Chapter 116 – Completing Floor 2

When he flipped the page, Tom was not at all surprised to see that he had received another child specific title.

He hadn’t been sure if the Fateful Reposition acquisition was going to upgrade his existing title or go into the new one. It seemed like the system leant heavily on the importance of earned skills versus standard ones.

Title: Underage Earned Ability Development (IV) - Upgradable - Grants 1 free attribute point at every class level.

·        Awarded for. Developing sufficient Earned Abilities to earn eight points from scratch.

o   Each uniquely created [Redacted #1], Earned Skill, [Redacted #3]. [Redacted #4] will award points equal to the tier level squared. This means the following.

§  A tier 1 equivalent ability contributes 1 point.

§  A tier 2 equivalent ability contributes 4 points.

§  A tier 3 equivalent ability contributes 9 points and so on.

o   No double counting of skill points may occur.

o   Eligible abilities must be wholly created.   

·        Legendary Title: Competition Rank: 4, Experience: NA. Ranking Points – NA.

Its language was nearly identical to the other titles he had received, but the subtle differences caught his attention. The first was the one attribute per class level it gave him. Unlike the skill and spell version of the title which had kicked in after he had acquired four and eight points respectively this one triggered with only two earned points. That meant that a single tier two earned skill would have gifted him two levels of the title and his tier four skill had catapulted him to the fourth level of the upgrade.

He was also intrigued by the [Redacted] information.

While waiting for his mana to regenerate to keep working on Briana, he pondered what they could refer to. Earned Spell was obviously one of the missing pieces, but he wondered what that would look like in the real world.  And were earned spells better than normal ones? To get awarded one did you have to keep practicing magic and use it to kill stuff without ever making a perfect cast like Tom and those who benefited from trainers had to demonstrate to receive it from the system?

He could see Earned Spells applying logic like that and also how it could work in practice out in the wider Existentia. Without access to a trainer or wire frame diagrams and fate, how could a normal person learn a spell. There were animals that formed spells in the wild. They could be observed and mimicked. But not perfectly, which would leave the budding mage to possess a hacked, reduced version that gave power but would be near impossible to polish to perfection. Without guidance from an external source, perfecting the spell would be impossible for most people. So what would they do? He guessed the answer was in this title: they would cast it raw form. Do that enough and you would get the spell with an earned status. But from what he knew of the system the process wouldn’t be easy. There would be conditions in place, like cast it at eighty percent efficiency a thousand times. Maybe they would even have to use it to save their own life a couple times or possibly just blow themselves up a little. Unfortunately,  he could imagine a prerequisite being specified like ‘experience ten catastrophic failures while trying to cast the spell which resulted in bodily injury’. 

But there wasn’t just the one unknown category there were three. What else could it be? He thought about the mechanisms of advancement and fighting that he was aware of. There were bloodlines, domains, body manipulation, and he guessed gestalts that fused the physical and magic state. The unknowns could be earned outcomes relating to any of them.

“Nope, not a current problem,” he whispered to himself and the sleeping Briana. He was in the realm of pure speculation, so there was no point considering things further. Just having had his eyes opened however was valuable.

It was a future advantage, something to pursue once he had more information.

Knowledge that could very well become a source of growth and power. Especially if it allowed him to upgrade the title and let him gain another free attribute point per class level.

He smiled.

The simple fact was that he was sitting on a gold mine of resources to help him. The orphanage had been set up to give the kids an edge. He was sure someone in humanity had earned abilities and they would have had an input into the build and rule-set of the orphanage. They would have left clues, breadcrumbs, for an ambitious reincarnator to follow. His job was to keep an open mind and focus on the opportunities it offered. If there was something there that he didn’t understand that was a reason to study it harder. A challenge to comprehend it more completely because it might relate to one of these unknowns and another tier four earned ability would give him another attribute point per level, which by itself was sufficient reward. The fact earned abilities from what he could see were stronger than normal ones was an excellent motivation to pursue it and the title implications were just gravy.

