By now I have been running for at least half an hour while I laugh like a maniac at my newfound running speed. I dart between trees, over fallen trunks, and kick off the still standing ones for added funsies. Anywhere that I'm not actively focused on whips by my vision in a blur, and the crisp afternoon spring air fills my lungs and shakes through my hair. I must be clocking at least 30 miles an hour, maybe closer to 40!
Another hundred points to Dexterity and I bet I would be street legal on the highway! Once more, a crazed laugh escapes my lips as I use a downed tree as a springboard to kick up into the air, just to see how high I can get. I hear a loud crack as I push off the foliage and look back down to see the dead trunk has almost completely been turned into sawdust from the force of my launch which only further fuels my mania. I can't get over how powerful I feel right now! Like I can do anything! Which is about the ti that reality cos crashing back down to
in the form of Ios.
'You know, it's hard to concentrate on fixing Luck when you're cackling like a madwoman and vaulting 50 feet into the air randomly. Did you forget about the landing part of getting airborne Alia?' Ios annoyed yet still concerned tone rings through my mind. She does make a good point...
"Uhm... Maybe?" I try to choke out at the peak of my jump, before gravity is so kind as to re-assert itself on my fragile human body. I begin the plumt back down to the ground with a small scream leaving my throat, my blood red hair whipping behind
in the wind. I also find that I'm heading back to the ground much faster than when I was leaving it, before instinct takes over. I lean as much as I can, trying to get my bent legs to make contact first before preemptively covering the sides of my face with my forearms and the back of my head and neck with my hands.
As soon as I see the ground reach my feet and I feel the impact beginning to travel up my legs, I bend my knees and tuck them to my chest as I throw myself horizontally to the ground with all my strength. Hopefully this bleeds off the montum enough that I don't shatter any bones. As I tumble bodily across the ground, kicking up huge bits of grass and dirt as I roll, I see a number of damage displays appear in the corner of my vision. Damnit, Ios was right, this was a stupid idea!
156 damage taken! Luck activated! Damage reduced to 1!
110 damage taken!
123 damage taken!
84 damage taken!
....
After a final roll in the dirt, I end up impacting sideways against a still standing tree's base with a dull thud, the wind firmly knocked out of my chest and my mind filled with nothing but white-hot pain. I cough up what tastes and feels like a bit of blood, shakily wiping the trail of crimson from the corner of my mouth with the back of a hand before carefully testing that all of my lower digits can still move. Good news! I'm not paralyzed! Bad news, that fucking sucked! I cautiously take a look over to my health pool and the instant pang of fear that cos from it further grounds my previous giddy attitude to a halt.
Health Pool: 1723 / 2145
"Ios... Ow. Please tell
there's sothing in the Shop for pain relief or HP recovery. I'm sorry for acting like a lunatic, I... I don't know what ca over ." I choke out between a few more wet coughs with blood and the sting of tears forming from pain and frustration. Hopefully I'm not bleeding into my lungs...
'Of course there is honey, here.'
You have purchased [Blood Replacent Pill (Mid Earth Rank)] x 5 for 15 Points!
You have purchased [Body Healing Pill (Mid Earth Rank)] x5 for 25 Points!
Available Shop Points: 895
'Take the Body Healing pill first, and then the Blood Replacent one after a minute or two. Store the rest of them in your pouch, I think I saw that it had different pockets so make sure to split them up and keep track of them. If you need to be healed in an ergency, you'll need to pick the right one!~
Also, I think I know what happened. And this isn't
telling you how you're feeling Aims, this is an observation that I made based on your hormones and brain chemicals. I think, with all the trauma, info, and revelations that we had to push through starting out back in the clearing, that once you saw a chance to cut loose you took it. Coupled with the fact that you are, without a doubt, stronger and faster than any human alive back on Earth, I think you went on a classic power trip.
Honestly, I should have warned you to take it easy. This is as much my fault as it is yours, so don't beat yourself up too much. You're in a new world, with unfathomable and still growing powers and abilities. It's entirely natural that your first chance to take yourself for a test drive, you'd go buck wild. It's a good thing it ended like this though; I think it will be a good lesson to both of us going forward to be careful about testing unknown abilities and boundaries.' She finishes her explanation, and I have to agree with her assessnt.
That was wildly out of pocket for , I've never been the type that just... takes life by the horns. I wonder if it's like she said,
wanting to take this bad ass new body for a test drive, on top of my emotions being ssed with by all these skills and titles. I'm going to have to do so deep, introspective thinking when we get to safety it seems. I take the pills like Ios said to and feel almost completely back to normal after a few minutes. Checking my health again leads
to confirm the theory, its topped back up to 2145. Take that la ass pharmaceutical companies back ho, these drugs work!
A small upside to this rude awakening is that with all of my jumping and dashing against the trees and this disastrous landing, a new skill popped up.
