Chapter 28: Nosey old men and Shiny new toys

  [Greater Guardian turtle’s stalwart shell (Unique, Soulbound)]

  At first Sam was confused; he saw the notification that he received the reward that came from combining his performance assessments in the tutorial so far but he didn’t see any item popping up into existence around him in his tent. It was still just the same plain canvas and cot that he woke up to after having attached the final boss. The soulbound tag right next to the unique identifier did give him an idea though. He looked internally with his soul sight to where his spell matrices took up space. He was right; on what he would call the back of his soulspace, just about between where his scapula were, was a tattoo reminiscent of the spell matrices he’d had before except this time it held the overall shape of a turtle shell. He tried pushing on the item the same way he would when activating his signature skill or his trait and as soon as he made contact a spectral turtle shell shimmered into existence around him in the real world and not just as a mark on his soul surface. It took most of Sam’s willpower not to squeal in excitement the moment that the shell showed up around him. He started laughing maniacally as soon as he remembered that these tents had some kind of privacy magic on them that made it soundproof. This was exactly the kind of reward that fit his style so he was happier more than ever that he decided to take the reward from combining his performances in the tutorial. Much like the spell matrices he’d had in the past, the shell came with instinctive knowledge of what it could do which was why he could hardly contain his excitement.

  [ Greater Guardian turtle’s stalwart shell: An armour with percent based and flat stat bonuses to defensive stats with an active shield ability that has 3 charges every 24 hours (can be sped up by funneling mana and/or qi into the item). The amount that this item modifies the user’s defensive stats is dependent on the user’s current tier and the item’s overall improvement from the consumption of natural treasures. Has a spatial storage ability (Cache) that grows as the user tiers up. Initial ability is based on the tier of the user when soulbinding. Soulbound item (becomes a part of the soul of the user similar to how spell matrices take up a portion of the soul’s surface area). If the soul of the user is resilient enough and certain hidden requirements are met, the armor gains resistances to elemental energies that it gets exposed to directly related to the amount of that elemental energy that the item has been able to absorb. Can be merged with certain natural treasures to unlock a shelter (Shellter) type ability utilizing the same form and magic manipulation that the item uses for its spatial storage ability]

  And that very knowledge was absolutely making him itch for exploration. If his understanding of what natural treasures were was anywhere close to accurate, then this single piece of magical equipment gave him a very real reason to adventure more than simply “wanting to see all there is in a world where magic exists.” He could see with his soul sight that when the shell shimmered into pseudo-corporeal existence around his torso that there was a larger projection of the shell surrounding him roughly the size of the tent that he was fairly certain represented that current possible size of the active shield ability that the shell had access to. More importantly, Sam had an actual storage type item now! He wasted no time using the ability to store all his important gear and when he realized that it had more than enough space to hold literally all of his things he shoved the rest of it into the cache. As an extra precaution he then attempted to register the shell itself into one of the five slots in the personal inventory that the system provided but it would not accept it for some reason. He surmised that it had something to do with the fact that the shell itself was a soulbound magic item so even though he was disappointed that he couldn’t also store the shell in his system storage, it wasn’t like he was planning on being separated from the surface of his soul anytime soon so he didn’t worry too much about losing the shell. After all, in most of the books he’d read, things that were soulbound were never simple tasks to separate them from those who they were bound to in the first place.

