Nenandil sat next to the cage where the fish-rmaids held Eathelin; It's been a month since Arista was struck down. The rmaid mother was depressed and inconsolable the entire ti.
"She's alive and well," she half-lied; "In no ti you'll see. Arista will soon co here to take us ho."
That Arista was alive was a given, the fairy hadn't been unsummoned yet. But regarding her health, she was probably in the negative HP for the last month. {Cyst Hibernation} protected her life but was ridiculously slow to repair the damage; Even for soone almost immortal like the [Moon-Bound Matriarch].
"I wish I knew where do you take this unwavering faith, Lady Nenandil. She's just a child," Eathelin replied with a trembling voice.
During the month they've been captives of the fish-rmaid tribe, Nenandil was forced to feed the tribe in exchange for keeping Eathelin alive. The eting with Kraken's herald was terrible. The squid was even more cantankerous than the sea serpent.
"Ah, the fairy {Princess} deigns to visit us," the squid demigoddess' herald whistled. "Welco, Lady Nenandil. We are grievously offended by your injust favor of my brother's army."
Nenandil was wary of the contralto-voiced squid. "My reasons are my own, Kraken," the fairy shot back with a polite but firm tone. "Differently from you, nobody on the other side attempted to push ."
"Ah, but in war and love, all is fair. Now, you brought us a fine gift," the herald extended a tentacle toward Arista's mother.
Eathelin was viciously beaten by the fish-rmaids after they captured her. daya was clearly jealous of the huntress' prowess and the fear Eathelin instilled in the fish-rmaids. She wanted to show the young and impressionable girls that the champion of the other side could bleed. And bleed Eathelin did.
"State your terms, Kraken," Nenandil said, the water temperature dropping sharply around her just from her mood.
"We want the sa thing you gave them. Food. Fill my rmaid's bellies and we will keep this wench alive."
"It's a deal. But for every drop of blood Eathelin sheds in your care, I'll withhold a week's al."
"She won't be hard. In fact, it is the opposite. Eathelin is such a fine breeding stock, it will do no good to wound her. daya! Send her to the cages."
I woke up in a deep trench of the ocean. The water pressure was terrible and everywhere around was pitch-black darkness. I healed from the grievous wound the harpoon caused. I think the fish-rmaids tossed my cyst down from the reef shelf edge when they found out they couldn't damage .
I closed my eyes and sensed. Nenandil was alive and to the south. I could feel my old habits kicking in. Pushing Arista's wavering heart aside and replacing it with Apricot's drive and Lakerta's determination. But my impulse was to reject them. I felt that wasn't . Maybe soone I was before, but not Arista.
While I struggled, my movents drew sothing's attention. My {Detect Monster} Perk was giving off a strong signal. So pelagic monstrosity was coming.
I saw the glow of the creature's lures and also the faint heat generated by its body. A gigantic anglerfish with three mouths was coming to see what'd stirred the calm of the depths.
Kerberos-Anglerfish
Level 59 male monstrosity
Strength ~40
Dexterity - 20
Endurance ~80
HP ~17,200,000
WARNING: This creature is a rank above yours. It deals increased damage and takes less damage from your attacks.
WARNING: This creature is huge. It has greatly increased HP and damage.
I froze in terror. It had three heads but they were welded to each other like so Siase twin fish from hell. Each had the sa dangling organ in front of it, and they pulsed with soothing hypnotic patterns. The longest teeth could impale through my palm, go all the way through my arm, and pierce my heart even if it ca from the right side. The light of its bioluminescent esca put in a trance. It was as if my body wanted to look at the lights to ignore the horrendous toothy maws.
The freaking bastard was fucking with my mind. Its milky eyes were trained on . It clearly knew where I was and dinner was served. It just paused to decide with which mouth to bite my tail off and then chomp on the rest.
As I thought about fleeing, the lights pulsed in a fast-paced rhythm that made forget everything. They were coming and I wanted to touch them. So pretty. So warm. Like my mother's embrace.
