Project Xero: Reblood: A LitRPG and Gamelit Adventure

by J. Cee

  Charged Soulstrikes accumulated multiple Soulstrikes into a single attack. Up to three Soulstrikes could be combined in this way, and the total spirit cost and casting time were identical to casting three Soulstrikes in a row.

  The blue glow on Aeri’s skin had been an Interference Shield, which would reduce all incoming damage for the next five seconds. The damage reduction depended on the spirit attribute, and each casting cost six spirit.

  “I’ve been thinking about these skills this whole time, and I’m still confused,” Ceph said. “So an Interference Shield works against more than one attack? Then, I don’t need Deflection Shields? And what’s the point of charging a Soulstrike if it does the same damage as separate attacks?”

  “Think of it as a trade, like bartering,” Aeri said. “You trade spirit points to fight. If you spend less spirit points than your enemy on every exchange, you’ll end up winning.”

  Ceph made a face. “So like those cheapskates at the market who make everyone else wait behind them while they try to haggle over the price of a single meat pie. Then they have the gall to ask for the biggest pie of the lot.”

  Aeri chuckled. “Well, if you put it that way.”

  “But I hate bartering.”

  “Okay, let’s have a mock fight instead. Say I attack you with a single Soulstrike. That’s two spirit. What do you do?”

  “I cast…” Ceph paused to think. “If I’m expecting more Soulstrikes, I use an Interference Shield. That deals with several attacks at once.”

  “Right. For six spirit, you reduce the damage from, say, four Soulstrikes. So I spend eight spirit points to hurt you only a little.”

  “Which is why you should use a charged Soulstrike instead.”

  “Right. I spend six spirit on a charged Soulstrike to pierce your Interference Shield, dealing more damage.”

  “But then I would have used a Deflection Shield. That’s four spirit to block your six spirit.”

  “Which is why if you cast a Deflection Shield, I use a single Soulstrike. Two spirit to cancel your four spirit. And we’re back to the beginning.”

  Comprehension dawned on Ceph’s face. “It’s situational.”

  “Right. Let’s practice.”

  Ceph and Aeri practiced attacking and defending against each other on the shoreline while the stag remained motionless in the middle of the lake.

  Ceph blocked a charged Soulstrike from Aeri with a Deflection Shield, negating the powerful attack, but Aeri followed up with a quick Soulstrike that seared his chest.

  When Ceph responded with an Interference Shield, Aeri paused and let another Soulstrike charge in her fist.

  “Oh, come on. I thought you were going to use a regular Soulstrike,” Ceph complained.

  Aeri smiled as her Soulstrike charged. “You could have waited to see.”

  Ceph sighed and cast a Deflection Shield. His skin shone with a mix of blue and golden light.

  “Two shields?” Aeri asked as she sent her charged attack at Ceph.

  Ceph’s Deflection Shield disappeared from the attack, but the blue glow of his Interference Shield remained.

  “You know that you’ll run out of spirit if you keep doing that. Double shielding is horribly inefficient,” Aeri said.

  “I know, but I’m not used to this,” Ceph said. “This doesn’t feel like fighting. It’s like playing cards or something.”

  Aeri lunged at Ceph. “Then fight!”

  Ceph tripped backwards as Aeri fell on top of him. He panicked. One of Aeri’s fists was glowing. At this point blank range, a charged Soulstrike would inflict maximum damage. Deflection Shield. Interference Shield. Two shields wrapped Ceph in their protection. Meanwhile, Aeri straddled him and began pummeling his eyes with her fists, one of which continued to grow even brighter with violet energy.

  The punches wouldn’t cause any real harm, but Ceph still tried to protect his face. A charged Soulstrike straight into an eye socket didn’t sound pleasant. As he flailed about under Aeri, he didn’t notice his Deflection Shield expire after two seconds. But Aeri did.

  Aeri’s next punch released a charged Soulstrike straight into his throat. Ceph choked on the pain. A flurry of punches landed on his face, then another quick Soulstrike to his throat.

  “Stop, stop,” he croaked.

  Aeri got up from Ceph, offering her hand to help him stand. Ceph ignored the hand, lying on his back.

