Chapter 62: Help From Unexpected Sources (Patreon)

“Hah!” shouted Errol. “Now he’s going to get it! You don’t trick the balls, idiot! It makes them angry!”

“This is your chance, Asthea!” said Arsen. “They’ll knock him out and then you just need to last long enough to overtake his score.”

Asthea was panting, cuts on her legs and arms dripping blood from where the glass cannons had skimmed by. Her hair was drooping, sopping wet, as if she’d just spent an hour in a sauna. “He’s ten levels ahead! I don’t know if I can last long enough to catch up.”

Arsen wiped a streak of blood from his chin and grinned with his two missing teeth. “Start now while the balls are distracted. They won’t care about you while they pummel him to death!”

Asthea gulped but nodded. Taking a deep breath, she started jumping again.

Logan took this in with half his attention. He was too busy jumping, ducking, leaping—anything he could do to avoid the cannons. His agility had increased to a massive degree, allowing him to weave around the platforms quicker than when he’d started this trial, but there were only so many times he could duck before—

Fuuuuuuck.

The rabid swordfish ball had punctured his side, the spike going all the way out and sticking out of his back. The cannon backed up and pulled the spike out with a scissoring motion, slicing clean through his side and creating a jagged, gaping wound, with a flap of skin hanging out. If that thing had been five inches closer to the middle of his chest, he would have been on death’s door.

Stabbing pain shuddered through his body, his side feeling numb. It hurt—boy, did it ever—but somehow, he could tell it wasn’t as bad as it would have been before the integration. Was [Idiot’s Paradox] finally paying dividends?

Logan looked up from his injury only to be encountered with a barreling cannon. One of the jack-o'-lantern glass balls had taken advantage of his distraction. It sliced his other side, tearing the waistband of his kitten-patterned swim trunks and scoring deep lacerations into his hip like shrapnel.

Errol grinned toothily as he jumped past the platform next to Logan’s, his eyes glinting in satisfaction. “That’s what cheaters get.”

They thought that was the end of Logan.

The thing was, Logan had just gone through hell in the flying snake massacre. Those things had taken out chunks of flesh, injected him with their venom, and had come back for more. Since Logan had received [Regenerate], he recovered from injuries much quicker. Combine that with his [Idiot’s Paradox] pain reduction skill, and he could push through injuries that would have put most people down for the count.

Logan grinned savagely.

And while the cannons had been attacking, his Karma pool had been replenishing.

502/510.

504/510.

508/510.

510/510.

It was time to start again. Logan leaped over one of the charging glass cannons, his feet skidding on the next platform, the cleats giving him a solid grip, and then redeployed [Mimicry Armour]. This time, urgency and the desire to avoid getting hit made him faster. He managed to reform the armour in half the time, grabbing sand, forming the chest plate, leaping to the next platform, ducking, weaving.

He was going so fast the cannons couldn’t target him, his high agility making them let out frustrated screeches and crackles.

With one last sigh of relief, Logan reformed the faceplate and became invisible again.

Errol spluttered. “He disappeared again! Not possible! How is he still standing and not a bloody mess?” And then his eyes widened. Logan had become invisible to the cannons, which meant the balls were once again after the others, and Errol was their first target.

He bellowed in panic and leaped to the next platform like a flailing ballerina, blood spraying in a torrent as the swordfish cannon ran a spike down his back and sliced through his armour.

Shaking off the injury, he jumped on the balls of his feet, the platform swaying underneath his weight. As he scanned the room, his scowl was ferocious. “The Silverdagger Clan aren’t weaklings, balls of System-spawn! It’ll take more than that to knock me down for the count!”

He’d just made a mistake.

If Logan knew anything, it was to watch what you said about the System. It was always listening, always watching.

The jack-o'-lantern balls took his words as a challenge, crackling and grinding as they circled around in a boomerang loop and went directly for him once again.

Errol cursed and spat a wad of saliva over the platform before hopping to the next. It was the size of a dinner plate. His arms windmilled as he tried to balance himself, but one of his arms hung limply, dislocated, making him wobble on uneven footing.

He was going to fall off!

Arsen jumped past him, his face grey with worry. “Go, man, go! They’re targeting you!”

Errol let out an unhinged laugh. “You know me. Just taking a rest, a rest on a plate! A plate that wouldn’t hold a tankard of ale!”

