by John Gold
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Oh, god, my head! My body isn’t responding well, my muscles are spasming, my eyes aren’t opening at the same time, and my heart is pitter-pattering. The silvery solution housing the medbots pushes me to the surface, straight into the caring arms of the doctor.
“Finally, you woke up. You took it hard, slept for almost a month.”
“What’s wrong with me? Why is my body all out of whack? My head hurts.”
“Your occipital lobe was damaged. The nervous tissue was so worn out that it could’ve belonged to an old man, and repairing it meant messing up your fine motor skills as well as reloading your long-term memory. For some reason, we couldn’t pull you out of the game so you could rest completely. Your head hurts from the lack of sleep and from being overworked, but you’ll be able to rest once Claude takes you back to your room. We’ll talk about physical therapy later.”
Falling asleep is wonderful. Through the encroaching shroud, I see Claude taking me back to my room in the aerochair, and I’m gone the second my head hits the pillow. My whole body relaxes. The bed is comfortable, the blanket is warm…and LJ’s there.
Again, I see the field of flowers and the girl in the white dress. Despite the red hair, I’m positive it’s not Femida. How do I put this? Their motives, their personalities are different. I can sense that what they want from me is different. Femida follows me and sometimes adjusts my plans; this girl knows exactly where I’m going and how this is going to end up. It’s like she’s the one leading me forward. At some point, I leave dreams behind and drift into an even deeper sleep.
I forgot what it was like to really sleep. Strength floods back into my muscles, and my thoughts are viscous and ponderous. Oh, I have an erection! I need to calm down and figure out what to do about that. Judging by the way I feel, my hormones are back to normal, though my weakness still has my arms and legs moving sluggishly.
Ten minutes go by as I study how my newly restored body feels. My thoughts are clearer, and I can control all eleven of my streams of consciousness. Still, it’s not worth pushing them, so I focus on my body. And that’s when Claude walks in.
He’s about thirty years old, and he always wears a blue nurse’s uniform. Over the past couple of months, he hasn’t changed a bit.
The doctor who oversaw my restoration prescribed physical therapy for me, so I’m supposed to swim two kilometers every day. After that, I get a full-body massage and medicine that will normalize my salt balance. My coordination and fine motor skills will be back up to par in three or four months.
“Doctor, can I set up a neuronet?”
“Ribonz, stop calling me doctor. I have a name—Edward Jenner. You can only set up your neuronet after your nervous system is completely recovered.”
He’s never brought up any associations for me, so I’ve never been able to remember his name. But Doctor Jenner, the doctor who wouldn’t let me set up a neuronet, is a perfectly good association.
Claude takes me back to my room, telling me I need to move around more on my own. He stops in an hour later and takes me to the pool for physical therapy. Once I have some free time, I decide to write Femida to let her know I’m back.
When I read my mail, I find eight letters from the irate girl, all laced with invective. In one, she mentions a strange deer that showed up by my tree and then ran off into the astral.
A glowing deer showed up right by your tree and stood there for a long time just staring at the trunk. Slender tried to kill it with one of his tentacles, though he ran into a beastly charge of lightning. I don’t know what that thing was, but baldy didn’t go anywhere near it after that. That happened ten days after you switched off in the astral.
Doing enough damage to teach Slender a lesson without killing him? There’s only one deer who can do that—Azami, the supreme natural divinity. He never shows up just for fun, so something unexpected must have happened.
I reply to Femida, letting her know that I’ll be logging into the game in a few hours after my physical therapy.
Claude walks in as I’m sending the letter. From what he’s told me, the resort is located on an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and there aren’t any other islands closer than a hundred and forty kilometers.
There are three pools in the resort. My treatment will be taking place in the third reserve aquatic complex behind the main building.
Hearing that there are three whole pools here and seeing only one of them are two very different things. A fifty-meter pool with a sliding dome, and this is the reserve aquatic complex? What must the other two be like?
I’m able to swim just a tad more than two hundred meters before practically drowning. Afterward, I have to drink a nasty solution to restore my salt and trace element balances. I’m exhausted.
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Back in Project Chrysalis, I find myself on the same island in the astral. I feel the same tingling in my body that tells me there should be a divinity nearby. Okay, where’s the message about Azami showing up?
New unique class rank: Demigod
Your mental body is inextricably tied to your source of strength in the astral. Your physical body is still intact, and you can’t use your divine energy for spells. All your energy turns into mana, and your strength source drops by 10% every time you die. If it runs out completely, you will lose your demigod class rank.
I’m becoming what I’ve been fighting. The tingling in my body tells me that the divine energy is still there, though it’s converted into mana. The fact that I don’t know any divine spells renders that pointless for me, however. Although, there are some things to think about. It looks like I’ve grabbed the carrot and dodged the stick. I don’t have maximum resistance like the gods, not to mention the direct link between my level and my skills, though I do have access to an enormous reserve of magic energy in the astral. And I don’t risk losing everything if I die. Even after ten deaths, I’m just back to being a normal player. I have a new spell I can use to open a direct portal to my source, and I assume I’ll have to recharge it with direct contact.
