the second Nightmare challenge and I accept you as an apprentice. If that happens, however, you will be changing your control methods, so don’t get attached.

“Next you will spend two hours on dodge training like you are doing right now, and the intensity will grow with your level of skill, so don’t expect to be able to slack off. This will be followed by three hours training energy concealment techniques with the D rank spirit of this amphitheater known as the Shadow, then another three hours with the D rank spirit known as the Enhancer, training your skills.

“Two hours of meditation will follow, where you will consolidate what you learned. Then you will train with me for two hours followed by another two hours of meditation. Finally, the remaining six hours of your day you will spend in the library of the University district, where you will read, especially focusing on biographies of those who entered the System through apocalypse style integrations.

“You will not pay attention to the other trial takers outside of whatever Aalam requests and you will take two of the reserve puppets of this amphitheater and order one to follow you everywhere and place the other in Aalam’s crafting room so he can contact you at any time.

“If anything comes up which would cause Aalam to leave that room, you will drop everything and accompany him. Am I understood?”

Mila would have given an affirmative, but the robots had gotten significantly faster, so she couldn’t actually respond.

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