It was a good plan and Kang also bore careful watching. His earned skill had been tier two, which meant he had gotten this title as well. He knew about the [redacted] and, as he had shown with adapting the shadow spell so easily, he was clever. If he did anything ridiculous, Tom would have to copy him.

There were a lot of positives with the recent run.

But….

He shot a sad look at Briana and then scrunched up the pieces of paper and tossed it away. The ball landed and flames burst out of it. For a pleasing few seconds the flames danced and then they reduced as the paper went from white, to orange, to glowing red to grey and then finally to a black shell that held the original shape of the paper for another five seconds before it collapsed into ash and then nothing.

There was not even a smidge of dust where it had landed.

The last run through the floor had been beneficial and also not.

His new skill was a banger, but he didn’t know how often it would trigger in combat. If he could force it to activate for every second move that had a different power profile to an ability that could only be activated once per combat. What it could do with the manual trigger already made it his most powerful ability, so he wasn’t complaining but he just was unsure about how much he should have been celebrating.

His eyes dropped to the pain relief wire frames written precisely on the paper Adam had created. That was a spell he needed to learn again because he was going to be using it a lot going forward. He glanced at Briana and remembered what his last diagnosis had told him. He was going to be using it every ten minutes until they got out of here, as it was the only way she was going to be able to function.

The next day, after Briana was put through her paces for twenty minutes they lined up to enter the floor once more.

Briana was pale and her movement fluidity noticeably restricted. Eloise was hovering protectively around her, and Tom felt useless. Her wound needed continual maintenance to prevent deterioration. The petrification energy was like cancer. His treatment could delay the spread but not cure her. Very quickly he explained the situation.

“Two weeks? Are you sure?” Kang asked.

“Before her evasive capabilities are materially impacted. She’s not going to drop dead at that point, but that’s our timeline.”

“So that’s the number because if we’re still here we have no choice but to keep fighting.” His finger stabbed at the door that led to the trial proper.

“That’s why I said two weeks instead of six.”

“Well, it is what it is. We have our challenge now. We need to meet it. Now Tom, are you too tired to do this today?”

“I’ll be fine.” Tom told him.

“Are you sure? I know you got no sleep.”

“I got some.”

“Next to none,” Kang said smoothly. “Every time I stirred you were either with Briana or practicing with your spear and Adam confirmed when I asked.”

“I’ll be fine. I can go a night without sleep. I’ve been doing it at the orphanage for a while.”

“But we’re going into a life and death situation.”

“I said I’ll be fine.”

“Okay. If you’re confident enough to risk the girl’s lives, I’ll trust you.”

“If I could have slept more I would have. I was monitoring her and I couldn’t sleep, so I kept myself occupied.”

Kang nodded. “You were worried.”

Tom only shrugged a motion that said a lot about his emotional state and it wasn’t ambivalence.

“That’s perfectly normal,” Kang scratched his hair. “But sleeps important.”

“I know.”

“Don’t jump on me. I was just saying if it becomes a problem then there’s options. Adam can supply a potion to force sleep. It even stops nightmares.”

From the way he was talking, it was clear that Kang was relating a firsthand experience.

“Can I get it in two hour doses?” he called out as he didn’t want to leave her issue unattended for longer than that.

Yes.

“I’ll use them tonight. Now, are we going to fight?”

No one was happy about it, but they understood the need. Together they entered the hell hold of light. They were now on a proper timer. The girls wore their black out goggles to make the exploration more palatable, but Tom wasn’t going to do the same because of the risk it entailed. Even the girls were expected to remove them for each and every fight.

Kang fought with brutal intensity and threw himself into each encounter with a greater willingness to take an injury. Tom’s healing load didn’t increase, but after most fights Kang still stepped away injured enough to require a full ten mana spell to put himself back together. He seemed to know Tom’s capabilities down to the mana point and used all the available free Touch Heal capacity to quicken the battles up. Every time all ten were required and usually not a point more at least for the major injuries the minor stuff at Kang’s urgings he left alone.

