Chapter 43: 39. Systems and Sundays! (I)

Twenty-four hours ago, Jay entered the Toyreveler Dungeon. After enduring three different timelines, he was finally enjoying a Sunday morning.

He’d been waiting for sunrise on his mom’s rooftop for half an hour. Late August dewdrops drenched the bottom of his sweatpants. But Jay didn’t mind.

His mom was home.

Her early morning presence filled the house with song and food. Breakfast would be served soon. A quick sniff with his fully-powered sniffer filled his head with the intoxicating, buttery, hearty scent of pancakes and other sorts of savory rise-and-shine goodies. American and exotic.

Then Jay switched from a fully-powered sniffer to fully-powered ears. He centered his focus on his bedroom, where his familiar and godling shared his bed. They had it to themselves while he’d struggled to sleep on the air mattress laid down over the Lindy Hop carpet last night. Half of him had wanted to hide his waifu collection, but he couldn’t bear to betray them. And YoAnna hadn’t commented on any of it. She had looked around like she was admiring fetish art at a new-age gallery.

He could hear the girls still sleeping while he was up on the roof. Kleo was a little monster, snorting, kicking, and chewing on anything near. YoAnna endured Kleo with divine patience and laid curled around the [Faerie] menace with little to no strange sleeping quirks. Other than her trick of laying like a corpse. She didn’t even need to breathe. That scared Jay when he checked on her in the night and got a quick and obvious explanation.

She was not human, so why expect human things from her?

It had been an embarrassing moment that heaped on Jay’s anxiety about having his crush in his bedroom. But Jay wouldn’t have changed a thing. It was fun and educational at the same time.

Before they went to sleep, he’d gotten a lot of System info from YoAnna.

Having your class net you Skills slows after Rank 1, so they had to be sought after through Skill Books or special situations if you wanted to speed up the process again. That explained his lack of personal Skill gains lately.

She’d touched on each Talent and Title she knew of, too. Jay’s [Monkey Boon] had been good for his Agility, boosting it considerably during violent or playful encounters. It also increased his Chance at pivotal moments, which was nice to hear.

[Identify] would get empowered once YoAnna absorbed the dungeon cores. The same would go for the Talent [Obscurification] having a bigger concealing effect. It helped hide their levels and specific details watchful monsters or enemies might look out for, and a little more. YoAnna had explained that she could upgrade it to help prevent them from being recorded or captured on an image without consent. It would also make them harder to detect if the enemies weren’t on alert.

She had a lot to say, and Jay had good enough Intellect to help him receive and remember. This was everything all the nerds wanted, probably. Exposition!

Talents were similar to Skills. They could have passives and actives and multiple perks. But they couldn’t level. They were tied to the Ranks for their power capability. Even then, they shouldn’t be dismissed since they tend to be useful utility-type abilities and have very low mana or stamina costs, if any. Some Talents were just straight upgrades with nothing but positives for your base abilities. Though, there were exceptions to the rule.

Titles were bigger and more dramatic abilities. They were declarations to the System and other users, too, announcing your achievements through names of outstanding accomplishments. Jay could see why the Champions needed [Obscurification] Talent. It concealed those big neon signs telling people what YoAnna’s Champions were all about. Those things were special. Most Titles were passive-based or required particular elements to shine through, like Kleo needing a tyrant or tyrannical actions before she could use her Title [Slayer of Tyranny].

It turned out the [Precursor of the System] Title helped the Champions get a natural feel for their profiles, Attributes, abilities, and general system stuff. It accelerates the learning curve that would’ve naturally been there from someone mundane becoming someone with system powers. It was also the culprit behind them saying their Skills aloud when applicable–it gave those Skills a slight boost in effectiveness. This went hand-in-hand with [Omen Bear of the Apocalypse], which ramped up the Champions’ aggression toward fighting, learning how to fight on the fly, and quickly improved their fighting and survival aptitudes.

It was probably due to [Precursor of the System] and [Omen Bearer of the Apocalypse] being the reasons YoAnna had been okay with pushing her Champions out with little time to truly get a grip of what they were doing. Kind of OP, honestly. Three teams who had never fought monsters or crawled dungeons returned successfully without the proper training, except for maybe Frank. But he wasn’t truly trained against dungeons and monsters.

What would happen if they all got trained competently? Would [Precursor of the System] and [Omen Bearer of the Apocalypse] merge system magic with realistic training to make them the most elite fighting force earth had ever seen? It probably would with the other key introduction of their most crucial system Title.