  Right now, more than anything, Samson could not wait to see what the shellter ability would look like once he had the kinds of natural treasures that the shell needed to unlock it. It really made him look forward to the future, far more than he could ever remember for years of his life up until the tutorial happened. Speaking of the future, he found himself somewhat melancholic at the prospect of the tutorial’s end. Not because he was particularly attached to the event itself but rather because, for the first time in a while, he was regretful that he couldn’t spend more time with someone– in this case Fiona. He got along quite well with her and he she seemed to get over the odder quirks of his general demeanor that made him feel understood and it felt nice not feeling like he needed to act a certain way in front of someone because of “society.” The last time he really felt that way was around his dad back when the man was still alive. He’d forgotten how nice that feeling was and so he found himself dreading the end of the tutorial and his inevitable parting with Fiona. Although part of the reason he’d been unable to feel that comfort around others in a while was because he’d been falling into the habit of isolating himself, even from the few friends he did have that he felt just as comfortable with as he did with his father. In adult life– even as a young adult– it was all too easy to hide behind the veil of work and responsibilities as a way to get around having to confront being vulnerable in front of those who remain and continue to care about you. Time is an ever shortening commodity in the modern world after all.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  All things considered, Sam was quite surprised at how few people tried to approach or bother him in the days after the boss’ defeat. He almost wondered if Fiona had something to do with that, but even if she did, he didn’t mind. He wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, he didn’t like having to deal with strangers all that much anyway. Without much he could do to prepare for the return to Earth, and with time in the tutorial running out, Sam decided to go exploring the tutorial one last time, maybe even archive a few things that he hadn’t yet. Before heading out however, he stopped by Fiona’s tent to get some information about how to maybe stay in touch once they were back on Earth, getting addresses and phone numbers and all that even if he wasn’t sure if any of those ways would still work given whatever changes the world had supposedly gone through.

  After having talked to Fiona and making some agreements about trying to keep in touch and letting her know about his current plans for exploration, Sam decided to head in the direction of the mountain range that had played such a big role in shaping his tutorial experience. He wanted to see if he could make it in time to find the source of that intimidating roar that he’d heard in the recent past. Even if he couldn’t actually find the thing, it would at least let him find some of the glowy green boars in the area that he could add more of to his archive. He decided he would try to go find the source of that roar or at the very least record some more things for his archive and then when he had about a day left, whether or not he found success in the monster hunt he would go through with his class evolution.

  Wasting no time, Sam walked full speed ahead using his favorite and only legendary skill. This was his first time pushing that skill since he passed out after fighting the guardian turtle. The space distortion that allowed him to travel greater distances with each step was definitely more effective than it had been before. The amount he was travelling with every footfall was certainly more than he had been in the past, relative to the same amount of perceived effort on his part that he was actually putting into using the skill. He was actively growing in power and it was an intoxicating feeling to notice. He did wonder a little bit about why he hadn’t seen any quantitative changes to his walking skill even though there clearly had been improvements. However, he didn’t spend too long pondering the reason why as he just figured that it may be related to how the system evaluated things and that perhaps it looked for certain breakpoints or significant milestones for all he knew. The thought did also run through his mind (no pun intended) that what his skill was currently capable of hadn’t changed and that it was an entirely different part of him that allowed for the improvement in its usage.

  By this point, Sam had arrived at the last place he had been in the tutorial where he remembered hearing that ominous roar. It was right around that time that he began to wish that he actually had a way to track whatever made the sound back then. With no better options left at his disposal and having never been let down by it in the past, he activated his soulsight to its maximum capacity similar to how it was when he had first unlocked the ability. The influx of stimuli was just as overwhelming as it had been when he left the cave for the first time but at least he was prepared for it this time. With every being sort of see-through, he could see quite far in any direction regardless of forest density. He then began to scan the mountainside just like he had learned when he would volunteer for deep woods firewatch in his early twenties during college. Back then it had been a nice way to have accommodations in the deep woods of Appalachia and spend time in nature while simultaneously participating in maintaining the very peace in nature that he sought out when he’d go on those solo hiking trips in the first place. He’d never even imagined that the skills he learned from back then would be actively applied to him going in a good ol’ fashioned monster hunt. This time when he did his scans he was looking for something out of the ordinary in the soul structures of things. He wasn’t sure what exactly that out of the ordinary thing would be but he was pretty sure he’d be able to tell at least if something in his line of sight carried forms that weren’t related to rocks, plants, boars, or goblins.

  After a few hours of work, patience, and an oncoming migraine from the overload of information, Sam was rewarded. He wasn’t sure what he was looking at but he knew it wasn’t any of the other things he had seen so far and he knew that the thing was moving. He immediately set off in the direction of the anomaly, with plans to slow down his approach once whatever the thing was, entered his regular field of view and not just because of his soul sight.

  In the meantime, on the surface of a star different from the one in their last appearance, the sage of righteous fury and the sage of sorrow could be seen giggling to each other– machinations seemingly in place.