Isr Kale's Journal (The Alchemist Book #4): LitRPG Series
Page 28
“In the world?” Tailyn shot back. “Practically anyone could take me out! I mean, there’s Halas, for example. That’s who you need to correct.”
“The lix is advancing organically, the right way. Killing and leveling-up, using crystals before. But you just use hacking and enhancement. It’s not right, and it has to change.”
“Another limit?” Tailyn scowled. “No, I’m against it. You can’t change my character!”
The boy knew you couldn’t change people without their consent no matter who you were.
“Local changes aren’t doing anything—you’ve already gotten around them. Just take your named items, for example. No, we need something global, so I’m sending off a request...”
You’re the reason for a system request for global interference in the game.
Evaluating the request...
Request approved, update installed.
Level +1 (47).
Named item level +1 (13).
***
Attention all planet residents!
Through divine necessity, a change was made to the world order. Attributes Hacking, Protection, and Enhancement as well as skill Device Control were permanently deleted from the world in addition to the parameters of all creatures and devices.
All points spent on the above attributes will be returned to their owners.
Compensation will be made for each deleted attribute: +10 levels and 1000 coins.
All creatures with immunity to hacking will receive a random immunity.
***
Level +40 (87).
Coins +4000 (540103).
202 free parameter points received.
“What was that for?!” Tailyn exclaimed when it hit him what had changed. In one fell swoop, he’d been thrown backwards, practically destroyed as a player. Without those attributes, there was nothing separating him from the rest of the world. He was even behind a large portion of it.
“You got somewhere you weren’t supposed to go using imbalanced attributes. That was an error that required a global change, though that’s not all. The Creator has his eye on you, player!”
Player Tailyn Vlashich!
The System thanks you for uncovering an error in the game balance. As a reward, you have been given the right to determine the fate of ancient creature Valrus Bur. You can save his life or destroy him, the latter choice earning you a divine reward for freeing up significant system resources.
Tailyn... This wasn’t you, was it? came Valia’s timid voice. Tailyn’s stomach sank. With the urge to take his frustration out on someone, the reptiloid was the perfect option, and the boy just about consigned him to his fate. Killing him would have been perfect. It was all the reptiloid’s fault—anyone’s but Tailyn’s.
Tailyn, tell me it wasn’t you!
It was... But it wasn’t on purpose! the boy replied, and tears welled up in his eyes, Finally, he exploded. Leave me alone! It wasn’t on purpose!
The changes really were global. In his youthful naivete, Tailyn had assumed the System was scaring him and had made the changes for him, but he was wrong. And he was going to have to live with that for the rest of his life.
Automatically redistributing parameter points.
That message jerked Tailyn back to reality—he’d lost himself to his musings for a while. How was he going to live without enhancement and hacking? He wasn’t sure, though it did suddenly occur to him that it wasn’t just his problem. All the other high-level players were dealing with the same thing—the provost, the nameless, the Crobar hierarchs, all of them. A smile flitting across his face as he thought about all the players who had achieved something in life and were planning on living out the remainder of their days full and satisfied. They were even worse off than he was. And “they” were his enemies. Not only that, but the mysterious door in the mountains could have somehow been subject to the changes, too. There hadn’t been much in the description about devices, though there had been something. No, beating himself up was pointless. He would still have his chance to fight for a place in the sun.
Status table
General character information
Tailyn Vlashich, head of Mean Truk, betrothed to Valia Levor
Alchemist
Level
87
Age
12
Coins
540103
Gold
715919
Main parameters
Shield level
24362
Shield level
35012
Physical attack
4260
Physical attack
7734
Named item level
13
Named item level
7
Attributes
Intellect
47
Mysticism
47
Wisdom
47
Armor
47
Regeneration
47
Perception
47
Strength
47
Agility
47
Cartographer
47
Concealment
47
Resilience
47
Integration
47
Monster Knowledge
46
Marauder
46
Scanner
46
Anatomy Master
46
Frankenstein
46
Shooting
46
Coordination
46
Skills
Alchemist
Points invested:
398
Herbalism
Points invested:
144
Linguist
Points invested:
1
Mining
Points invested:
36
Mentality
Points invested:
2
“Save the ancient’s life,” Tailyn said firmly when he closed his status table. He could always kill the reptiloid later. The provost had locked him up above the pool of acid, and that meant he was the provost’s enemy. As the ancients had written, the enemy of Tailyn’s enemy was his friend. It was time to put that proverb to the test.
Decision made.