  “I needed that, didn’t I?” Ceph stared at the clouds in the sky. “A dose of reality.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  Ceph sat up. “I’ve been getting cocky, beating up low-ranked Everborn. Not running when you told me to. Greedy for power points.”

  Aeri held out her hand again. This time Ceph let her pull him up to his feet.

  “I did say that what we’ve been doing hardly qualifies as combat.”

  “I know. I didn’t realize how far I had to go,” Ceph said. “I mean, I still don’t, but I get it now. We’ve been crawling, not even walking.”

  Ceph shook his head and looked at Aeri. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

  “Maybe a little.” Aeri mimed pummeling a face and then the throat. She smirked. “I was getting fed up with your singing.”

  Ceph stared. “You realize how scary you can be.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.” Aeri’s face grew serious. “We haven’t had any real fights yet. Don’t forget the goal. Someone like the Word won’t show any mercy.”

  Aeri nodded her head towards the stag. It was still in the same position on the lake.

  “The upcoming challenge will be the hardest test you’ve faced so far,” Aeri said.

  “For some reason I thought it was going to be easy,” Ceph moaned. “What’s the challenge?”

  “I don’t know. It’s different each time.”

  “Will it be dangerous?”

  “Usually not, at least for the Everborn. It’s a common challenge, so it’s unlikely to have a death penalty.”

  “What if I fail?”

  “You’ll lose this chance to earn equipment. A spirit guardian offers a challenge once to each person. Oh, and you have to take most challenges by yourself.”

  “There’s no way I would have beaten the challenge, then.” Ceph studied Aeri. “Wait a minute. Were you trying to teach me a lesson?”

  Aeri kept a blank expression on her face.

  “I knew it!” Ceph said. “Scary and manipulative.”

  Aeri shrugged. “Fortunately, I was able to knock some sense into you by myself. I’m going ahead with the challenge anyways. What about you?”

  “It’ll be a wasted opportunity if I fail, but…”

  Ceph realized that he hadn’t simply been afraid of the Everborn. He had been afraid of being helpless. And he was being reminded again how helpless he was, even with his new skills.

  “Teach me,” Ceph said.

  “What?” Aeri looked confused. “That’s what I’ve been doing.”

  “No, for real. Teach me. I know there’s more you can teach me. More than spirit costs and names of skills. No more goofing off. I’ll be serious.”

  “Well, if you put it that way.” Aeri grinned.

  Aeri taught Ceph for three days straight on the shores of the lake, the whole time in the presence of the stag spirit guardian. No one disturbed them, although Ceph didn’t know if they had luck or the spirit guardian to thank for that.

  Their Onceborn bodies required neither rest nor nourishment, so they trained continuously without pause. To Ceph’s surprise, much of the time was spent seated, with Aeri lecturing him and then proceeding to questions or mental exercises.

  The training was detailed, to an excruciating degree. Several days ago, Ceph would have dismissed Aeri’s drills as nonsense. Instead, he was shocked at the level of awareness that Aeri possessed when she fought. She kept track of everything.

  Aeri had Ceph perform arithmetic in his head, spitting out answers as fast as possible in response to her question
s. She had him practice measuring time to a fraction of a second, with no tool beyond the clock in his mind. She had him judge distances to a fraction of a meter, and to learn to run, jump, or roll to these precise distances.

  He learned more about his skills, too. He learned that it took a quarter of a second for him to cast a Soulstrike after he thought the command. He learned that his blood wouldn’t regenerate when he ran, while his spirit wouldn’t regenerate when he wielded a future weapon. He learned how to watch an Everborn’s aura for slight dips in intensity, how to discover an Everborn’s rank and attributes from piecing together clues during a fight.

  Ceph found the limits of his Onceborn body. How high could he leap? How fast could he run? How hard could he punch an opponent? What about other limits? Soulstrikes could only be cast with hands and not from other parts of his body. But Ceph discovered that he could cast Soulstrikes from the stump of his left wrist.

  More importantly, Ceph learned how to fight. He learned how to see, think, and act as Aeri did, if to a lesser degree. If Ceph’s first transformation was his physical rebirth, the three days marked his second transformation into a fledgling warrior. He was no longer Ceph the Sanitation Officer. For the first time, in both mind and body, he was Ceph the Onceborn.