“It’s no time for jests!” Asthea said as she jumped past. “Focus!”

Errol gave her a smile that was more like a grimace as he jumped to the next platform. This one was the size of a small round coffee table. “They’ll not get me! Not before the—”

He broke off, his eyes widening as the swordfish cannon came at him like a freight train. Its shiny spikes shone with diamond edges, so sharp they might as well be knives. Wobbling on the small platform, he gave up on keeping his balance in favor of trying to shield his chest by holding his dislocated shoulder with his other hand.

The spike went right through it.

Errol screamed as the swordfish cannon sliced off three fingers, the appendages going flying, one landing on a different platform with a slick plop.

Yuck. Errol could really use something like [Regenerate] right now.

But the cannon wasn’t done. After slicing through Errol’s fingers, it withdrew with a squeak of glee and jumped as if it had been flung by a slingshot, bouncing against the wall with a screeching metal against metal sound, getting ever more speed as it returned.

It sounded like a banshee! Going so fast it might as well be a bullet, it smacked into Errol spike first, hitting his torso like a battering ram with a sick, slick sound.

Logan grimaced as he jumped past. The spike had gone all the way through the guard’s chest and out his back.

“Errol!” Asthea said in protest and then whimpered as the cannon dug itself free of his chest with a slick sound, blood dripping from its long spikes and drizzling to the floor.

Errol looked down at his chest in disbelief and then sunk to his knees, his face deathly pale. “I’m sorry, Asthea,” he said in a quiet voice. “I wanted to give you a good showing. Now—” he coughed. “N-now you’ll j-just have to deal with the w-weakling.” With a last frantic look around, as if he were searching for Logan, his eyes rolled up in his head and he fell off the platform and onto the ground with a thud.

Logan paused on his platform and peered over the edge. Errol had landed face-first, a pool of blood soaking the floor around him. One of the jack-o'-lantern balls dipped down and hovered around him with grinding sounds, excited, jumping up and down in the air before deflating and zooming off looking for another target.

There was only one reason it would have left.

Errol was motionless, not even a twitch. And not twenty feet away, Thorin’s body lay face-up, his lips pale and lifeless.

They were both dead.

Logan swallowed hard, a sour tang in his mouth. Despite their taunts, he didn’t like to see it. It was a let down and it felt too easy. He’d wanted to win, but he’d much rather do it by outperforming and beating them with pure agility and tactics.

Now, Asthea and Arsen were the only ones left. There was an opportunity here. He never would have thought this if their death were permanent, but they’d come back. They’d get to take part in the army trial just like everyone else. Logan could think of it as a System time out.

Hopefully they’d come back with no memory of their painful death.

But Logan could do this.

He could win.

Focusing intently on each platform, he mapped out his path well in advance as if he were tracing a line on a maze. This time, he’d have a plan and squeeze out every second to his advantage. His heart fluttering with resolve, he jumped to the next platform, then the next, darting from one to the other as if his feet were on fire.

Ding!

[You have earned one Agility point!]

[You have earned one Agility point!]

[Trial Update:

Logan: 22 Agility

Asthea: 12 Agility

Errol: 9 Agility

Arsen: 8 Agility

Thorin: 2 Agility]

“No!” Asthea screamed as one of the glass cannons barrelled towards her. She ducked just in time, strands of hair catching in the jagged glass as it flew past. “He’s ten points ahead of me,” she mumbled to herself, glancing from the flying cannons to the ground down below, her expression torn. Rubbing her eyes and then wincing as the movement jarred a shoulder injury, she released a deep sigh.  “I’m sorry, Arsen. I tried. I wanted to win, I wanted to win so bad.”

Her mouth in a hard line of resignation, she stepped over the edge of the platform and jumped to the ground.

Asthea had given up.

Arsen spat another wad of blood and scowled. “I can’t see you, little man, but I know you can hear me. You’ve just ruined our princess’ trial of awakening. This was her time to shine. You’ll not always be invisible. You’ll get what’s coming to you.” He stepped over the edge of his platform and joined Asthea.

Logan glanced down at the floor on his way past. Arsen had a consoling hand wrapped around Asthea’s shoulder and he was helping her limp over to the wall. They grimaced at Thorin’s and Errol’s bodies as they strode past. “You did your best,” he said to her in an undertone. “We couldn’t account for this. It’s not your fault.”