The new Kang made short work of everything and it felt like they were speed running the floor.

“Adam?” Kang demanded as they exited to have lunch.

You have cleared eighty-two percent.

“We finish this today.” Kang told them.

Tom nodded agreement. It would be challenging, but with their faster clear speed it would only be a four-hour session instead of a three hour one, assuming fighting the boss was not overly time consuming.

His estimates were off. Five almost six hours later, they gathered outside the boss’ room. The door to it had not opened until they had killed everything else on the level. Chasing down the last stragglers had taken a lot of time.

“What are we facing?” Tom asked.

Kang stood still with his eyes black as midnight as he scanned the room that Tom could barely look into, but he had seen enough to know that it was tiny compared to every other one they had gone through. It was only slightly larger than the domed, linking tunnels between the open spaces. “A giant light statue. It’s big and nasty.”

“Can you kill it.”

Kang shrugged. “We’ll see, but providing speed hasn’t scaled fully with size I’ll be okay.”

“So, no unless fates playing funny buggers to help you even further.”

“If fate’s failed, we were never going to beat this trial. We might as well assume that it has worked but for this setup I’m not worried about the boss. It’s the adds that concern me. There are a full eight ranged and two dozen stick fighters.”

“I suppose my job is to blow up the ranged ones?”

“Yes. Let me explain further.” He then pushed them away from the doorway. “Do you have pen and paper.”

With a thought, he manifested what he was after, and Kang sketched down the positioning of all the monsters in the room. There were no terrain features that they were going to have to worry about. The boss room was devoid of the squat glittering fountain like things that had filled the other rooms and had acted as ambush locations. Then, with the layout specified Kang detailed his plan.

“Let me get this straight,” Tom responded with incredulity. “You want me to hit the left side with my ranged lightning attacks while sprinting at those on the right and use Spark to defeat them. The things that have a lethal range attack and blow up when they die with enough force to knock us off our feet at ten metres. You want me to charge them and destroy them in melee range. That’s your plan.”

“Yes, I did the maths. This is the cheapest way to kill all of them.”

Tom shook his head. “You know how much they explode. Even using a bolt on one of them is iffy. For Spark, I need to be within three metres. That’s way too close.”

Kang looked a little guilty. “We’ve never faced multiple ranged. If they stagger, their attacks or even worse do a blanket coordinated strike people are going to die. I doubt I’ll be able to dodge something like that, and I can guarantee the girls have no chance. We have to eliminate them before they target us.”

“I’m not sure I can kill eight that quickly.”

“You don’t have to. That’s not what I’m saying. Just aim to take out most of them before the three seconds are up,” Kang said in exasperation. “And then you’ll have the undivided attention of the remaining ones and they’ll target you. That’s great because out of the two of us you’re the most likely to survive.”

“Maybe.”

“There’s no, maybe. You are. With your danger sense advantage and having a movement skill as strong as mine, you’re a much better target.”

Tom could have disputed that, but he didn’t. Kang knew that if Tom died here, none of the others were making it out and the same wasn’t reciprocated. He was putting him in this role because he thought Tom was by far the best to do it. While Fateful Repositioning was untested, Tom suspected he was right. Tom taunting out ranged attacks was the right call.

. Tom, I’m not trying to bullshit you here. Just like you, I’ve had long chats with Adam. I don’t see any other choice here. The boss’ room resets if even one of us leaves. We have eight ranged to kill and you’re both mana and speed cast limited. Can you throw eight javelins that quickly?

Tom shook his head.

“Even if you could cast fast enough, do you have the mana?”

It was a rhetorical question and they both knew it.

They were not going into this fight blind. They knew the amount of mana required in each spell to ignite the explosion. It was ten for a Javelin, thirteen for an Extended Bolt and sixteen for a simple Bolt. They didn’t know for sure, but Spark, being under his direct control instead of remote should be more efficient again. In a burst ranged attack, he had the mana reserves to blow up at most six of them. Not the eight that were in the room and they were certain the monsters were smart enough not to group together and allow them to ignite one and destroy all of them by a chain of explosions.