  At the end of three days, it was this Ceph that approached the great white stag with caution, a fresh blend of confidence and humility in his steps. He could sense Aeri watching with some measure of pride.

  Ceph dipped his head to greet the spirit guardian. “I’m ready.”

  The placid beast stared back, chewing its cud. Ceph waited with the patience of his newfound self.

  The stag lowered its head, lapping up the lake’s water. It continued chewing.

  Ceph wondered what the stag was chewing. There wasn’t any grass on the lake itself, and he hadn’t seen the stag move at all from its position for the entire three days. He twisted his head to look back at Aeri, but she shooed him towards the spirit guardian like a parent encouraging a child.

  Ceph fought the urge to roll his eyes. He started counting for practice. He counted out exactly five minutes, which would be enough to regenerate his entire blood pool. He started counting another five minutes.

  What was the challenge? Was the stag going to fight him? Did animals talk in the Wild? What was he waiting for, anyway?

  The stag stopped chewing. It opened its mouth and belched a grassy breath into Ceph’s face. Ceph maintained a stoic expression, determined not to offend the spirit guardian.

  “Finally,” the stag said. “Took you long enough.”

  Chapter 9

  The great white stag lowered its head, pointing its massive antlers at Ceph. Ceph held his breath, wondering if it was going to attack, but he didn’t cast a shield. The spirit guardian stepped forward, and Ceph, unsure of what to do, reached out with a finger, poking the tip of a branched antler. The world vanished.

  Ceph stumbled in surprise. He was standing at the head of a long tunnel lit by a bright white glow. Behind him, water roared across the mouth of the tunnel’s entrance. Or exit? Were they behind the waterfall?

  Looking the other way down the rocky corridor, Ceph made out some kind of pedestal in the distance. Along the tunnel at various intervals were short stone pillars, each capped with a polished orb. Ceph wondered what the pillars were for when a streak of violet energy emerged from the nearest one’s round top.

  Ceph instinctively cast a Deflection Shield to block the apparent Soulstrike. A second attack followed. This time, Ceph cast an Interference Shield. It was a risk, as there was no way to judge the strength of the incoming Soulstrike.

  To Ceph’s relief, the blue light shimmering on his skin absorbed the entire damage. Ceph took a confident step forward, letting his shield expire. If the attacks were that weak, he would buffer the damage with his large blood pool. The next attack hit with a prick of pain.

  Ceph blinked. He was standing back at the entrance of the tunnel. The attack had teleported him somehow? It was a Soulstrike with another effect? Corpus. Ceph looked at his inner left forearm. The Soulstrike had only done one point of damage to his blood pool. This was easy, then.

  The orb on the nearest pillar began glowing as it readied a Soulstrike. Ceph cast an Interference Shield and raced down the tunnel. More pillars assaulted him with Soulstrikes. He renewed his Interference Shield after five seconds and continued sprinting. The tunnel was only a few hundred meters long, Ceph estimated. If he kept this up, he should be able to reach the pedestal at the end and grab whatever was on it. He had enough spirit points to keep a shield up the entire time.

  At that moment, a flood of water surged out of the far end of the tunnel towards him.

  “I knew that was too easy,” Ceph muttered.

  The flood lifted Ceph off the ground, pushing him backwards. Without any leverage, his Onceborn strength was useless. When the water subsided, Ceph found that he had barely made any progress down the tunnel. Cold water dripped from his soaked clothes onto the rocky floor as the pillars around him sent more Soulstrikes.

  Ceph pushed forward, casting another Interference Shield. A second flood of water pushed him back again. He had made perhaps a few steps of progress. Ceph checked his spirit as he ran forward. At this rate, he had enough to cast two more shields.

  More Soulstrikes broke against his shield when a third deluge crashed into him. He knew he wasn’t going to make it like this. As his last shield expired, Ceph felt the sting of a naked Soulstrike hitting his body. Ceph returned to the entrance of the tunnel.

  Ceph checked his blood pool. The last attack had drawn two points of blood. Was the damage increasing? Was that the penalty for failure? That meant he couldn’t afford to waste attempts.