You have gained the Passive Skill [Parkour!]: You are an unorthodox, but sotis effective master of jumps, vaults, and sorsaults! Your balance, grip, and impact reduction are greatly increased when you are performing any kind of non-standard dexterity-based activities. Does not overlap with any crafting skills. Has a chance to fail if stamina gets too low.
Well, that would have been handy 5 minutes ago! Sighing to myself, I stand up and inspect the parts of my body that aren't covered by the uber-not-supposed-to-have battle dress. It looks like the pills have already done their work, because while there are so dried blood spots on my legs and forearms, no visible wounds remain anywhere. Speaking of the dress, it's beco painfully apparent that while it would block attacks and things like that from impacting , the physics behind those impacts will still transfer. Doesn't matter if I can survive getting smacked on the ribs with a club or sothing if it sends
flying into a wall and turns
into paste. I shed a tear for my fleeting dream of invulnerability.
I stretch a few tis to release quite a number of loud, satisfying pops from my joints before taking stock around . Thankfully, nothing living has been drawn to my fast and hard reacquaintance with the ground it seems. I hop between a few trunks of still standing trees, trying to get as close to the tops of the leafless branches as I can safely to re orient myself. As soon as I crest the canopy on a shaky branch that seems only just sturdy enough to hold , I turn my head left to right until I find the big fuck off mountains that I'm heading toward.
"Ios, how could we even see these mountains from back in the clearing? You said they were 100 miles away at that ti right? Wouldn't they be blocked by the curvature of the planet?"
'Oh right, we haven't really gone over the basics of this world too much yet. This world is flat, because it was designed that way by its Immortal creators, so while yes the mountains were far away, they were still large enough to see provided you had a clear line of sight.' She responds back like she is discussing an interesting news article. What the hell Ios?!
"Care to elaborate on that a bit more? That really raises more questions than answers hun." I fire back with a touch of annoyance this ti. I also notice that ever since I helped her through her freak out, I've been more comfortable using pet nas like she does for . I guess she's rubbing off on .
I can hear her sigh in my head before speaking up, 'Aims, honey, I'm sorry but honestly, I am out of my depth trying to get Luck to play ball with us. We both agree that we'd rather have the base effect of Luck be kept while fixing the activation clause, but I'm not Ilya. I'm trying my best, but its taking alot of my attention to try and back end this. I know I said I would help if you called out, and I will of course, but for now I need to focus on Luck. Again, I'm not dismissing you, but this needs to be done. Or at least attempted... Just keep heading to the mountains, you're about a third of the way there!~'
Only slightly feeling like a child that just got told to go play in my room, I huff with a pout before jumping down from the naked tree's canopy with a direction in mind. I quickly pick the pace back up, my euphoria this ti firmly checked by reality. Now that I've cald down, I rember one of the things I was wanting to do on my journey out of the clearing. I use inspect on every god damn thing I can see as I zip by it! It starts out pretty simple, but quickly over the next hour of my journey it raises to MAX level and provides much more information.
[Tree. Made of wood]
[Rock. Made of stone.]
[Fallen Tree. Dead.]
...
[Bark Shorn Conifer. A once beautiful Conifer tree that has had its bark shorn and leaves stripped from so outside force. Reliable source of wood for construction.]
[Sedintary Rock. Holds trace compounds of various, compacted minerals. Suitable for general construction tasks when refined.]
[Fallen Tree. It's dead.]
Well they cant all be winners it seems. About this ti Ios chis back in, with a voice filled with elation.
'Aims! Ailia! I did it! I fucking did it! Hehehe~! Use Inspect on Luck now! Do it, do it!' Her overjoyed, sowhat childish voice at the mont is like music to my ears! I quickly use Inspect on Luck and read out its description aloud.
Luck - 500: The higher this Ability Score, the more likely favorable outcos will occur for the user.
In addition, for every action taken, or every action put upon the user, there is a 10% chance of the Score's value to trigger Luck (i.e. 50% chance). When Luck is triggered, the action that was being perford will have its base value (ability score, skill, damage, etc) multiplied by the value of the Luck Score. If it was an action put upon the user, the negative effects of the action will be reduced by the value of the luck score as a percentage (i.e. 500%).
This function can be toggled on or off at the user's discretion. Toggle active effect? Yes / No.
"Hell yeah Ios! Great job, I knew you could do it! If you had a body, I would give you such a big hug right now sweetie!" I exclaim as I jump for joy. I keep them to normal, human sized jumps, however. I've learned my lesson now.
'Hehehe~! Oh man, that was such a pain! Ilya went crazy with so of the interlocking fundantals of the baselines on that one. Like! I had to-...' Ios proceeds to go on a small, 5-minute rant about her trials and tribulations regarding modding the system. Most of the words fly over my head sadly. As studious as I was, I never went too deep into computer programming. Or quantum physics, which is probably closer to what she had to do to fix Luck. Still, I don't want to kill her buzz, so I nod along happily and chi in with various versions of "Oh man!
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