New mission: Free Valrus Bur. Description: get the ancient off the crane.
That turned out to be far more difficult than Tailyn had expected. The reptiloid weighed as much as a horse, and it was only when Tailyn inspected the device and found the turning mechanism that he sighed in relief. Swinging Valrus over, the boy kicked the bracing away, and the ancient crashed to the ground. There was neither groan nor curse—the reptiloid was unconscious. Once Tailyn unwound the chains and freed the ancient’s tail, the System considered the mission complete.
Suddenly, the ancient’s body began to glow so brightly it was like the sun was peeking out from behind his scales. And while that lasted just a few moments, it looked horrifying. Tailyn activated his protection and stepped back, though that was when the System stepped in to explain what was going on.
Valrus Bur’s character was modified and adapted to fit the current release.
Valrus Bur (reptiloid). No class. Level 1. Age 3277.
“Food! Please!” came the muted whisper as the reptiloid regained consciousness. While he was using the common language, his accent was strange. Tailyn quickly checked and found he was out of food. One quick trip to the store later, he was holding a daily ration out to the ancient. The reptiloid accepted it without opening his eyes and gobbled it down as if afraid someone would steal it away, the food disappearing in a matter of seconds. Finally, the ancient opened his eyes, and Tailyn shivered when he saw Valrus’s snake-like pupils.
“More!”
Tailyn figured there wasn’t anything wrong with spending a few coins, so he bought four pac
kets and handed them to the reptiloid. It was after the third that the latter was satisfied. Only half of the fourth disappeared.
“The game says I owe you, Tailyn Vlashich,” the ancient said. “I only have a minute before I black out, so I need to ask you a question: why did you save me?”
“Why just one minute?” Tailyn asked in surprise.
“My body needs to sleep for a week after the changes that were made. Fifty seconds. Why did you save me?”
“Because... Because...”
Tailyn was at a loss. He himself wasn’t sure why he’d kept the ancient alive, although...no, that wasn’t true. It was more that he was afraid to say it out loud.
“Thirty seconds, boy. Either you answer, or it’s nothingness for me. I’m not getting taken prisoner again.”
“Because I want to know everything there is to know about the time when you were alive! For all of us, you’re an ancient, someone who was living here before the exodus. It’s been three thousand years, and nobody knows what that was like. But I want to! I want to know who Mark Derwin and Isr Kale were as well as all the rest. I want to know who you are!”
“Who am I?” The reptiloid grunted and continued just before passing out. “We’ll talk about that later, Tailyn Vlashich, head of Mean Truk, my beloved city. I trust you. As far as who I am... I’m the one who built the academy. The provost, dethroned by my own student!”
That was all the reptiloid had strength for. His eyes rolled back, he drifted off, and the god reacted immediately.
New mission: Valrus Bur’s Recovery. Description: Valrus Bur was imprisoned by his student for three thousand years, though he was able to retain his sanity. Keep him safe for a week. Note that the current provost will be informed of the ancient’s escape in 60 minutes.
The System began pushing its way ever deeper into the world of its new participant, generating new missions one after another. As it turned out, ensuring the reptiloid’s recovery meant making him comfortable, keeping him warm and fed, giving him access to water, clearing his skin away as it shed. And all that needed to be done in the week he was unconscious. Tailyn cursed—he didn’t have a spare week. An hour later, the provost was going to hear about what happened, and Tailyn definitely wasn’t going to be getting into the library then.
The decision wasn’t an easy one to make, only the boy didn’t see another option.
Valia... We have a situation... Basically, open the portal. I need to send you someone.
Tailyn, are you out of your mind? You only have one portal left. What are you doing?
The god didn’t leave me a choice. I’m sending you a guest I need you to take care of for a week—it’s important. I’ll be back in two weeks.
Tailyn sadly activated his last portal card to Mean Truk and threw the reptiloid in as soon as the shimmering field appeared. The ancient really did weigh as much as a horse.
But that’s...
An ancient. The first academy provost. He’ll wake up in a week.
Valia could only blink as she processed the new information. An update to the ancient history mission was sent around, though nobody was paying any attention. Soon enough, the ancient would tell them everything himself. Grabbing all 822 elixir flasks off the shelves and dropping them in his inventory, Tailyn activated his dragon. He couldn’t forget his old promise. Oaths needed to be kept, otherwise they shouldn’t have been given in the first place.
You destroyed a container of Dragon’s Tears. Remaining:12.