  Ceph looked down the tunnel again. Periodically, the closest pillar sent a Soulstrike, but Ceph cast a Deflection Shield and stood still, letting his spirit regenerate. The tunnel didn’t appear to flood while he stood at the entrance. The final pedestal with its elusive prize loomed at the tunnel’s end.

  He had to start over. He needed to approach the challenge like Aeri would.

  During the last three days, Ceph had seen a different side of Aeri. He had already seen plenty of Aeri the overly optimistic savior, Aeri the wild-eyed cultist, and Aeri the ruthless killer. Even as he blocked an incoming Soulstrike, Ceph brought the image of another Aeri to his mind with a grin. Aeri the philosopher.

  The grin faded, as he recalled Aeri’s first lecture.

  Still your mind. Calm your breath. Empty yourself so that you can fill it up.

  Did Onceborn even need to breathe? Could he drown? Ceph banished the idle thoughts and steadied his breathing. He focused on the challenge in front of him as he remembered Aeri’s next words.

  Let your consciousness find the rhythm of combat.

  The closest pillar didn’t seem to have any regular timing. Sometimes, the pillar waited for a longer interval before sending a Soulstrike, and sometimes a shorter interval. However, it never seemed to send two Soulstrikes at once.

  Space and time are your physical foundations.

  Ceph walked closer to the first pillar. When he was close enough to touch the first pillar, the next closest pillar began sending Soulstrikes. Ceph stayed in place and cast an Interference Shield. He maintained his shield, replenishing it when it expired. He continued observing the attacks from the two pillars.

  The timing of individual pillars still seemed random. While no pillar would send two Soulstrikes at once, two different pillars could send Soulstrikes at the same time. No flooding had occurred yet, either. Perhaps that was triggered at certain distances. There were two types of distances, then. The distances to trigger each pillar, and the distances along the tunnel that triggered a flood.

  Aeri’s words continued to echo in Ceph’s memory.

  Interactions create tactics.

  Ceph looked around. The tunnel was bare except for the pillars and the single pedestal at the tunnel’s end. There wasn’t much else to
leverage. He could use shields to block the pillar’s Soulstrikes. His own Soulstrikes didn’t seem very useful here. What else could he use?

  His eyes turned back to the pillars. The first and second pillars were still sending Soulstrikes at him. He wasn’t moving, so his spirit pool was regenerating, but his total spirit pool was still dropping from his continuous shielding. He doubted he could cast Interference Shields indefinitely. The next time the further pillar glowed in preparation of a Soulstrike, Ceph crouched behind the first pillar. He was half expecting the first pillar to explode upon impact with a Soulstrike. Instead, the first pillar absorbed and blocked the incoming Soulstrike. Nothing happened.

  It was progress. Ceph could conserve spirit by hiding from some of the Soulstrikes. As he worked through a plan in his head, the first pillar’s orb began glowing. Ceph quickly cast a Deflection Shield. He would still need to use shields sometimes. At least he had one more option for dealing with the attacks, one more tool to weave into a plan.

  What about the flooding? Ceph raced ahead past a third pillar when the tunnel ahead sent a surge of water towards him. Could he grab onto a pillar to hold his position? Ceph wrapped his arms around the third pillar but couldn’t get a grip on the perfectly cut cylinder’s smooth marble surface. His Onceborn strength was once again useless. The rush of water pushed him back to the first pillar. No, that wouldn’t work.

  Think harder. Interactions, interactions, what other interactions were there? He couldn’t shield himself against the flood. His Soulstrikes wouldn’t help, or would they? Ceph remembered how Aeri had aimed her Soulstrikes at the ground to make the Everborn fall. What if he aimed at the oncoming water? Ceph shrugged. No harm trying.

  Ceph kept an Interference Shield up as he again raced past the third pillar. This time, when the flood of water reached him, Ceph aimed a Soulstrike into the middle of its path. The water exploded violently, parting around him. There was still too much water, though. Ceph cast a second Soulstrike to split the water once again. The water crashed into him, but the amount was much less than before. Ceph remained standing at the third pillar.