Chapter 8: 8. The Skill Tree

*ZRR-shoom!* The vibrant and bright colors faded away into gray. What Zeff had seen as an explosion was in fact the colors of his surroundings being 'sucked up' and away into nowhere, leaving Zeff floating in a dreary grayscale copy of his bedroom.

He looked at his hands and body and found that he, himself, was still in full HD.

As he floated there, bobbing up and down like some kind of poltergeist, he was surprised to find that he didn't feel too surprised by the phenomenon. In the last 12 hours he had been infected with a gene altering virus, turned into a fire-breathing dragon, and grown more than 6 inches… not to mention shot…twice! What actually surprised him was the two gray men crouching down in his room directly in from of him.

He floated around to the front of the two men so that he could see their faces. "Woah." He said in disbelief.

The 'two men' were actually himself and Dr. Sylvan, both frozen in time as though the universe had stopped working.

He took a closer look at Dr. Sylvan and winced. He had somehow completely forgotten that the doctor was only hours ago bleeding from his nose and ears. Now seeing him up close he looked much worse than Zeff had realized. He had deep, discolored bags under his eyes and a very haggard look about him.

Zeff hadn't known Dr. Sylvan for more than a day but, nonetheless, he wanted to help him somehow. He made up his mind then and there that he would not run if it meant leaving Dr. Sylvan behind. 'But could I really just pick him up and run with him?' Zeff thought, 'What if the cops shot at us?'

>> Welcome, Subject-04.

Zeff turned in a complete circle looking for the origin of the voice but found no one. He did, however, recognize it. It was the same soft male voice he had heard in his mental subspace: the voice of the dRas.

"Hey, dRas! Where are you?" he asked hoping to get a response or see a diamond avatar much like Aida's, but he heard nothing and saw no one.

He tried to go to his bedroom door to look around the corner but after a few feet some unknown force stopped him and held him in place.

'Of course.' He thought with a chuckle as he hovered back to his original position. 'That would be insane if I could float around as far as I wanted from my body…'

Then suddenly there was a soft *zip* and a small flash of light as, before his very eyes, a rather large azure terminal popped into existence.

It was like a giant screen made of blue light.

"What the…" Zeff said. "dRas! What am I looking at?" He took a moment to study the screen that floated before his eyes, obscuring the rest of the dreary gray world.

On the screen there were three equally spaced columns with titles at the very top that read, from left to right, 'Dragon Mind', 'Dragon Meld', and 'Dragon Might'.

Beneath the columns, on the left side of the terminal, in big white letters was a readout that read, 'Lvl 5'. On the right side and slightly smaller there was the number '8' with the words 'Skill Points (SP)' above them.

Zeff had played more than a few video games in his life and he was no stranger to computers, so the setup rang very familiar to him.

"So, the system works based on skill points?" he said out loud, scratching his chin. "Then do I have to level up or something?" The thought excited him as he imagined himself standing triumphantly atop the corpse of a three headed wolf-bat, the words 'LEVEL MAX' above his head and confetti raining down from the sky.

He shook the thoughts from his head, 'Focus, Zeff. Daydreaming can wait.' He told himself as he turned his attention back to studying the terminal.

Inside of each column, above the level and skill point values, were dozens of small round buttons or nodes stacked on top of each other vertically. Sometimes there were horizontal groups of 2 or 3 in a row.

The nodes, for the most part, were dark blue and had small 'lock' symbols on them.

However, at the very bottom of each column, Zeff could see a few nodes that were of a different color than the locked ones, each with unique icons and names above them. They were all, with the exception of one, light-blue. He figured these nodes were 'unlocked' and could be activated using skill points. It was a common mechanic in video games, so he was fairly certain.

Only one of the nodes, the right of the two lowermost nodes in the 'Dragon's Might' column, was activated and already highlighted red. The name of the skill was 'Physical Enhancement I'.

'That explains this morning…' Zeff thought with a chuckle as he remembered flying through the air and embedding himself in his neighbors floor.

Just then Zeff noticed that, just at the very top of the terminal, there were three small tabs: (the current tab) Skill Tree, Active skills, Passive Skills, SP Store, & Settings.

Zeff floated up a few inches and tapped the Settings tab with his middle finger.

As the screen changed with a gentle 'schwrr', Zeff saw something strange in the corner of his eye. He looked around the terminal and saw that the tip of one of the officers shoes was just visible as it was coming through the threshold of his bedroom door at a grandpa snails pace.

"Awh, Sh*t…" Zeff huffed. Of course the dRas couldn't stop time! How could he be so dumb to think that… Studying the system completely would have to wait. More urgently than before, he turned back to the terminal and read quickly through the available settings.