That did it. The pain of the harpoon and knowing that mom was being held prisoner by the fish-rmaids broke the trance. I withdrew and looked away from the lights but it was too late.
Kerberos-Anglerfish bit you for 53,888 HP of damage. Mana shield burned 17,962 MP. (Base 352 x4 size x1.5 rank x1.8 Strength x2.1 Skill x2 Charge x3 critical x2 Bite Specialization x1.5 vulnerability)
You are staggered. All reactions lowered by 50%.
You are bleeding (...)
Fuck! {Second Wind}! The poor [Warrior]'s healing. At least it would staunch the bleed.
You healed 21,215 HP.
I shifted into {Water Elental} form and used {Jet} to move around the fish. My heart wanted to swim out of my throat and a water elental didn't even have one. It was a big and ugly monster.
Big, ugly, and my ticket to level-up-land. I thought several tis of coming out to hunt, but mom wouldn't take her eyes off of . I knew she was suspicious of ever since the ambush and she deserved to know the truth. After this.
The raging adrenalin allowed to ignore the trance. Or it didn't work once one's mind was shielded. That wouldn't happen if I had my Attributes. Damn, I didn't want power at the endga if I would suck balls and suffer all the way there. What did Loki want? To have wallow in pain for two dozen lives?
I vowed to tell mom all my secrets and beca flesh again. I shifted my hands to a jaguar's paws and also my tail into a real dolphin's. I was capitalizing on what happened when I assud Duchess Nagini's form. If half my body was from animal forms, I gained twelve points in all physical Attributes from {Strengthened Animal Shapes III}. Why the fuck didn't I think of that before?
I could keep this indefinitely. My tail was exactly the sa as a dolphin's lower body. I wish I'd thought about that earlier. I entered stealth mode and waited.
The anglerfish was bobbing around, using its three lanterns as searchlights as it looked for . Good luck finding now that you couldn't hypnotize . If there was one thing I was good at was skulking around. It turned its back on , casting a long shadow. Just what I needed.
rmaids fought in 3-D. You had to watch out for attacks from above and below as well as the sides, but those vectors were open for attack too. {Flash Step} placed behind the fish. I lashed with both claws at the sa ti.
You clawed Kerberos-Anglerfish for 25,475 HP of damage. (Base 32 x1.86 Strength x4 Skill x3,76 Backstab x1,24 giant-fighting x3 Mana Strike x2 Blood Sacrifice x2 Flash Step x4 Death Blow x1.5 Favored Slayer x0,75 steel scales x0.85 Tough Scales (quartered) x0.5 Rank)
Kerberos-Anglerfish is bleeding (...)
Kerberos-Anglerfish is afflicted with {Stunning Bleed} for 3 seconds.
{Vorpal Claws} severed a fin.
Kerberos-Anglerfish's tail is mangled.
You clawed Kerberos-Anglerfish for(...)
(...)
I activated {Frenzied Barrage} and carved the flesh off of the fish's back. {Stunning Bleed} couldn't put him in stun-lock. The fish staggered between one stun and the next as the active interval widened. By the ti diminishing returns made him resistant to stuns, he was already bleeding to death and without any functional fins. It was just a floating chunk of at with too many teeth. Too. Many. Teeth.
I broke a claw. It just ca loose as I raked the fish's fins off. It hurt. A lot. But I kept going.
My arms burned. My claws broke several tis. My body wasn't adequate for lee combat. I had several bubbles and welts in my skin from over-exerting. The fish was immobile and I let my self-inflicted wounds regenerate.
I condensed a gigantic overcharged Force Javelin and thrust it at its exposed spine at the cost of my entire MP pool. The kill notification ca along with a rush of water to fill the space left by the body that went into the item box, which bruised even further.
