Chapter 46: Level three

  In my previous life, I was what is known as a physical cultivator. As I grew older, I tended to reject such a label, as those who bore it were often so far beneath me that it felt akin to calling a wolf a hound pup because they are shaped the same.

  However, as someone who walked a more physical than spiritual path, I was forced to gain strength through relentless effort and continuous challenges to my body. However, this did mean that, unlike a traditional breath and spirit-based cultivator who reached a certain degree of power, I never had to face what is known as a Heavenly Tribulation.

  I don't know if you are aware of this term, but it's a whole thing with red lighting and your Soul transforming. Lots of cultivators die during it; it is also the final step a beast that cultivates must take to gain a near-human form. My horse went through such a trial but chose to remain in the form of a steed. I have often wondered why he made that decision. Perhaps The Red Hare believed it better to be a king among horses than to be a warrior among men.

  Likely, I will never know the true answer, but I have always been grateful that he made such a decision. I believe it is that gratefulness and not homesickness nor a sort of delirium as Diaochan A.I suggested that guided my hands over that first week living inside the purple Over-Surge hunting ground.

  My first priority was increasing my level, but the very next goal on my list was to rebuild the Chrome Prophet. I wish I could say that my burning desire to get the vehicle working again was simply because I wanted a mount with which to navigate Abeyance City, but it would be a lie. I had absolutely no evidence for this, and yet I was certain The Red Hare was still inside my Soul somehow.

  That might only sound moderately crazy, but the real insanity was that I was convinced that if I rebuilt the Howler Bike well enough that when I linked my Soul to it to power the vehicle, it would become a vessel for Red Hare's spirit, and that was why he had led me to Vaestro's Customs.

  I 'leveled up' as Diaochan told me it was called that first day that I had my spear back. I did so again two days later as I delved deep into the vertical maze of the hunting grounds and slaughtered everything that moved as I did so. Each level I gained came with a small increase in my physical stats and my Quintessence, along with an increase in my maximum stats for all of my attributes.

  The rush of power I felt both times that my Soul expansion gauge filled completely was rather euphoric and left both my body firmer and my stat sheet as follows.

  ?Alacrity: 67/180

  ?Durability: 63/180

  ?Cunning:30/180

  ?Acumen: 15/180

  ?Quintessence: 14/180

  Soul Expansion Gauge 119/1125 ]

  According to Diaochan, this meant I could now lift twelve hundred and forty-eight pounds from a crouch to above my head. This was roughly equivalent to a male farm yak, as demonstrated by the little video that played when I requested visual context.

  My reaction speed was also now 34 milliseconds, which was explained to me as the same reflexes as an average cat. It was nice to be getting faster, but no wonder I was still feeling sluggish. By the time of my death, I could snatch a fly by its wings out of the air with a pair of chopsticks, and I don't mean only occasionally. I could perform such a trick at any time and under any circumstances.

  Whatever the system was, it apparently couldn't make me smarter, even though it arrogantly deigned to judge my mental capacity and try to quantify it. As much as that idea continued to annoy me, I will admit I was excited about reaching level three and had pushed myself to the point of exhaustion in order to get from level two to level three as quickly as possible.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  If you can't guess why, it is because my HUD had informed me that with level three came the option to choose a new ability associated with my class. After reaching that next level, I had gone right back to Vaestro's Customs to consider my options. While I would likely have ended up choosing the Legendary Warlord class anyway, I could now see that it had been a mistake to rush into my choice.

  A mistake I did not intend to make again. Lighting system off so that patrolling drones or potential hunters didn't notice my habitation of the bike customization store. I ate my Synthnoods and sipped my lemon-flavored hydration pack in the dim light of a streamed drama on an interface pad I had found in the store and charged with my own ambient soul energy.

  As I ate, I went through the list of fifteen abilities I could choose from. Oh, excuse me, it was actually twelve abilities and three spells, but as my Quintessence was too low to use any of them, I simply ignored those options.

  The rest, however, I looked into with great gusto, having Diaochan show me examples of what each ability did, and reading their HUD descriptions carefully. I even used the city net to see what other people who had chosen the same abilities had to say about their usefulness.

  My options were

  [Legendary Tactics]

  [Iron Vanguard Assault]

  [Dominion Strike]

  [Commanding Roar]

  [Ruthless Formation]

  [Mythic Rally]

  [Tyrant's Grasp]

  [Conqueror's Aura]

  [War Banner Manifestation]

  [Legendary Foresight]

  [Sovereign's Command]

  [Warlord's Fury]

  It took the better part of two hours, but after my significant efforts to research each of them. I managed to narrow my likely choices down to only four of the options. Almost every one of the twelve options had some value to me, but as I now lacked an army, several of the more command-based options were eliminated immediately.

  After that, I considered how plausible it was that I would encounter a situation that was each remaining ability's optimal scenario. Using this theoretical likelihood, along with how long each ability took to 'cool down,' I was able to cross off several more until I was only left with.

  [Iron Vanguard Assault]: An ability that, when activated, granted me a short but intense burst of speed and acted like Qi projected armor that protected me from most harm whilst it was in effect.

  [Tyrant's Grasp]: Which allowed me to interact with a person or object in much the same manner as [Man Within Ogre] did with my spear, though with a few stipulations.

  [Warlord's Fury]: Which would build up charge each time I was struck by an enemy before I eventually unleashed it in a single devastating attack that I could either use on a single foe or dilute to impact a wide area.

  [Conqueror's Aura]: Was the last ability that I gave consideration to. It was admittedly at its best if I had allies around me, but it was still powerful enough to consider. When activated, I and up to five other people I selected would receive a temporary increase in physical stats and fill our Soul Gauges by an extra bonus amount if we killed something while it was active.

  It was a difficult decision to pick one of these four; they each had power and utility that could be extremely useful to me. Fortunately, I didn't have some time limit with which to make such a decision and spent the night at the end of that first week weighing up my options as I gathered together the parts I had salvaged for my bike.

  Fabio had yet to return, though I had spoken to him via call during my period 'roughing it' inside the hunting ground. More important than the topics we discussed for the fun of it, he was able to send me the data from Ji-Ho and Ha-Rin about the Chrome Prophet, along with an update on how things were going on their end.

  This is embarrassing to admit, but the recording both made me smile and filled me with a sense of longing. I actually missed my time living with the engineer siblings, and not just because their home had a shower.

  "You might have actually hit the jackpot on this one, Bu." Said the moving image of past Ji-Ho. "Purple Over-Surges produce Scout and Assault drones. You remember how Green Scavenger drones have Surge-Made Cybernectics, and Red's drop Surge-Made Weapons." He paused for a second and leveled an excited grin at me. "Purple drones have Surge-Made vehicle parts," Ha-Rin popped up and waved in the background of the recording.

  The pair of them went on to explain that I would need to get lucky for a drone to have compatible parts with my Chrome Prophet, but if I played the odds and hunted here consistently, I should be able to find a significant portion of the parts I'd need. I was a little irritated that the siblings knew the type of hunting ground I was in, as it meant Fabio that rich bufoon had let it slip to them. Well, they didn't know which one exactly, and hopefully, my daughter wouldn't be interrogating the pair any time soon.

  The information files attached to the recording that Diaochan could examine proved to contain a treasure trove of ways I could repair or alter the bike, and while I might need time to decide which ability to select, I was able to attack the task of getting the Prophet back in working order from several angles.

  Bro I spent so long trying to decide which ability to take. LIKE SO LONG.

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