'Nice.' He thought, as his eyes fell on the 'dRas speech functionality:' on/off button. He quickly tapped the button and sputtered, "dRas! Help me out, buddy! I need a quick rundown. I have cops with guns coming at me right now. I need to know what is going to help me survive."

>> Of course, Subject-04.

Quick as a flash the screen switched to the 'Passive Skills' tab.

>>Surely you can read, Subject-04.

Zeff raised an eyebrow. dRas was being snarkier than he remembered.

In this tab there were already a few activated Passives, but the first one, the icon of which was a large white exclamation mark set inside a golden shield, caught his eye. Next to the shield on the right side read the header 'Passive-035' and under the header was a progress bar that was at .04%.

Zeff's breath caught in his throat as he read aloud the description beneath the header.

"<<New>> System Passive: Dracophage is killing Subject-04. In order to keep subject alive dRas has created Passive-035 using an anomaly in host DNA to combat the degradation of the Subjects cells.

"As Subject experiences stress, cell degradation will approach 100% at which point dRas will activate anomalous DNA in conjunction with Ancient Dragon DNA resulting in transformation, which will, in turn, reset Subject's DNA to its healthy state…?

Zeff looked around the terminal again.

A flood of anxiety hit him like a ton of bricks as he could now see the middle of the shoelaces on the cops shoe.

'Why show me this?! I need help getting out of this cop situation.' He thought.

As if on cue, the progress bar peeped gently and changed from .04 to .05 percent.

>> I suggest that, throughout the coming exchange, you remain calm.

Anxiety made way as the wrecking ball of reality swung in, hitting Zeff with the full brunt of its weight. Zeff finally understood. Dracophage hadn't taken to him! It was still killing him somehow (though he felt completely fine at the moment) and if he let his stress increase, the progress bar could reach 100%. And if that happened he would probably transform into the dragon again!

It was very likely that the dragon had a really advanced healing factor that dRas, in an attempt to save Zeff's life, attended to take advantage of.

He looked around the terminal yet again. Now the top of the shoe could be seen and just above that the tip of a handgun.

*peep*, said the progress bar as it went up to .07 skipping over .06% completely.

Zeff hated to imagine what would happen if was taken into custody and the degradation reached 100% while he was at the police station… He took a deep breath to calm himself and resolutely asked, "dRas. Help me, please."

The screen shifted back to the Skill Tree screen.

>> I highly suggest you activate the Phobia skill.

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As dRas said the word 'Phobia' Zeff noticed the light-blue unlocked node in the column entitled 'Dragon Mind' glow a soft white. It read 'Phobia I' and had an icon of a skull and crossbones with an exclamation mark where each of the eyes should be.

'Phobia?' thought Zeff. 'That means 'fear' in Latin, doesn't it?'

He noticed that next to the word 'Phobia' as well as next to the other icons and even the column titles were small white question marks.

Zeff didn't hesitate.

He tapped his finger on the question mark next to the first icon.

As soon as he did, another window containing detailed information about 'Phobia I' opened up, hovering just in front of the main screen.

Zeff read the description aloud.

"Phobia I <<Passive>>: SP Cost 1 - Whenever you damage an enemy, be it physical, psychological, mental, or emotional, the target will gain 'fear'. After so much 'fear' is gained (depending on the strength of the targets will) the target will gain the status effect: Phobia. Upon leveling, as fear further increases the effect of Phobia can be stacked resulting in the target receiving increasingly severe status effects."

"Level I Effects: Target receives one or both of the following status effects (depending on the strength of the targets will): Terrified, Fatigued."

'Wow.' Thought Zeff. He couldn't say for certain what exactly he had expected but he could definitely see how this could help.

>>Does this suggestion please you, Subject-04?

"Do it!" Ordered Zeff as the tip of the officers nose came around the threshold.

>> This skill is best utilized with the system's scan feature enabled. Shall I enable 'Scan' for you, as well?

"Sure, whatever!" Zeff acquiesced.

Suddenly another one of the skills, the second one in the Dragon's Might column, caught his eye. "And activate that one, too, while you're at it! Better safe, than sorry."

>> But, of course. For future reference, Subject-04 can activate any unlocked skill with a touch of his finger. It's really quite simple. Even a caveman cou—

"Okay! Jeez!" Zeff snapped.

At once, the SP value decreased from 8 to 5 as two nodes simultaneously switched from light-blue to red.

Zeff felt a stinging pain shoot through his body as his DNA was being changed, but it was only slight and he silently gave thanks that it hadn't been as painful as before.

"Let's dot it!" Said Zeff, steeling his nerves.

>> Please say 'Uproot Skill Tree' to exit terminal.

"Uproot Skill Tree!"

>> Deactivating Skill Tree and normalizing time dilation.

