by John Gold
“What do they want her for?”
“Do you have any idea how much money has been invested in the Katain economy? How many items were hidden in the dwarf banks scattered across the abandoned cities? It isn’t even that they’re worried about losing their investment; the money is all tied up in their working capital. Whose money do you think the gods used to fund the crusade against the demons in Katain?”
“Interested parties. Smart! There are other interested parties, too, but that’s a question for another day. In the meantime, what’s the actual threat? Our names are hidden, sending seeker spirits out to look for us would be pointless, and we don’t have any special things people could use to identify us with. There are pairs of swordsmen and mages all over the world.”
“Well, there’s your face! Nobody remembers mine, but you stuck yours in front of that camera. You could buy a shifter potion, though you’d have to buy one from an awfully skilled master to beat your resistance. And it wouldn’t last long, either…”
“Forget it. I didn’t come back to his world to be scared of every shadow. Anyway, we’re going to be sticking to places where they don’t like people very much. Okay, maybe I should say that they like them a little too much.”
We continue toward the city, my life aura still on. A fifty-meter strip of green stretches out behind us, and the island gets its own status as Floating Crab Island when we leave. A quick glance back tells me that seagulls are starting to gather.
Six hours of running later, I get what I’ve been going for.
Life Magic +1
Life Magic spell effectiveness +1000%
Your Life Magic skill has reached the maximum value.
New spell learned: Panacea
In ancient times, healers all around the world looked for a medicine that would cure all diseases, though very few of them were able to reach those heights of Life Magic. As a reward for their labor, they received a unique spell that reflects the true nature of the medicinal arts.
Effect: Instantly restores 50 million health, removing all debuffs and curses
Cost: 100000 mana
Recharge time: 2 hours and 30 minutes
Needless to say, it’s an interesting spell, and I even know who could use it, but it’s almost pointless for me. I need constant healing and an enormous mana pool to build my resistance.
The spell description, however, gives me some valuable information. When I modified my mental body, I picked up 50% resistance to mental damage, or 12.5 million. That means that the maximum resistance is 25 million.
Following the theory of resistance, the maximum damage you can do to a unit of space is 50 million, and the panacea is confirmation of that. The way my world is, I’ll definitely be coming across that kind of damage, so it’s a number I need to hit.
Femida stands next to me quietly as I read the spell description.
“Panacea! Maximum!”
There’s an explosion of life. The spell slips underwater, the residual radiance scatters around the area. But I find out something interesting—the total of the streams of consciousness I use to boost the effect also has a limit of 50 million. Instead of one overwhelmingly powerful panacea, I end up with a cascade of powerful Life Magic spells. The water under our feet gurgles with thousands of different plants, the smell of flowers bursts out into the air, and the buzz of insects is deafening.
I’m lifted ten meters into the air as the residual effect from the spell grows the plants at an incredible speed. The fish swimming beneath us are swept up to feed the plants—and that’s just nine streams. I’m not going to make the same mistake twice, as I just spent 900000 mana. The gods have nothing on me.
Achievement received: Herald of the creator. First rank.
You were able to create a location out of nothing.
Minimum requirement: The creation of a complete ecosystem
Reward: +10 to all attributes
Some of the newly grown shrubbery moves. A stream of profanity pours from the plants and loose base of the island.
“Dissection!”
Femida brings her sword down with all the strength and mastery she can muster. The poor island takes irreparable damage.
“You damn tree-lover! You could have warned me!”
“What are you cursing like a stevedore for? Did you unlock the achievement?”
“Yeah.”
“Then congratulations—you’re a tree-lover, too!”
We continue on toward the city. I want to see what the most powerful Life Mage spell is like with my current strength, though I have to wait for a whole day after using multiple streams of consciousness. The effect is greater than I could have dreamed. The island continues its accelerated growth, pushing higher out of the water. The roots reach the bottom and start drawing strength from the bowels of the earth.
Dawn is just breaking when we arrive at Kkhor, and the first fishing schooners are heading out. The children from the surrounding villages are taking the cattle out to pasture. The locals are starting to venture out into the sleepy, fog-shrouded city, while players coming in from a night spent hunting are lining up at the buyer’s stall. The market in the slums, which we make our way through, is already buzzing.
The old ladies are selling the morning’s milk and baked goods; the smell of porridge, fruit, and dried fish reminds me of my home in the village and my first trip to the market; and I can’t help but think back to my acquaintance with Bernard and the tournament I won.
We quickly find a house with a secret entrance leading to the city sewers. There’s a hatch in the floor just like the hidden door to the city of the dead, and my academy mage ring opens it easily. We head in without any hesitation to visit a spot where the living aren’t welcome.
After taking our blood tie potions, we get to work slaughtering all the undead we find. The twin brothers die simultaneously to a wind of death that also takes out three buildings. I leverage my magic manipulation and scaling for all my battle spells, boosting the area the damage covers from five meters to twenty-five meters. The reduced density is mitigated by the quadruple amplification my manipulation gets me.