“You’re going to have to rely on Spark, then. It can do it can’t it?”

“Possibly,” Tom agreed.

“And for you, the explosion isn’t that big of a risk,” Kang continued. “Your Danger Sense will help and your dodge ability has a defying physics tag as part of its description. I think it’ll be able to mitigate the explosion.”

“You’ve seen what it’s like. It’s inconsistent at best.”

“I saw it let you transition through a light statue and somehow kill it as if you’d shattered its core. If you can do that, you should be able to weather what’s just a physical blast.”

“Yeah, that was weird,” Tom admitted. “But it’s not something I can rely on. It’s only been activating once every three fights.”

“You’ve got a manual activation saved up. Use that.”

“And you think I can do what? Fatefully reposition myself to avoid an otherwise deadly shockwave?”

“You went through a light statue, so yes. That’s what I believe.”

“This is crazy.” Tom said.

“And if you didn’t have Danger Sense with a ninety-five affinity, we wouldn’t try this. But that lets you take risks that I wouldn’t allow others to consider.”

“It protecting me is a big assumption.”

“It really isn’t,” Kang counted. “We know this is a floor we can beat, and this is the best strategy for the boss. Which, in turn means it will work.”

Tom stared at the other reincarnator and tried to determine if that logic made any sense. After a moment, he gave up and considered a different question. Did he have a better plan to propose? “Fine. We’ll do it your way.” He said grudgingly.

They counted down, and then Tom sprinted into the room. The exact actions had all been mapped out, and he knew he had to run a slight S shape to first get him close enough to monsters he was targeting with ranged attacks before he would then sprint at the ones on the right which he aimed to kill at close range.

Time slowed immediately, and he smiled. That would give him an opportunity to cast all the magic that he needed to launch. If nothing had targeted him, and time dilation hadn’t occurred, the plan would have failed because he wouldn’t have been able to cast the spells fast enough. He would have only managed two instead of four, and the contingency plan when that happened relied on more luck than Tom had been comfortable with.

The moment he drew near he threw a Lightning Javelin targeting the second furthest away from him, then an Extended Lightning Bolt took out the other middle placed monster. After another two steps, a precognition empowered Lightning Javelin was launched at the one closest to the real boss. By this stage he was already starting to turn but the slippery surface meant it was slow and the wide turn brought him into range so that a straight Lightning Bolt was able to strike the enemy that had originally been the nearest.

His mind was screaming at him that he was travelling too slowly. But this was the best he could manage. A single step was all he could take before the shock wave from the first one blown up reached him. A wall of force that mostly hit from behind him, but some of it pushed him back toward the entrance. Then the other shock waves added to the chaos.

He was summarily tossed forward and could feel the intense heat in the wave of air and he was airborne for an entire second before landing at a speed faster than he could reach by pumping his own legs. That suited him perfectly fine, as he was on the clock. He just needed to stay on his feet for long enough to finish the other side.

As he sprinted out of control, he concentrated on completing an Extended Lightning Bolt in one hand and a Lightning Javelin in the other.

Carefully, he weighed the moment. Holding both spells back as he hurtled toward the centre of their previous defensive line. To his annoyance they were reacting and repositioning.

Another step.

In his head he tracked down the seconds. His count reached three, and he released his two spells at the enemies on the edge of the formation. The remaining ranged stick creatures he knew were preparing to fire, but he was the one who had made a scene and the others were at the doorway so he should have the sole attention of all the monsters.

This was the first test of Danger Sense in the battle and just when he expected it to, the skill went crazy as it warned him about incoming attacks from multiple enemies. It was not death it was just a request of action to avoid death. A path he was happy to follow and so, without hesitation he threw himself flat to the ground. As he slid over the shiny marble, his new skill activated and for a moment, it felt like he was underneath the floor itself.