Regarding [YoAnna’s Champion of Challenge and Change], the outcome of an event/encounter would intensify as long as the user received a challenge and accrued change. It was absolutely amazing for boosting experience gains. It was also a gamble for a Title since it could influence adverse outcomes, too. YoAnna had admitted she wanted Champions with extreme personalities to make the most out of these intensified outcomes. And then get further enhanced rewardingly. But that would invite their problems to get boosted, too, especially if they fail to overcome a challenging personality quirk at the most pivotal moments.

For someone like Jay making it his mission to enjoy life, he naturally gravitated toward keeping his head above dark waters. But when he thought back to the times when his fellow crawlers’ emotional gravities were massive and intense, he could see how the challenge and change Title could backfire.

Jay had jovially admitted last night that he would have to open relationship dialogues, rack up good vibe points with the crew, and lead everyone to their happy endings. It had been a joke. YoAnna agreed with him as if he’d been serious. Something about the look she’d given him last night made him shiver. As if her mind had been weaving a manipulative but positive plan with him as the centerpiece.

The sky shifted from pink to burning orange-red. Then the sky became the color of freshly squeezed orange juice. His neighborhood came to life with subtle ripples he could see when leaning on the Talent [Eye of Venerated Madness]. His left eye shone with metallic white light tinged by gold. When combined with his gravitational sense, a strange visual effect overlaid his high Perception. The door across the street rippled. A second later, a middle-aged man came out to get the mail. He hadn’t seen the man coming because his house blocked the gravity in Jay’s direct 3D space. Something he just started to wrap his head around as a weakness to gravity sense.

But [Eye of Venerated Madness] saw a FUCKING future event touching his gravity sense. At this point, he was grateful there was a visual clue based on color. The ordinary gravity sense mapped in his head was purple.

The ripples of future events ranged in two different colors. So far, gold seemed very mundane. It required him to be looking for an event in the first place.

Knowing his neighbors, he waited for one to head out for their morning jog and concentrated on the Talent. A subtle golden ripple warned of the door opening one second before it did. Out came his neighbor going for their jog. When Jay continued to watch with the Talent active, he saw a beautiful trail of golden ripples leading the jogger on his exact path forward.

Then his left eye started to burn, and Jay felt the oncoming warning of terrible doom. He dropped the more overt and fantastical perk of [Eye of Venerated Madness] and used the more subtle perk. He pulled up his Chance Status, the stat floating up into his vision as metallic white text in a golden box.

Chance Status: [x2/x9]

His Chance had dropped. It looked terrible, but it wouldn’t lead to bad ends if nobody pushed a Chance-effect intentionally or unintentionally. He just had to make sure not to drop his Chance to zero, or he’d have something terrible happen instantly. It could be small. It could be big. But it would happen, which was creepy. Being able to track the likelihood of the System imposing plot points, themes, and deus ex machinas was like seeing his reality as a screen on a monitor and life operating on a program.

Jay shuddered.

The [Eye of Venerated Madness] wasn’t a Talent a mere mortal like Jay should have. He wondered aloud about it to YoAnna last night, and she smiled. She’d seen an opportunity in his mortal suffering and took it, freestyling one of the most potent blessings she ever gave. The event had been suitable for her deity levels, so she was happy with the outcome and urged Jay to explore his tiny plot of divinity.

Countless dewdrops glinted under the morning rays. Jay rested back on his palms and soaked in the sun. He raised his sense of touch a tad so he could warm up faster and relish in the heat.

YoAnna had been right about the event being suitable for levels, not just deific ones. It had also been good for Kleo’s gains. While Jay sunbathed, he scrolled through last night’s notifications.

Under your command, Creepy Kleo judged and punished a godling!

Congrats! Lesser Freak leveled up to 17! +8 Free AP!

Congrats! Lesser Freak leveled up to 18! +8 Free AP!

Congrats! Lesser Freak leveled up to 19! +8 Free AP!

Orbital Mastery (Familiar) leveled up from 1 to 10!

Orbital Mastery is at the pinnacle of its growth! Please evolve Teeny Faerie to Rank 2 to continue leveling up the Skill.

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Congrats! Teeny Faerie leveled up to 2! +1 Poise, +1 Agility!

Congrats! Teeny Faerie leveled up to 3! +1 Perception, +1 Discovery!