As soon as we announce our presence and show off what we can do, a full-scale war breaks out. Respawn time is doubled, and we fight continually. Every five minutes, two raid bosses appear at the same time. Femida is a close-combat monster—she blocks both the raid bosses despite the 1800-level difference. She even laughs as I keep the crowd of ghosts away from her back. Not a single building is left intact in the whole block, and there isn’t a single ghost we haven’t killed at least once. Femida hacks away as hard as she can, deflecting swings with enormous hammers and blocking the blows aimed at me. Her times—ten body amplification, maximum mastery, and advanced swordplay skill mean she can defend against attacks that would kill a normal player.
A minute and a half go by, and nine special dissection attacks turn the tide in our favor. The possessed body of a demon with no arms left to hold his sledgehammer hurtles at us. He’s looming over the girl when she leaps to the side and uses dissection at the same time.
One swipe, and the demon’s head flies off to the side. The ghost inside him, however, is more than happy to let us know he’s there. A second goes by, then two, then three more, and he casts his first spell. Femida is saved by my magic shield.
“Jump!”
As Femida leaps, she brushes the ceiling above the dead city.
I use the dragon breath from my spell book. It’s followed by a wind of death a second later, and the combination kills all the ghosts as well as the bodiless raid boss.
The second boss takes ten-meter strides away to avoid the attack. Femida takes a shot from its hammer, though a hammer of brilliant light kills the boss. The whitish creature starts to appear just as Femida swings her sword down from shoulder to belt. She’s thrown all the way back to the other side of the square, demolishing a wall and dropping her health to about twenty percent.
“Dead sun. Maximum.”
That was probably overdoing it—the enormous black sphere wipes away the pavement, the remains of the houses, and the raid boss before starting to eat its way through the stone wall behind our opponent. It’s only two minutes later, once the sphere has bored ten meters deep into the brickwork, that it finally runs out of energy.
Femida climbs out of the remains of a ruined building laughing like a crazy person.
“God, I forgot you were that good!” Another fit of laughter interrupts the praise she’s showering on me.
We fall back to the safety of the tunnel leading to the city so we can rest where there are fewer bots. It’s only then that I realize how hungry I am, and Femida just laughs as I scarf down the day’s ration.
“Do you remember the administrator at our first trial for the Hunters? The swordsman mage with the dual mind blades?”
Of course, I do! “Little miss.”
“He said that status as a Hunter helps you use your body more efficiently. For example, your strength or stamina bar disappears, though you can see how you’re doing by how you’re feeling. If you don’t have much health, then your strength is lower, and it’s harder to run. If you do too much, you get hungrier faster. In your case, you’re ravenous because of the ridiculous amount of mana you spent.”
It’s surprising, but Project Chrysalis matches our style of play by sending us more and more challenges. We pick damage and mastery; our opponents reply with quantity and tactics. The longer we fight, the smarter our enemy gets. The raid bosses no longer jump out and start whaling away at us. Instead, they throw their hammer or do area damage to catch us by surprise. After their third unsuccessful attempt to teleport around behind us, they stop trying. The absolute silence doesn’t keep us from using the voice chat, and my perception always lets me know where the enemies with physical bodies are.
By the fourth day, we’re able to work our way out of the first district, moving along the very edge and avoiding the livelier streets. There are traps the demon ghosts set all over the place. Plus, we have to worry about the rats, who jump out of manholes to attack us every once in a while. The corpses embedded in the walls and floors leap out at us when we’re least expecting it. I remember the courtyard where the skeleton couple was drinking their tea, and I decide to drop in on them. But it turns out that Slender already killed them. When I get there, I see him using their bodies like dolls to have a pretend tea party. Judging by the three sets of bones, he’s been here for a while. My breath catches in my chest as I see him lift a cup up to the spot where his mouth should be, and a cavity opens up to display a row of sharp teeth. He could bite through a tree with those things! After polishing off the rest of the tea, the guy in black disappears into the shadow of the gazebo. What a gentleman, leaving without even saying goodbye.
We keep going, skipping the poorer district, and make our way to the business center. The fact that there are fewer ghosts is mitigated by all the raid bosses and traps scattered around the area. The rats only attack in groups, the strongest of them coming right at us while the rest try to get around to our backs. The traps are all designed to keep us in place, rather than do damage. And I can’t always tell where they are even with my perception.
Finally, we get to the ruins of the demonologist guild. There’s the wall I remember, with the passage on the other side, and there we see the raid boss who throttled the rat.
We haven’t exactly been sneaking along. Femida doesn’t want to dull her sword by hitting the walls, so we’ve been using bare hands and magic. She heads up to the third floor; I use another dead sun, this time to cut a hole through the stone wall and widen the passageway into the sewers. When I was here the last time, back when I was snoozing in the sewer well, I noticed a channel leading downward. It certainly hinted at another level below the dead city.
Note! You found the crypt of the dead city, a hidden location.
