Buttopia
patreon
Chapter 34: Aether?
🕑 Added 2024-12-04 00:00:03 +0000 UTCIt hurt like hell, but not as bad as the last time. I forced myself to start eating more of the food in the room, giving myself a break to try and reduce the pain. I was sure this level would be manageable, even if I didn’t like it. Slowly, the pain receded as I forced the food down. My brain finally cleared enough for me to check my new-level situation.
I had shot up to level one twenty-two, which was great and all, but I was now pretty sure I knew what the new modifier was. At every ten levels, the experienced needed for the next level was increased by a factor of ten. This just wasn’t something I could keep up with. I had found a sweet spot, at the very least, where the modifiers hurt, but they didn’t hurt enough to make me stop. I could push this a little further by adjusting all the modifiers so that I was only using the ones with the largest multiplier, but it still wouldn’t be enough to push me that far beyond where I was.
What I really needed was base dungeons that were harder. I did have access to the Basements of Shadow still, but as I had done no fighting at all the first time I was there, or even really explored it beyond what Elody had done, I wasn’t sure if I could tackle it alone. Even with my increase in levels, she still seemed to have been far beyond me, but there was only one way to be sure. I booted up the simulator, cleared all the modifiers, and started the dungeon.
I started back on the same floor where I had felt the dungeon begin the first time. This time, I could feel all the shadows around me without any of Elody’s magic to keep them at bay. I was surrounded and the darkness was pressing in on me. It only now occurred to me I had no way to counter that issue, so without a better idea of how to handle the problem I started swinging my mallet at every shadow that felt like it was moving. I managed to catch a few, but not nearly enough, as several claws raked their way down my back.
I screamed out in pain, and my mana began to rapidly drain and my skills tried to compensate for the damage. Several more shadows used that moment to attack me from all sides. I had no chance at this fight at all. Within moments, I felt my whole body torn to pieces, and I was back at the menu screen, trying to force the horrible memory from my mind. The difference in power between myself and Elody was now more evident than ever. I wasn’t remotely able to fight anything on her level.
Steeling my mind as best I could, I moved myself onto other topics. I had attribute and skill points that needed to be assigned, and I’d unlocked a few more new things as well. I had sub-attributes for heat and slashing resistances and one under disease for something called withering poison. I’d also gained a sub-attribute for generalized visual: night vision. Crossing level one hundred had done nothing to further increase my attribute caps, so I instead maxed out night vision and split the rest across my resistances.
Skills were an entirely different matter. Despite the constant cycling of my core, none of my mana orbs had ranked up, so I was still stuck with what I had there. Considering what had just happened, it was probably time for me to stop ignoring my elemental orb. I unlocked fundamental forces and moved it up to twenty-five ranks. That unlocked two tier-two mana skills, and they were different than anything I had seen so far.
I had a feeling that most people choose elemental mixture so as not to limit themselves. The good news for me is that I was not most people. I wasn’t nearly so limited in what I could do with mana orbs. I quickly picked elemental focus and looked at my options.
So, it was a classical element situation. I was reasonably sure I could work with this, with one slight problem. I had no idea what aether could be. It had long ago been removed as any real scientific concept on Earth. I understand the other four weren’t exactly elements either, but guessing what they represented was easy enough. Looking at what aether could be through the scope of what was missing could have an answer, but that also had a ton of options.
Where did electrical energy fall in these elements? Magnetism? Then, there were even more concepts I could pigeonhole into a classical element list ranging from nuclear energy to antimatter reactions. Delaying this wouldn’t help anything either, as even if there was someone who could answer my questions anywhere, I certainly didn’t have access to them.
I had started this with the intention of wanting access to some sort of light magic, so after debating between air, fire, and aether, I selected fire. I then moved on to the second orb and repeated the process, this time choosing aether. Strangely, neither of these had any other lines connecting from them to anything else. As of now, it looked like tier one was their max. I’d have to ask Elicec about that, as there had to be something I was missing.
Not knowing what else to spend skill points on at the moment, I finally decided to max out my speed reading as well, and interestingly, with the four bonus ranks I had gained in it, I was allowed to go above twenty-five up to twenty-nine.
With nothing else I could do productive at the moment, other than sleep, and I didn’t consider that productive enough at the moment, I decided to put my new reading ranks to the test. Once I returned to Earth, I had no idea if I’d ever be in a place like this again, and there were a few things I still wanted to read up on while I still could.
As soon as I read the first ten books in under an hour I made another decision to max out mental training as well. I may as well stretch my brain in every way I can. My first focus was on the concepts of elements and how they had been defined here. Somehow, they had mixed a classical understanding with a somewhat modern understanding. They know of many other forces that existed but defined them as traits of the main four, and anything they couldn’t agree on a placement for ended up under aether. Things like electricity all fell under air as it was considered tied to lightning. Magnetism fell under earth due to the naturally magnetic rocks. What I was pretty sure was a description of an antimatter/matter reaction fell under aether.
What I didn’t understand was why the System had gone along with this. Considering its interactions with me, it certainly knew better. Did it, though? I knew better, and it was interacting with me. Was it possible I was the only source it currently had on these new ideas? Did that mean it was currently testing if the things I knew were actually truths or just nonsense my own world believed? Had I been assuming the System had more knowledge than it did?
That line of thought had the potential to be a giant problem. If I was just a lab rat in a new series of experiments for an unfeeling multiversal-level artificial intelligence, there was no way I could assume I was actually in any way safe during these. It may not care at all about the outcome, so much as it sees there is an outcome.
A new and even more terrifying question occurred to me. Was this just Roko's basilisk come to life? This didn’t seem exactly like I would expect a lifetime of torture to be, but it was also possible I wasn’t the target, and this was just what happened to some people when the integration occurred, but no, the brothers seemed to disprove that idea. They weren’t tortured, though their family was, and Mel seemed to believe that their chance meeting with me was the only reason they were still alive.
This thought experiment was going to get me nowhere, much like the original one itself; it was just something that ultimately didn’t matter. It was either true or it wasn’t, and no amount of existential dread affected that in any way, so it was best to operate as though this was all what it seemed on the surface. I was reminded of the similar thoughts I had about my own sanity when this all started. Was this just a recurring thought that would find a new way to worm itself into my brain?