There was no new level for Tailyn, but he’d been expecting that. And while his map just showed black nothingness all the way around him, he zoomed as far out as he could to find that he was somewhere in the depths of the western deserts. It was tempting to head up and look around, but he didn’t give in to his impulsiveness that time. He couldn’t go running through unexplored territory without a ticket home.
Before heading back to the academy, Tailyn activated three flasks of Alron fire and tossed them over at the winding staircase in the hopes that it would collapse. The rector would definitely be showing up to see what had happened to his prisoner, and the boy hoped he might even get stuck there permanently.
Tailyn grabbed hold of the rope and began pulling himself up. He couldn’t count on getting lucky, not with just fifty-five minutes left until the academy’s main figure got back.
Chapter 19
THE ISSUES THAT CAME with the game changes caught up to Tailyn just a few minutes later. As he scrambled nimbly up the ropes to the first floor of the academy, the boy smacked his head against a pair of sliding doors there in part to keep the shaft hidden from prying eyes. He would have handled that problem easily in the past with device control, hacking into the device and opening his path forward, but that was no longer an option. He was forced to head back down to the hole he’d made. Even pushing as hard as he could, the boy couldn’t get the doors to budge in the slightest.
There was one thing he got out of flying up to the top: Raptor showed the academy going about its regular life despite what was happening in the lower levels. Students ran between offices; teachers ambled imperiously down hallways. There was nothing new or unusual about it, everything exactly the same as when Tailyn had been a student there. Squeezing himself back into the hole, the boy began retracing his steps, having no desire to keep pushing his way through the traps. The arrow popped back up in front of him to show how he could get to the surface. That time, however, he decided to risk it, take Sadil’s advice, and head for the stairs.
The deans had finished ransacking the security chief’s office and gone back to their regular lives. Despite his scanner telling him they were gone, Tailyn spent some time by the wall listening for what was happening on the other side. It was almost like he could sense danger. Shaking his head to rid himself of the nagging feeling, he pulled the door open. He was in a hurry—the provost was going to learn about the prison break in fifty minutes.
But the boy’s feeling had been right on the money. No sooner had his foot touched the stone ground than the borders of his field of vision lit up in red to warn him of mortal danger. Stunned, he froze, not sure what to do, though Valanil’s training quickly kicked in. His arms flew forward automatically as he breathed the code phrase:
Boo.
Two shimmering rectangles appeared a meter and a half in front of Tailyn, and almost instantly thereafter there was a flash of bright sparks. A few crossbow bolts had turned into melted chunks of metal after hitting Tailyn’s shields. Finally, the boy’s perception lit up his opponent: the deans had gifted him a level twenty battle golem before leaving the fifth level. The box-like machine was on a table, it didn’t show up on Raptor, and the worst part was that it was strong enough to cut through Vargot like so much tissue paper.
The door in the wall was still open, so Tailyn didn’t see anything better to do than jump back behind the stone. Why did it have to be that kind of device? Tailyn knew creating a golem like that wasn’t terribly difficult, taking an experienced master just ten minutes to set it up. Fragile and lasting for just a couple hours, it didn’t have much defense or, paradoxically, attack except for when it came to named armor. The bolts didn’t have to penetrate the target’s personal shield—they weren’t strong enough for that. What they were good enough for was turning he targets innards into mush given that Vargot couldn’t absorb the impact. If it hadn’t been for the shield Tailyn had thrown up, his journey would have ended there and then.
The boy reached out to the machine the way he always did only to curse—the old functionality didn’t work anymore. The wall shook a few times as the golem kept firing at its target, and that was when Tailyn lost it. The golem, the deans, the fact that he’d been set up, and himself as the reason for the divine intervention, all of it enjoyed a portion of the anger flooding him. Once again, his shield popped up, just with one hand that time. The boy’s other hand was busy with Valkyrie. Finally, monster knowledge came in handy. As soon as the boy leaped into the hallway and took a glance at
the golem down the sights of his crossbow, his target’s weaknesses popped up. Sparks flew once more as another volley of bolts hit his shield. But his shooting was good, the shot cutting a hole in the cube that completely ruined its functionality. The ensuing explosion showed that the golem had another protection system built in. Happily, Vargot was able to handle it.
Regardless, the office with all its secret niches was ruined. Part of the walls had collapsed, the finish was peeling off the ceiling, and, to Tailyn’s surprise, the golem somehow continued to function. A small part of the cube had flown off against the far wall, where it lit up and projected an image of the magic card dean. Bent over and covering his face, he looked strange, but there was no mistaking his voice. The boy definitely recognized his former dean.