Jenny ran to wrap her arms around me, her wracking sobs sending ripples of guilt through my body. I looked down where she had been standing. Tim was laid on his back. His heavy armor must have been summoned, as it was nowhere to be seen. His body was bandaged in many places, and I could tell that it was more for the peace of those looking at him than anything else. He was wrecked, torn and broken. Ernest stood silently beside us, blood staining his left sleeve.
“I’m so sorry, Jen,” I said, pulling her tightly into my arms.
“I told you it wasn’t your fault,” she said between sniffles.
“I wasn’t here to help.”
“But whatever you did reduced the total number of waves, right?”
“It did, and I need to talk to Selka and the rest. It’s going to get worse.”
“How much worse?” she asked as she pulled back from the hug.
“The System seemed a bit… annoyed that I’d eaten one of its tools for the tutorial. It told me ‘Good Luck,’ which I’m a hundo percent sure means it’s going to try harder to kill me.”
She stood silently contemplating that when Ernest spoke up. “Then you need more power, just like the rest of us.”
“Burying Tim here would be pointless. You know what you need to do. Time is running out for it to be effective,” Jenny said, looking sadly down at him.
I nodded sullenly and bent to pick him up, cradling him in my arms. “I’m going to do this away from everyone. You don’t need to see this.”
“The others are in there too, the ones that are… available. Third left door.”
I nodded and quickly found the room with the tables and set Tim’s body upon an empty one. For the moment, I ignored the others, resting my hand upon Tim’s shoulder. “We just talked about fighting for as much power as you can grab, and you had to go and be all noble in the end, you horny bastard. Fuck!” I gripped the table and squeezed, leaving behind heavy grooves in the metal.
After several moments, I opened the mouth on my chest wide and gently pushed his body into my core. The regeneration this time felt dirty. As before I chose to put the experience into my profession.
You have devoured Level 71 Minotaur Pleasure Knight. Their highest stat was Strength. Your base Strength has increased by 34 points. Bonus stats from eating a Minotaur Pleasure Knight of a higher level than yourself. All stats increased by 17. Bonus experience earned.
DING! Profession: Neophyte Enchanter has increased from Level 46 to Level 52.
DING! Race: Omnis Vorare has increased from Level 54 to Level 57.
You have gained nine levels, granting you 90 Free Points.
This actually gave me some information I didn’t have before. The free points were continuous! Thank Lassa! I took a moment to survey the room around me, finding it filled with gurneys upon which white sheets covered numerous bodies. They’d been prepared for me, despite my absence, and I felt the guilt wash over me again. But as time was of the essence, I got to work, pulling in body after body into my awaiting maw. It wasn’t pleasant, but it needed to be done. I gained level after level, and stat points rolled in. The diminishing returns as my levels increased only netted me around 150 stat points for each stat, as the various dead had a variety of primary stats. My profession finally reached the same level as my class, then I switched to pumping up my class again.
It had been a while since I checked my stats, and I felt I needed a refresher before bringing my plan to the general and the others.
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Status
Name: Dan Trench
Humanoid Race: Omnis Vorare 63
Class: Hypocrite Revolutionary 65
Profession: Neophyte Enchanter 62
Max Health: 16690
Max Stamina: 27800
Max Mana: 23600
Agility: 1362
Endurance: 1370
Intelligence: 1187
Perception: 1402
Strength: 1410
Vitality: 1669
Wisdom: 1173
Free Points: 280
Race Skills:
All Stats Must Be Eaten. Unique.
All-Consuming. Unique.
Infinite Tank. Unique.
Senses of the Deeps. Uncommon.
I Have Five Mouths and I Must Feast. Rare.
Void Step. Uncommon.
Eat the Rich. Rare.
Hunger Strike. Epic.
Class Skills:
Ravenous Cloak. Uncommon.
Purging Surge. Common.
The Tyrant’s Due. Ancient.
Profession Skills:
Marked Soul Chambers of the Fathoms. Ancient.
Weave Infusion. Uncommon.
Runic Stability. Uncommon.
Feast Burst. Rare.
Enlightened Alteration. Rare.
Equipped Gear:
Amulet of Holding. Common.
Titles:
Chosen of the Deeps. Unique.
Okay. Things are looking okay. But I could barely detect the Systemic Gem with my current loadout, and I needed much more Perception to increase the range at which I could sense them. But before I went dumping my free points into Perception, I need to have that discussion with the others. I turned for the door, distracted in my thoughts, when I spotted Silas hulking in the doorway.
“Your first time dealing with the consequences of war?” he asked as he picked at one of his large shark teeth.
I nodded.
“It’s never easy. And there’s not really a ‘getting over it’. People will die under your command because you can’t be everywhere at once. But even more people will die if you quit.”
“You’re terrible at cheering people up,” I said.
“Wasn’t trying to. Just saying that you push through the bullshit. There’ll be time to grieve the dead after we’ve won this fucking tutorial.”
“I know. Come with me.” Silas stepped back as I stepped through the doorway, turning for the war room.
I wanted the room to be as few people as possible, so only Selka, Bethany, and Tree were present as Silas and I walked in. I sat at the head of the table and got right to it, explaining and displaying the System message for them to see.
“So we have less than 23 hours for you to find the rest of these Systemic Gem things to reduce or maybe even completely end the waves,” Bethany said, her stress levels clearly risen from my retelling of events as her voice was a bit higher than normal.
“If they are deep underground, there likely isn’t a way for us to help,” Selka said, tapping her fingers rapidly on the table.
“That’s what I really wanted to discuss. In order to keep our very useful chat function, we only need to keep 100 Control Spheres. The functions after that, like teleporting between bubbles and moving or creating smaller bubbles were only useful assuming we had multiple groupings of survivors,” I said.
“That leaves you 99 Control Spheres to eat,” Bethany whispered.
“If that’s what it takes for you to be able to keep lowering our wave requirements, then do it!” Selka nearly shouted. “I’d like to not lose anymore people.”
“Agreed. I just wanted to make sure that you were all on board before I jumped into eating a bunch of the things.”
“We’ll get the word out so the people won’t get too worked up about the shifting quest entry.”
“And I’ve done all I can for now, so I will return to your soul chamber,” Tree said. I opened my mouth and Tree disappeared within.
I thanked them and ran up to the top of the tower. I sat down and entered my Soul Chamber. Tree floated near the wall next to the Chamber of the Deeps, already scrawling an experimental set of runes upon it. I sent my focus out to my pathways. The System had said they were strengthened, but I couldn’t discern any significant difference.
With a whisper of will, I opened a small window from the Soul Chamber into my core. I picked up a Control Sphere in each hand and gently pushed them one at a time through the window.
As the magic surged into my pathways, I began to understand the difference.