New Skill acquired! [Gravity Grasp (Familiar), Level 1]!

Congrats! Teeny Faerie leveled up to 4! +1 Poise, +1 Agility!

Congrats! Teeny Faerie leveled up to 5! +1 Perception, +1 Discovery!

Congrats! Teeny Faerie leveled up to 6! +1 Poise, +1 Agility!

New Skill acquired! [Graviton Wall (Familiar), Level 1]!

Congrats! Teeny Faerie leveled up to 7! +1 Perception, +1 Discovery!

Congrats! Teeny Faerie leveled up to 8! +1 Poise, +1 Agility!

Jay would’ve been more than pleased if the notifications had stopped there. He wanted to make the most out of his gains in a positive light.

Or he’d keep replaying YoAnna’s pained face getting cut from his command. He’d see the event from start to finish. He could remember the faint sound of divine flesh parting as YoAnna struggled to keep from screaming.

Jay shuddered as he scrolled onto the last bits of notifications.

Your actions bore heavy prominence and calamity, molding Chance greatly!

New Skill acquired! [Cape of Freakish Relativity (Freak), Level 1].

New Skill acquired! [Judging Finger That Cuts Divinity (Faerie), Level 1].

New Title acquired! [Challenger of the Divine].

New Title acquired! [Punisher of the Divine (Familiar)].

+5 Conviction, +5 Discovery for completing a Godling Dungeon without loot reward.

“How did I go from moonwalking boi to I-will-slay-gods boi?” Jay shook his head incredulously. “All on a freaking Saturday.”

Was the universe trying to tell him something?

Jay scrutinized the brightening sky. He pushed the new AP he’d put in his Perception to see more than five times farther than peak human vision. He didn’t find much other than hawks soaring out for an early meal.

He could handle his high Perception better since he had bumped up his Intellect. It didn’t just help with Perception, but it helped with keeping track of his new multitude of abilities.

YoAnna had warned of the dangers of ability implosions last night. Edge cases where users had too many Skills, Talents, and Titles while lacking the proper AP in their Attributes to hold it all up. It didn’t end well for those people with crazy strong powers. But these were edge cases for a reason. Mainly young scions who lack levels and AP while buying up Skill Books and getting too many blessings from local deities.

Hearing this made Jay hesitant about eating up every Skill Book that might be useful. Kleo had pushed for Toying Voice last night regardless of the warning, and YoAnna obliged, summoning the Skill Book for them. It turned out that absorbing the Skill had a unique option to make it specific to Jay or Kleo. The Kleo version turned into [Faerie Voice], which had a pretty nifty effect Kleo found devilishly delightful. And he didn’t explode or go loco, which was good.

But Jay still felt the pressure to make his AP distribution count.

So, Intellect had to get pushed up for multiple reasons outside of scaling. Gravity powers were hella complex under the trappings of System-imposed limits, so it helped to have Intellect padded. It also eased the burden on heightened Perception. And it helped Jay learn and remember better.

So, the hellish pain from seeing into YoAnna’s divine makeup and having his eye burned and replaced wouldn’t be leaving his memories soon. That included the memory of YoAnna’s face getting sliced. The cost of gaining fantastical power could be extreme at times, right?

Ultimately, Jay had to swallow the bitter and mortifying taste of hurting his crush. Kleo may be the blade, but he’d given the command that was heavy on Chance. He could’ve denied Kleo her just retribution. He could’ve suffered the consequences of such a betrayal to his familiar.

But Kleo was growing on him so fast he couldn’t imagine betraying her. It wasn’t on even footing with his romantic feelings for YoAnna, but Kleo kept finding herself on the good side of situations. Or maybe Jay liked having someone devoted to him as much as Kleo would be. It was weird. Very weird.

But he wouldn’t change it if someone asked.

And no matter how much the numbers went up and how fun it felt adding some new AP to his Attributes last night, he had to look in the mirror before bed.

He had to stare into the face of Jay Luckrun, a black, dreadlocked teen with eyes of gravity and divinity. An eye for joy and insanity. An eye for madness and responsibility.

The eyes were quite different from each other. But they shared certain similarities. One such similarity was the subjects of their desires, for good or ill.

YoAnna was one such subject.

Another subject was the System Admins. But that subject beholden by his eyes would require some profound contemplation and soul searching—anime protagonist stuff.

This was not the time for that.

For now, at least.

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