The enormous tree behind me is highlighted as the source and gauge for my strength reserve. Obscene words have been scratched into the bark, and Slender also added some notes and marked off the days. The poor guy was stuck here with us for nine months in local time.
Divine energy reserve: 100000000/100000000
Judging by the number, MoroKrai’s heart grew into the tree.
I dig through the interface to figure out how the source works. It turns out that as soon as my supply of mana is about to run out, I switch over to my source in the astral. Everything else is pretty much the same as other players. My tree in the astral isn’t a place of strength, so I have to resupply it myself.
A theory for how I picked up the demigod class rank comes to mind. Here I am in a unique place, and the confluence of the astral, my ability to fuse with the trees I grow, and the organic mana storage might have been enough to make it happen. My blood-malachite tattoos may have helped, too.
When Femida shows up, Azami has just arrived on my little island in the astral. This time, he’s in the form of an unusual rhinoceros, something like a lightly smoking volcano on his back. The supreme natural god is a changeling—he can change the way he looks, but the power I sense makes it very clear who’s standing in front of me. This time, he just turns and leaves after barely listening in on my thoughts. I can sense his disappointment even in the astral. He saw Sagie in me, and not LJ, the Sagie who became a lich, fused with the tree in Kurg, and led to its demise. I get his disappointment—my nature is far more terrifying than LJ’s.
Femida climbs into her living armor, which was hiding behind the tree, and walks over.
“Who was that?”
“Azami, the supreme natural divinity. There isn’t any information written down about beings like him, so you should feel lucky you got to see him.
After telling Femida what happened in real life, I smoothly transition into mentioning that I
’m now a demigod. It’s time to get ready for the big hunt.
Without leaving the astral, I start preparing potions using my own blood. I’m going to need quite a few water-breathing potions, which is why I bought a retort and alembic that hold a hundred liters. It’s a good thing we aren’t in real life. Normal adults have just five liters of blood, and I need more than a hundred. Due to the fact that my crafting skill is underdeveloped and my potion brewing is rudimentary, the potions themselves turn out to be very poor quality. Still, they do the job.
Blood potion for underwater breathing
The mage who brewed this potion used his own blood, giving it an additional effect.
Effect: Lets you breathe under water for 25 minutes
Additional effect (only for the source of the blood): +25% intellect, +25% morale for 20 minutes and 6 seconds
The first potion I drink gives me underwater breathing and boosts my intellect. My morale doesn’t get any higher, meaning that I’m limited to 500. Screw it. Just the fact that it works on me is good enough. Because of my resistance to poisons, most potions do nothing, not to mention poisons.
Femida relaxes in the woods while I brew my potions. Isaac and Slender are off walking around together. Thanks to the retort and alembic, I’m able to control how concentrated my potions are. The stronger I make them, the more gelatinous they are.
Ultimately, I have to add a few thickeners and wait for the extra fluid to boil off. My hundred liters of blood turns into about twenty liters of very thick red gelatin, and I’m able to move on to looking over the remains of the herbs I have in good light. I’m no alchemist, so the end result turns out to be middling.
I carefully cut the gelatin up into cubes, wrapping them in slices of cheese to make a kind of cheese candy.
Concentrated blood potion for underwater breathing
A blood mage tried a culinary experiment that resulted in this potion.
Effect: Lets you breathe under water for 40 minutes.
Additional effect (only for the source of the blood): +25% intellect, +25% morale for 32 minutes and 10 seconds
Femida didn’t ask why I need a hundred liters of her blood. She also went ahead and just ate the cube of cheese I handed her, after which the enraged girl ran around the island for ten minutes, waving her enormous sword at anything that moved. Nerves aside, I don’t think she would’ve missed so many times if she actually wanted to kill me.
She gives me the second hundred liters of blood with more reticence, expecting a dirty trick. The next six hours are spent brewing potions using her blood, mine, and blood malachite to boost the effect. In the end, I come up with a jelly I wrap up in pieces of dough. I don’t have anything else, and my vials don’t work for that kind of thing.
Concentrated blood ties potion
An alchemist decided to brew a potion that pools the health of two people. The end result is what happens when you’re a culinary master with no principles to speak of.
Effect: The health of the sources of the blood is pooled
Effect radius: 40 meters
The subjects tied by blood lose health equal to the distance between them every second.
Duration: 40 minutes
Femida immediately asks to try one of the “dumplings” to see what the effect is like, so two of them go missing right away. Given the fact that we’re both Hunters, with our health tied directly to our mana, we end up with a ton of health. The little we lose because of the effect is made up for by our survivability. My magic vision reveals a red thread linking us, though we’re better off staying away from cities with an effect like that.
My strength source isn’t included in our health pool—it’s linked exclusively to me.