The building lurches, the floorboards creak under our weight, and we decide not to see how long they can hold us…
After stepping into the dark tunnel, we close it off on both ends with Earth Magic. We’ve been playing for eighteen hours, and we need a break.
Logout
It’s been twelve days since we arrived in the city of the dead, two weeks since I started physical therapy. I sleep eight and a half hours a day and swim as much as I can. After that, I relax with some medicine and a self-massage.
Claude has a certification in physical therapy, so he tells me how to massage myself and keep track of how my body is doing. I stay away from salt and anything else that could harm me, I stretch and stimulate my nervous system, and I notice how my blood pressure affects me in general. He tells me about the relationship between the body’s overall mass and its durability, what muscle mass does, and why oxygen deficiency is a bad thing. When I ask him too many questions, he forgets that I’m just a kid without a medical education and switches over to technical terminology. I have a hard time understanding a quarter of what he says. Still, his lectures help me understand my body on a deeper level.
I’m kept well away from the other patients at the resort. Once, when I was walking back after my physical therapy, I found an exit leading to the roof. The view was wonderful, the sun was shining, and I could look up at the clouds. The warm wind blew in from the ocean, bringing with it the smell of trees and the sound of waves.
I’d like to learn more about the resort I’m staying at, so I start looking for information in the infonet. Eventually, I find the story behind the whole complex as well as a map.
There isn’t another island closer than 140 kilometers. On the other hand, I’ve been noticing something just on the edge of the horizon. It disappears and reappears, always in different places. I wonder if it’s a patrol ship or a rescue boat there in case something happens to the resort, but Claude informs me that nothing out there can be that close.
“This is a closed area. Any ship that enters our water or airspace without permission will be destroyed from orbit. You’re not completely healthy yet. Go see the doctor—maybe, there’s something wrong with your retinas.”
“But I’ve seen it six times.”
“And it moves around the island? You believe that? We don’t have patrol ships here. Actually, there isn’t a single drone, ship, or other craft on the entire planet. The cleaners got rid of all machines and other equipment a hundred years ago, right after the Great Migration. I look out at the sea sometimes myself, but I haven’t seen a single ship in my three years working here.”
The hallucinations stop, so I decide against going to see the doctors. And when I get tired of killing ghosts, I swim, read, or look out at the sky and ocean.
In the cafeteria, I feel like they’re fattening us up for slaughter. I gain three whole kilograms in two weeks, but Claude tells me that’s good for my age and condition. I’m more worried about getting kicked out—I don’t have any money left.
Login
Femida hit Level 1500 today as we cleared the crypt in the dead city. The flood that happened in the last era swept a lot of bodies into the crypt, and the necrotic energy turned them into all different kinds of undead.
Level 2500 flesh terrors scurry around the hallways of the dusty crypt, leaving tracks in the ash that covers the floor. Banshees, the souls of the dead, and other evil spirits are the weakest creatures we come across. In one room, there are three priests all together—raid bosses. We practically destroy the whole place before we kill them. They’re liches, and they take great pleasure in betraying their former lives by casting Dark Magic at us. The narrow passageway we fight them in gives us a good defensive position, though Femida can’t work the way she’d like to. Ultimately, I batter their defenses with my shield and push one lich back, giving Femida room to maneuver. The monsters have incredible amounts of mana they tie into their magic shield. As long as their mana hasn’t run out, the shield stands tall. We have to pull out all the stops to kill them in the enclosed space.
It all ends when I spend 5 million mana to cr
ush the liches with a shield. Femida lops off their heads, the best way to take out any kind of lich.
Another month goes by, spent working our way through the city of the dead. Femida reaches Level 2000; I’m at Level 2138. As we approach the level of the ghosts in the city, the experience we get drops precipitously. We spend the last three weeks slaughtering as many as we possibly can to make up the difference.
Femida splits her attribute points between strength and agility, saving a little for stamina. I dump everything into intellect. My wisdom parameter is gone, and investing in stamina would be a complete waste.
Be my opponent a god, the archmage, or a brutal crowd of headhunters, I need an absolute advantage in battle. The enormous amount of damage I do is built on my advanced intellect and the mana in the astral.
We only head out into the city to buy food, though our absurd appetites mean that has to happen every couple of days. The more interesting the battle, the hungrier we are afterward. Sometimes, we start the day with a big breakfast, and by lunch we already have exhaustion debuffs.
To compare us to a regular player, we’re going more like fifty or sixty hours without food rather than the six it actually is. The whole problem is the Hunter skills, amplification, and manipulation. Femida can hold out longer, though I always look like I haven’t eaten in a month. It’s the face of an intellectual atop the body of a last-stage dystrophic person.
Femida never takes her armor off when she’s hit with the exhaustion buff. She doesn’t say why, but I can tell that the reason is the fact that women lose weight from their chest before anywhere else. Putting on weight is the opposite story. Sure, there are some nuances there, but that’s basically it. Her exhaustion has her looking like a boy, and a hungry Femida is scarier than a Level-2799 raid boss. Even if you could kill her, it’s better to stay away from her famished rage.
