Buttopia
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Chapter 53: Quadrillions of Experience
🕑 Added 2024-12-19 00:00:08 +0000 UTCI looked at the list and decided the only things I wouldn’t enable were cutting my level beyond one-half or removing my armor. Further deleveling still seemed too risky to win the fight. If I screwed up and didn’t have any of my added resistance and shielding, I risked burning my brain out for nothing. In a last-second change, I also realized I needed my vision. I had no idea how the shield worked, and I had a feeling I was going to need to see it. I took a deep breath and decided it was now or never.
“Mel, I’m going to press start in ten seconds,” I said, starting the countdown in my head.
“Good, don’t screw this up and ruin all my plans before they even really start,” Mel said. Ignoring the burning curiosity of just what the man was planning, I instead hit start on the wasp dungeon and saw the lava flash around me briefly before my new shell popped into existence.
I immediately put my new shield magic into use, and while I couldn’t see it, I could feel it. My stone cocoon was rapidly cooling. Before it had a chance to fully harden, I rapidly flexed and shook my body enough to break some of it away and then slammed my wrist into the chunk on my face, breaking that off as well. I gulped down the strangely cool fresh air as the world around the shield was lightened from the magical energy that currently protected me. I only had inches of space, but it felt like infinitely more oxygen than I had had the last time I did this.
I could make out some of the wasp queen's bodies pressed to the outside of the shield as they slowly melted away from view. For the first time since starting these simulations, a thought arose in my mind. How real were these constructs? Did they feel pain? I hoped not. I didn’t need a new philosophical guilt on my mind.
I watched as my mana levels rapidly dropped. I knew it wasn’t the end of the world if I lost the shield, as I still would have my own regular defenses that would hold for a while longer, but that didn’t mean the wasp queens didn’t, too. Just because the ones in front of me were gone didn’t mean that held true across the board. There were also the starvation and poison effects taking their toll on my body, but I didn’t think those were likely to become a problem before I was burnt to a crisp anyway.
The tail, though, that was an odd sensory experience. It was like having a new limb with a single big finger. That likely meant it was prehensile, but it wasn’t like I had any experience to know that for sure. Would a zoologist be able to tell the difference from feel alone? I doubted it, as you’d generally need a personal basis to compare without an actual test.
Did my mind always wander so much as it waited for the possibility of death? I didn’t have the answer as this wasn’t something I had ever had a chance to experience back home. All my near-death experiences had been incredibly recent, with no time to waste pondering them before they had entirely passed. My life had certainly taken a strange turn.
I saw a large crack appear in the front of the shield. My mana was still over a quarter full, so the shield must have been quickly reaching the maximum damage it could handle. Could I just put up a second shield behind the first? It was too bad I hadn’t seen the original come to life. I wanted to know how it had drained the lava from around me. Another crack appeared in the shield and I decided it was now or never to try the second shield.
A film of pure mana seemed to form around me and then slowly grow out until it covered the inside of the nearly failed first attempt. With it came a new burst of fresh air and a pleasant cooling feeling. I really liked this new mana orb. Was it possible to expand beyond the six I had in my system now? I know I had read about people with two orbs per slot. Was that a possible future for me? I had no idea, but if I wanted to push this experiment as far as I could, I’d likely need to find out. Did I want to? Was that where my life would go once back on Earth?
A message popped into my view just as that thought ended.
My head screamed in pain, and the blackness threatened to engulf me. The sudden feeling of a thick liquid in my throat seemed to force my brain back into my skull. It hadn’t done much for the pain, but I was at least aware. I could see a fuzzy form in front of me, lifting something to my lips. I felt another liquid burn its way down my throat. This time, my vision started to clear, and my head calmed down enough for the sounds I was hearing to get through.
“Well, ya look like shit, but yer still alive, so I ain’t complaining,” Mel said. My head wasn’t sure it agreed with Mel’s claim. Was this was being alive felt like?
Chip leapt onto my lap as Mel forced another bottle of liquid down my throat. Between the two of them, I felt my mana finally start to fill back up my body. Movements were becoming easier again. The pain hadn’t gone down much, but I knew if I could get enough mana back into my system, I could switch on the management.
“Don’t think I can do that again,” I managed to cough out the words as the world started to swim yet again. My body was fighting to use every bit of energy as fast as it could be replenished. The searing pain within my chest refused to die down. If I didn’t know better, I’d assume this was a heart attack. Then again, who said it wasn’t on top of everything else?
“Yeah yeah, stop yer bellyaching and work on getting your recovery skills turned on. Start with regeneration, do not waste any mana on killing the pain just yet; first, we need to get you past the point of dying,” Mel said, forcing some of the food from earlier into my mouth. Forcing it down my throat was a herculean task in my current state, but down it went.
I enabled regeneration and somehow felt my body scream in agony while simultaneously feeling parts of my brain start to reattach. Things that I didn’t realize had broken were coming back together. The room was in color now, a thing that hadn’t even been a concept for me to realize was missing only moments ago had returned. I lifted my arm and reached for the plate of food near Mel, grabbing several things resembling sandwiches, I forced them down in large gulps. I was gaining more mana than I was losing finally.
“Okay, I think I might be in the clear now,” I said, this time managing to do so without a single cough.
“Good, if ya can do it, go check what level ya managed to hit,” Mel said.
I closed my eyes again and swallowed, trying to clear my throat. I then brought back up the mobile interface. I opened my status, and immediate joy swept over my body. The newest near-death experience had been worth it. I had been pushed to level two hundred and fifty. I hadn’t gone any further, but for now, this was all Mel had wanted. Just before I closed my status screen, a new option caught my eye.
“Mel, what does fortify core mean?” I asked.
“So ya hit two fifty then? Perfect, that is exactly what we needed to do,” Mel said, explaining nothing.
“That didn’t remotely answer my question,” I said in return, a little annoyed he hadn’t just told me already. I was growing tired of whatever secrets the man was holding, whether he thought they were for my own good or not.
“Right, I suppose you do deserve an answer. Boys, you know anything about core fortification?” Mel yelled to the Twingoges.
“No, what’s that?” Elicec asked.
“Yeah, didn’t think ya would. It’s not a thing most newbies live to see anymore, but it’s not strictly an Arena topic, so yer in luck. Ya already know that ya ain’t stuck with the core grade it starts at. What ya don’t know is how exactly the process to move up a grade works. Well, what ya gotta do essentially is get yerself enough added power through levels so that you can reinvest it all back into yer core,” Mel said.
“Wait, what happens to the levels?” I asked, interrupting his speech.
“They’re gone,” Mel said.
I have witnessed a core graded lower than F, I did not know it was even possible, nor how the poor creature had managed so pitiful a core. Had I not seen it with my own eyes I’d have never believed it possible. How did this core come to exist? Would the creature even be capable of progressing past the first-level gate? I wished I had more time to study it, but as with many new to the Spiral, they quickly met their end in an ill-advised Arena match.
System Paths, Careers in the Spiral by Glarppp