You killed Level 59 Kerberos-Anglerfish. You gained 1 billion Exp. (Base 52.215 x 64 Fast-Learner, x3.05 Exp Boost x 7,59 Favored Enemy x 3,05 Monster Exp Boost x2.25 Size x2 Class Rarity)
That was more than enough for a rank-up. I noticed the Base Exp had increased by fifty percent. Was it an effect of the monster's rank?
I was inside a cloud of blood and the thunderclap of the water rushing in wasn't quiet. In these depths, soone hungry would surely co to check. I had to get away from here. I shifted into my water elental form and used {Jet} to propel back to the reef above. Several monsters appeared at the edge of my perception, proving that I was right in fleeing the combat scene.
The reef was... ravaged. Broken pieces of coral littered the sandbed, the kelp farms were ruined. The fish-rmaids captured Nenandil and mom, probably to use my mother as leverage to force the fairy to cough up food. The sa tragedy would've happened on the other side if I allowed unrestricted access to the food.
It was a huge and catastrophic confirmation bias but one that I needed to cling to. I found the skeleton of so rmaids, the bones in the process of being picked clean by a feeding frenzy of scavengers. A swarm of octopi and crabs crawled over the bones of my forr tribe sisters. The caudal fin bone structure showed they were dolphin-rmaids.
A carpet of zombie worms was burrowing into the bones, feeding off of the marrow and leaving the flesh for the sea scavengers. Back on Earth, "zombie" was just a nickna, but here they were true undead. Thousand of small zombie worms that can burrow through bone. Living or dead, they don't care. They can't swim, only crawl on the ocean floor and hide themselves under the sand. And they only appear when there are lots of dead bodies unattended. Like now. Worse, they ate the souls of the dead too. There wasn't a single rmaid ghost, a sign that the fight happened at least several days ago.
I felt the bile rising. I was disgusted, nauseated. I waved a hand and fired a barrage of normal {Force Dart} at the octopi and crabs. They died, giving minuscule amounts of Exp. Then I turned on my Manastorm and the zombie worms burst into small clouds of necrotic flesh. I moved the rmaid bodies to the item box remotely and kept searching.
As I approached the sunken ship, I sensed sentients. A few hundred. I entered stealth and skulked toward the ship where the Herald should be. I sensed no [Demigod] nearby. After I reached the ship, I was certain. Leviathan had abandoned us. Or he was probably captured.
The dolphin-rmaids were crying and weeping their losses. By the numbers here, we were missing more than a thousand rmaids. These were either killed, captured, or had fled the reef. Upon close inspection, they were all wounded. Without the farms and the support of a larger group, their days were numbered.
I felt ashad of my cowardice. Rosewise would've jumped in the middle of the group and healed the rmaids and dealt with the consequences later. I was afraid of what would happen. Would they bla for what happened?
I put on Alloralla's living silk armored bodysuit. I couldn't go around naked and the disguise kit only gave nominal protection. But first, I needed to rank up.
You reached dolphin-rmaid level 20.
You gained 4 Perks.
You have 7 unassigned Perk choices.
You gained 50 Skill Points
You reached Wanderer level 20.
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You gained 3 to All Attributes.
You gained 138 Skill Points.
Attributes above the cap. Withholding Points. 24/100 Points withheld.
The Skill points went to maximize the regeneration and to raise {T'ai chi ch'üan} to Grandmaster.
You gained the Perk: Grandmaster T'ai chi ch'üan (unique): You are sensitive to energy flows and can sense an attack a fraction of a second before it happens. If you win a contested Willpower test, you beco aware of the attack and negate surprise strike bonuses. Increase all Attributes by 2. This supersedes the Master bonus.
It went from nine on physical to twenty everywhere. But now it was ti for a rank-up. But all I got was a red ssage.
WARNING: You have one open Path choice and two Professions. If you rank up now, all unused Experience will be divided by 1,000. Please select Path and Professions before moving onward.
Holy nerfing, Batman! I would lose A Whole Freaking Lot ™ of Exp. One way or the other. Why was that? No more cheesing the ranks? Like staying in a lower rank to farm exp and then level up explosively? Damn. Another way they walled off. Well, let's get us so Professions then. And a spellcasting Class. I'm not fit for physical combat. No, sir.