There was a flash of light and color as Zeff's ghost form was sucked into his original body with a low *swoosh*.

Time was already speeding up and Zeff, now crouching on the ground as he was before, could see the cops face now as he, too, began to accelerate.

The extremely deep, low, and slow voice of the cop began to rumble in Zeff's ears as his eyes met Zeff's. "Frrrrrrreeeeeee—" he began, his voice getting higher in pitch with each passing millisecond, "—eeEEZE! Get your hands—"

Zeff sprang into action, flying past Dr. Sylvan with incredible speed. He had absolutely zero fighting experience, but he could certainly push when push came to shove. So that's exactly what he did.

Grabbing the cops face with one hand, he pushed the man towards the wall. He had only expected to push the man back and maybe knock him down, but he had forgotten about his newfound strength. His gentle push was now a exceedingly savage body slam.

*CRASH* went the wall as the poor cop sailed through it with an awful wail, careening through the air several feet before bouncing off the ground like a skipped stone off of still water and rolling to a stop in the soft grass, half dead, half alive. Luckily, Zeff only lived on the second of six floors or it might have been curtains for the poor man…

Zeff turned to face the cops who were now looking at him wide-eyed with disbelief. Zeff couldn't know for sure whether it was because he looked so much different than their file likely said he should or if it was because of the incredible feat of strength he had just displayed.

It was certainly the latter.

"H-hands up! Mr. C-corad!" Came the shaky voice of the nearest officer.

Zeff flinched as he noticed something floating over the nearest officers head.

Just above his concerned and sweaty face there was a floating yellow bar, a progress bar like what he had seen in the skill tree, that was nearly full. Next to the progress bar on the right side, he could see the numbers '6/9' and on the other side, on the left, read the words 'Phobia 0'. He looked across his living room at each of the cops with 'Phobia 0' and they all had different numbers. One of them had '8/11', another '5/8' and one in the back, a female cop that looked to be Hispanic with an uncanny calmness, even had '25/84'. Just in front of her, however, stood another man with a full Phobia bar floating above him and blinking slowly. His number said '4/4' and his Phobia level read 'Phobia I'. The poor man was trembling noticeably, and even audibly, as the gun he was brandishing at Zeff made a gentle *clickety-clickety-clack* as he shook for fear.

Phobia was working. This man looked like he couldn't even make eye contact with Zeff, let alone shoot him. It seemed like the only thing keeping him from dropping his gun and sprinting out of the room was his pride as a police officer. At seeing the cop Zeff felt hopeful that both he and Sylvan could escape together.

Zeff raised his hands in the air slowly, making a few of the officers flinch, their 'fear' jumping up a point or two. He couldn't blame them, though. He had just sent a man flying through a solid wall, after all…

"Woah, now." said Zeff, trying to calm the cops down. "That was a complete accident just now."

"Stay back!" yelled the nearest cop, his Phobia reaching level 1. As it did, his knees began to shake, nearly giving out altogether, and his breathing became extremely heavy, like he had just run up a flight of stairs.

"You're wanted for theft and murder!" Reported the female officer. "Put your hands behind your head and get on the ground! We're taking you in for questioning!"

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Dr. Sylvan, out of sight of the cops, urging him to run, but Zeff was too astonished to notice.

"Wait just a minute! Did you say theft and murder?!" As he raised his voice, nearly every cop who wasn't in 'Phobia I' were instantly promoted to it. All accept the female cop.

But Zeff was too shocked to care as he went on, "I have done nothing—" He paused shortly to look at the giant, gaping, man-sized whole in the wall, and corrected, "uhh—I *hadn't* done anything wrong until you guys ran in here with your guns out! This has to be a mis—" *BANG-BANG!*

Two bullets had found their way into Zeff's stomach.

Behind him, he could hear Sylvn let out a soft, barely audible gasp.

'Not again…' He though as he fell to floor, paralyzed by the pain. It was the third time in less than 24 hours that he had been shot and, needless to say, he didn't like the feeling one bit.

The one who had shot him, the first to have a full Phobia bar, gazed around the room with a confused and horrified look on his face. "I-I didn't mean to… I—"

"Officer Snead!" Roared the female officer, her 'fear' falling to '9/84', "What the h*ll did you do that for!"

As everyone turned to stare at officer Snead, who was nearly in tears, Zeff kept his eyes on the female officer. Everyone else's 'fear' had increased after Officer Snead had pulled the trigger, but hers was still falling.

Zeff caught his breath as he realized that the female officer, her cold, cruel eyes being the only ones focused on him, was smiling ever so slightly. It faded instantly, however, and her 'fear' jumped up a whole 50 points to 54/84 as she saw that Zeff, who was supposed to be about to die, was smiling right back at her.

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