Logan winced. There was no other way this could have gone. Logan had needed to win, but he suspected that after he finished the trial, he might have to watch his back. Arsen had seemed the most reasonable of the guards, but that was out the window now. Still, that was a worry for later. For now, Logan was kicking ass.

Ding!

[You have earned one Agility point!]

[You have earned one Agility point!]

[…]

[You have earned one Agility point!]

[Trial Update:

Logan: 27 Agility

Asthea: 12 Agility

Errol: 9 Agility

Arsen: 8 Agility

Thorin: 2 Agility]

The cannons were flying around aimlessly, letting out defeated crackling whimpers as they searched in vain. They must be intelligent enough to know that there was still a participant in the trial, but they couldn’t track him. Logan was invisible.

His wounds underneath his armour felt tender, each jump and stretching movement not helping, but regardless, he could tell that [Regenerate] was already at work. Logan could continue this for as long as he wanted; deplete his armour, take a beating while his Karma pool replenished, and then repeat the same process all over again.

Ding!

[You have earned one Agility point!]

[…]

[You have earned one Agility point!]

[Trial Update:

Logan: 30 Agility

Asthea: 12 Agility

Errol: 9 Agility

Arsen: 8 Agility

Thorin: 2 Agility]

There was one distinct problem.

Fatigue.

Logan could continue this indefinitely, but he couldn’t drink water through his face-mask, and once he dissolved his armour, he couldn’t pause to take a drink or risk being pummelled by the cannons. His legs were starting to feel like stretched noodles, and underneath his suit, he was sweating like someone in 150-degree heat. Eventually, he would need to stop, or risk being so worn down that he’d have no energy left for the endurance trial.

And then, as if someone were looking out for him, the solution came.

But it wasn’t someone. It was Ernie.

Ding!

[You’ve been granted the title, Audacious Corpse, for being the only person in your world to bond with an undead companion and live to tell the tale. This title will make the undead view you as one of their own. They will not attack you on sight and they will welcome you into their ranks.]

And it didn’t stop there. Logan came to a stop on a platform, and stood there motionless, gaping underneath his face-mask.

[You have been granted the skill, Undead Stamina! This rare skill latches onto your endurance attribute and boosts it by 50%. You can level up this skill by truly becoming a member of the undead—if you dare.]

[You have been granted the skill, Liche Creation! This rare skill allows you to infect and seed your undead essence into….#!@!]

[#!Error!#]

[User is not undead!]

[Recalculating…]

[…]

[Recalculating…]

[…]

[New skill created!]

[You have been granted the skill, Liche Siphon! This rare skill allows you to siphon away an enemy’s Karma. This skill is insidious, and the enemy will not be aware of the siphoning until Karma pool depletion is in effect.]

The last Ding! faded, but Logan stood there, stunned. He couldn’t believe it.

Ernie. Ernie was alive. Logan barked out a laugh of relief, his heart feeling light. He’d hoped, he’d so hoped that he’d made it out alive, but there had been a trickling dread that even Ernie couldn’t survive something like the Queen Serpent. Instead, Ernie had…

Ernie had become an undead murderous octopus.

Logan’s smile faded as he began to worry about what that meant. The undead minions had seemed mindless, only concerned with infecting everyone around them. The undead sturgeon had been slightly more intelligent, displaying amusement and excitement when it had viewed its own reflection, but what did that mean for Ernie?

There was one hope. Ernie was an octopus, and octopuses didn’t talk. He’d managed to evolve, becoming sapient through the System. Could a Liche octopus maintain its sense of self? Logan felt his heart sinking at another possibility. Had Ernie become part of the minion army, subservient to the queen and not able to think independently? That possibility meant something unpleasant, something that would break his heart.

This change was even more of an incentive to grow strong so he could challenge the serpent. If he could save Ernie through some kind of ‘kill the head vampire to turn the minion back into a human’ thing, Logan would do it. That had never worked in the zombie movies—only serums could save a zombie, but Logan refused to believe there wasn’t a solution. Ernie had sacrificed himself to save Logan and he’d do whatever he could to return the favor.