The spell finished with a slight twist of reality, and the world was restored to normal. He leapt to his feet. The free point of fate instantly went into surviving the next three seconds and he continued to close on the last of the ranged enemies. Using his big attack spells was not an option as he had less than five mana unspent. To kill even one of the remaining two would take more magic than he had available, let alone two of them.

Time remained slowed so he could see what he was running at. Five of the small sticks were still alive and two of the ranged attack versions, which were his primary target. Both of which were retreating away from him.

Tom’s eyes narrowed.

He had to get close enough to eliminate them before Kang started fighting or the light statue reached him..

Given their positioning, and with Spark’s range of only three metres, he would need to almost touch the smaller stick figures before he would be able to execute the larger ones. The explosion would occur almost next to him, which was terrifying.

Part of him wanted to abort the attempt. He had to stay alive to finish the next floor, but Danger Sense while slightly more vocal was not screaming like he was about to die. Then the time for doubt was over. No matter what he did, he was going to end up amidst the stick figures as his feet were going too fast and the floor was too smooth for him to slow down enough to escape at this point.

Tom focused on the task he had set himself, which was to kill the ranged threat. The moment all the enemies were in range of Spark and no less than eleven limbs from the smaller stick figures were reaching for him he detonated Spark using all sixteen mana he had available.

Two mana went into each of the stick figures, and three into the ranged opponents.

From this close, he saw how the energy reacted to the creature’s skin. It had counter magic that tried to stop the effect, but with Tom being in control of his magic he was able to overwhelm the defence easily.

After that, it was like lighting a match and throwing it into a pool of gasoline. It exploded in an inferno and only then did Danger Sense react with a mild cautioning approach to things and an absolute command to take action. He triggered his manual skill as he tried to leap away from the blast in the hope that it would propel him through the air rather than crash him into the stone.

Given his speed and lack of traction it was a ridiculous attempt, but in defiance of nature he leapt into the air like a gazelle, reversing the direction of his momentum in an instant and his torso somehow rotated to face the new direction of travel as well. It was trippy.

Whoomph!

The force of the ignition of so many stick figures close together was massive. It was like a car had slammed into his back. The pressure was spread over him, which helped, but his brain instantly registered damage due to the whiplash that occurred not to mention the bruised internal organs from the acceleration.

He was hurtling through the air and his instincts made him engage Touch Heal and when he saw the brain injury, he was glad he had. All the series issues were fixed in a blink and then he found himself falling down. He positioned his feet and tried to stick the landing. He had hoped that Fateful Positioning would activate, but he wasn’t in luck.

The speed he was travelling at and the height the blast had propelled him too, meant he was falling way too fast to expect to walk away from the fall. All he could do was to try to minimise the extent of the damage.

His tibia broke instantly and then he was rolling like a tumbleweed along the hard floor until he came to a stop over forty metres from where he had started. Luckily, he had been blown toward the entrance and away from the boss.

He suspected he had blacked out for a minute or two and he was not in a good way. That didn’t stop him from lifting his head and assessing the situation. Kang was fighting the giant light statue, and no other monsters were active.

He tried to rise to his feet, but his muscles refused to cooperate.

Instead, he slumped helplessly and waited for sufficient mana to regenerate to fix the damage from his bad landing and be ready to take over if Kang gave out. He suspected his leg was not the only thing that was broken because his body was not responding how it was supposed to. 

Thankfully, Kang did not need aid because less than fifteen seconds later the massive light statue fell apart as pieces of a shattered core rained down on the ground.

The larger boy stood there triumphally uninjured.

“You okay, Tom.”

“Yes,” he croaked out. “I’m alive and conscious so I’ll be fine.”

Kang walked over to him. “Great job in killing the adds. Now we only have the final floor to beat.”

AG. Yesterday I was joking on discord that releasing two chapters on the same day rather than holding one back would be fine providing I kept myself to under 3500 words ( I was feeling good and had no major time sink chores to do).

Long story short, I failed. This is 4.4k words and it was a long day. I'm my worst enemy in many regards but I want to fit a certain level of progress into each chapter which sometimes causes me to go well over the word count that I wanted.