To put the new ability through its paces, we experiment with our health pool and growing a tree. I use my Life Magic without moving from where I am, sending it through my bare feet directly into the ground. Shrubbery starts to sprout immediately, growing strong and reaching for the sky. My health bar grows quickly; a wooden spur appears by my legs. Femida breaks into a smile, raises an eyebrow, and asks the question that’s been on her mind for the last month.
“What’s next, my chosen one?” Girls, always thinking they’re so smart.
“I’m not your chosen one. We have a choice—do you want to work on resistance or leveling-up?”
“Let’s stick with levels. What about going to see Roni? She’s been inviting us to stop by for a month, and I haven’t known what to say. The bots there start at Level 1400, going all the way up to archdemons at around 4000.”
As if I don’t know that you just want to see your darling Ekron.
“No. There are too many people over there. I know of a place where there definitely won’t be anyone, and the food is good, too.”
“Where is that?”
“Kkhor, the city of the dead.”
Femida doesn’t say anything, though I can tell she’s upset. It’s okay, we’ll get there, too.
After collecting everything I had laid out on the ground, we split our supply of blood tie dumplings and find Isaac in the forest. The living armor has been playing tag with Slender the whole time we’ve been getting ready to go.
The astral path takes us to a small island in the Ocean of Darkness just a couple of days run from Kkhor. As soon as we get going, I turn my life aura up to maximum so I can work on scaling and manipulating my magic. It’s then that I discover something strange.
“Something’s wrong with my mana. Attribute window!”
Name: Sagie (Almark)
Level: 961
Experience: 26150/3262620 (3000470 left until the next level)
Race: Human (demigod)
Class: Mage
Basic attributes
Strength: 934
Agility: 2141
Stamina: 3039
Intellect: 10532
Available attribute points: 240
Additional attributes
Speed: 500
Survivability: 705
Derivative attributes
Physical damage: 467 (strength/2, but no less than 1)
Carrying capacity: 2335 kg (strength*10/4)
Overall strength: 45640 (stamina*10+15250 from tattoos)
Mana: 34230 (overall strength*0.75)
Health: 11410 (overall strength*0.25)
Health and mana restoration speed: 7050/minute (mana*2)
Running speed: 51 m/s (1+speed/10)
Defense: 5
Resistance
Physical damage: 15.27% (damage ignored: up to 81422/second)
Poison: 12.60% (damage ignored: up to 47368/second)
Fire: 35.62% (damage ignored: up to 1177204/second)
Electricity: 18.35% (damage ignored: up to 292021/second)
Mental damage: 50.00% (damage ignored: up to 12500000/second)
Cold: 16.52% (damage ignored: up to 120577/second)
Skills
Life Magic: 998
Spell scaling: 498
Magic manipulation: 404
Professions
--
Abilities
Imp eye
Undecuple consciousness
One of our own
Shroud of darkness
Friend of the forest
Gifts
Meeting deferred
The only way I can excuse these kinds of ridiculous mistakes in my calculations is to point to the problems I’ve been having with my head. After joining the Hunters, my tattoos stopped boosting my wisdom and morale. Only my intellect held onto its 29% uptick. The increase my equipment had been giving my wisdom and mana is completely gone, too. The extra mana from my tattoos was added to my general strength, while my additional athleticism and morale attributes turned into survivability. The latter ended up the average value of all of them, though it doesn’t look like that resulted in much of a change. Damn, I’m a Life Magic guru! Another two points, and I’ll have it maxed out. I do need to work on my battle magic skills. Oh, hey! I can expan
d the area my spells affect by six times and their density by five times. Okay, so, I have ten life auras working right now, and they’re burning quadruple the amount of mana. That ends up being 36000 a minute. I really got some good sleep in the forest.
While we’re standing on the water and I’m digging through the interface, colossal changes happen all around us. I look around to see that we’re in the middle of a drifting island that’s growing bigger with each second. The simple seaweed normally in the water is being fed by my Life Magic to grow with incredible speed, and even bamboo with its meter a day has nothing on what’s all around us.
Femida is gathering the crabs crawling about on the bank of the island. Slender is skewering stranded fish on his tentacles as if they’re spits.
“Fem, I have a problem. Joining the Hunters made all my equipment practically useless, and I can only make new items in the Hashan Desert. None of the gods have any control there, so I can make as many sacrifices as I want.
The crabs decide to fight back against the girl who’s polishing them all off. Both sides, however, make their peace with each other after a quick burst of flame from me.
“What kind of a hit did your fighting capacity take?”
“With the source in the astral, I have more like an ocean of mana than a sea. But I’m only half as strong as far as everything else is concerned. If I burn my health, I can make up the difference.”
“We need to focus on leveling-up and boosting our skills right now. You slept for a month, and you have no idea the kind of search that’s going on right now in the game and in the real world. Leon put together a complete chronology of events from when you showed up in Sural to when you went missing at Valhalla. The clinic we went to is blockaded—the dragons agreed to keep an eye on it and see if they can find you. The League received all kinds of orders to find you. Everybody’s looking for you just as much as they’re looking for Ekron.”