Not only that, but these new skills were as if Ernie had been looking down on him, saw him struggling, and said, here, Logan, this will help you get strong, yes yes yes.

Logan smiled.

[Undead Stamina] would solve his fatigue problem and although [Liche Siphon] made him slightly uncomfortable, if he used it in a fight against an enemy, it could be a huge life saver, allowing him an extra boost of Karma to continue deploying [Life Cycle Master] and [Mimicry Armour]. In fact, if he figured out how to continue the siphoning, he could eventually use it as a weapon in itself—draining someone’s Karma pool until they choked to death.

For now, Logan refrained from experimenting on Asthea and Arsen. If he screwed up and they ended up detecting it, he wouldn’t just have a pissed off group, he’d have enemies.

Logan took a deep breath. [Undead Stamina] must be a passive skill, since he already felt energized as if he’d chugged down ten bottles of Red Bull. His legs felt refreshed, sturdy, agile—just what he needed to continue.

Logan got to work.

***

Ding!

[You have earned one Agility point!]

[You have earned one Agility point!]

[…]

[You have earned one Agility point!]

[Trial Update:

Logan: 40 Agility

Asthea: 12 Agility

Errol: 9 Agility

Arsen: 8 Agility

Thorin: 2 Agility]

With a sigh of satisfaction, Logan took in the final trial update and then decided to call it. He’d increased his agility attribute more than he’d ever thought possible; at this point, he was littered with cuts and soaked with blood. Even with [Undead Stamina], he’d managed to deplete his endurance once again, and his legs were wet noodles. It was time for a break.

Logan stepped over the edge of the platform and jumped to the floor, his boots making thuds as he landed.

Ding!

[You have completed the agility trial! As the winner of this section of the trial, you will receive an extra reward. The reward will depend upon your results relative to the other members of your party.]

[Calculating rewards…]

[….]

[…]

[Rewards calculated!]

[As the weakest person in the agility trial, you have defied the odds. Well done, Idiot! You have been granted double the amount of agility achieved in the agility trial—40 bonus agility attribute points.]

[In addition, you have been granted a boon.]

[Agility Ring of Pure Grit. B Grade. When worn, this ring will grant the wielder double agility. The Agility Ring of Pure Grit is part of an attribute set. Upon ownership of all five rings, the rings will dissolve into your skin and become part of your body. Thereafter, the doubling power will turn into tripling power.]

As he expected, it was the same reward. That would have been hella inconvenient if the System had decided that he’d perform too well and had awarded him with something else. He needed to complete the set.

As soon as the announcement faded, Logan put on the ring and then felt a surge of adrenaline as his body expanded. Just like with the strength trial, such a large increase to one attribute all at once was a trip. He felt like dancing, leaping, summersaulting, hanging from the ceiling. Logan could do it all. As the feeling faded, his excitement only surged.

For the first time in a long time, Logan pulled up his full stat sheet:

Name: Logan Hart [Hidden Name: Idiot]

Rank: 501 out of 6,059,989,318

Level: 34

Class: None

Grade: F3

Species: Human

Skills:

·       Idiot’s Paradox Lv. 27

·       Idiot’s Inspect Lv. 4

·       Deepwater Explorer Lv. 3

·       Life Cycle Master*

·       Regenerate Lv. 4

·       Mimicry Armour Lv. 2

·       Universal Language

·       Undead Stamina

·       Liche Siphon Lv. 1

Titles:

·       Eager Beaver

·       Mass Murderer

·       Audacious Corpse

XP Progress: 32,000/68,000

Karma: 510/510

Intelligence: 85

Constitution: 41

Strength: 86 x 2 = 172 (Pure Grit Ring)

Agility: 116 x 2 = 232 (Pure Grit Ring)

Dexterity: 21

Endurance: 40 + 50% = 60

Perception: 20

Wisdom: 80

Luck: 50

Free Attribute Points: 0

KarmaCoin: 2600

Holy. F’ing. Shit. He’d broken into the 500th rank. 500! Logan was stronger than billions of people; only 500 people were stronger than him in the whole freaking world.

He now had too many skills to count; his attributes were nuts, and he’d even managed to increase his luck attribute. There were so many increases it was difficult to contemplate.

Someone cleared their throat.

Asthea and Arsen were staring at him.

Logan rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “Heeeey.”