You beca a [Diplomat]. Diplomats gain 1 HP and 1 MP per level.
You beca a [Musician]. Musicians gain 1 MP and 1 SP per level.
You reached Diplomat level 20. You gained 10 points of proficiency. Your proficiency cap was raised by 20. [85/105].
You reached Musician level 20. You gained 10 points of proficiency. Your proficiency cap was raised by 20. [85/105].
I won't bother with these extra paths. They don't give anything permanent now, and I doubt they have anything that will change the ga. Another reason was that I was gaining an x2 Exp multiplier because my Class was rated as common for having no perks. That bonus alone ant I would be a level above than without. It was a big difference especially because it made ranking up easier.
So I decided to not give in and select another path.
WARNING: You have one open Path choice. If you rank up now, all unused Experience will be divided by 1,000. Please select your second Path before moving onward.
Maybe, just maybe, the penalty won't apply if I pick a second path. In the long run, a billion Exp is nothing. There's always a bigger fish.
You ranked up. Your leftover Exp was divided by 1,000. You have 1.44 million Exp.
I opened the window to allocate my Exp and would've fallen backward if I wasn't floating in the water. They LOWERED the Exp table. And now that I checked, it happened across the board.
Spoiler
The Exp between the levels 1 and 20 of each rank still doubles every level. This is the Exp table for both Class and Species levels. The person's actual level will be the sum of both. This "total" level was usually an odd number because common wisdom said to always keep the species level one behind the Class.
RankLevelBeforeAfter0110010002052.4 million52.4 million121100,00025,00014052.4 billion13 billion241100 million4 million26052.4 trillion2 trillion361100 billion550 million38052.4 quadrillion288 trillion481100 trillion70 billion410052.4 quintillion36.7 quadrillion
Combining the lowered Exp table and the increased base Exp from the kills, it was the equivalent of giving people a 5,000 Exp multiplier at the upper ranks. it ant more chances at ranking up and higher-leveled people everywhere. Now it made sense to remove the Exp before ranking up. With the lowered Exp requirents, people would blaze through the levels if it wasn't divided. And I think it divides even further at higher ranks.
That was fantastic.
Now that I ranked up, my Attribute caps increased from three to twenty-four. I finally had so room to grow. But I needed my new Species and Class to do so.
Congratulations! You took the next step in your Path.
Your Class ranked-up into a Vagabond...
WARNING: This is a legacy Class. Alerting Administrators... blocked.
UPDATING ENTRIES (...)
Applying weights... Done. Final rating: {Common}.
This Class grants:
1 to All Attributes at level 0.
1 to All Attributes every third level.
1 to All Attributes at levels 10 and 20.
6 ( 3) HP per level
6 ( 3) MP per level
6 ( 2) SP per level
22 ( 3) Skill Points per level.
For my species, I had three options only. The rare-grade gray dolphin-rmaid, that had great speed and physical Attributes. I had {Jet} for speed and physical stats were useless. The very-rare dusky dolphin-rmaid, that were acrobats with a ton of Dexterity. Also black tails. Finally, an ultra-rare pale dolphin-rmaid. She had a pale gray body, almost white, with dark fins. And used magic.
Your species ranked up into a Pale Dolphin-rmaid. Due to the diminished population of your species, you are classified as {ultra-rare}. Adjusting bonuses. You gain:
1 Attribute point every level.
1 Magic every odd level.
1 Willpower, then Mind. Alternating every even level.
1 Charisma, then Endurance, Luck, Dexterity, alternating every level.
6 ( 3) HP per level
8 ( 3) MP per level
3 ( 2) SP per level
7 ( 3) Skill Points per level
1 Human Perk every 2 levels (modified by {Human Royalty}).
And apply the 1.44 M Experience. Due to the reduced Exp table, I got four levels more than I would if we were using the old progression.
You reached Vagabond level 6
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