Seras Streams
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Chapter 43 – An eye for an eye
🕑 Added 2024-10-12 14:00:07 +0000 UTCThere was a riotous sound of thunder and an explosive crackle noise that spread across the glacier. Jace was airborne – he wasn’t sure how he got so high up, a few hundred feet, easily. And his body was sore. Not only that, but his limbs were twitching slightly.
And not reacting to his commands.
“Ollie!” he tried to say, but his mouth wouldn’t respond. What the hell is going on?
The sky above him began to turn and tumble. He could see the World Pillar, and the ground as he began falling. The enormous dragon was trapped in an earthen grip, roaring and flailing back and forth as it tried to escape its confinement. Crap! Dark Energy Mine (Rank 1)! Detonate!
His fall arrested as gravity was removed from him. Ollie chuckled, “Wow! That was close.” He looked up at Jace, and his face screwed up in a concerned look. “Jace? You there?”
“Yes!” Jace tried to reply; but his body wasn’t responding at all.
“Oh. Oh no,” Ollie’s eyes were filled with worry. “That explosion was a bunch of electric traps that all went off at once. I think it shorted out your brain.”
What? What the hell does that mean? Jace saw the dragon break free of its confines, and it pointed its maw up at him and opened its jaws. The glowing, icy-blue energy began to coalesce. Damnit! I don’t have a choice. Dark Energy Beam (Rank 10)!
From the air just above Jace’s shoulder, an enormous beam of grey-purple energy shot out – right into the dragon’s mouth – and bored a hole through its body, down to the ground below. The icy burst was dispersed as the beam tore through space and disintegrated the creature’s mouth, neck, and body that was coiled beneath it. The form shuddered and collapsed into a heap.
<<<<<>>>>>
[Quest Completed: Defeat the World Pillar Guardian.]
[Time Limit: N/A.]
[Reward: Epic (Skill Evolution) Boon.]
[Sender: The Cosmic System.]
<<<<<>>>>>
Jace felt the intense exhaustion and began to fall as his consciousness faded.
>>>---<<<
Flosho grinned as he saw the dragon die and the floating form of the Aspirant thud into the snow and ice. Now is my chance! He pulled out his knife and ran forward, past the corpse of the dragon and up to the prone figure.
He grabbed the man and flipped him over. His whole body was covered in armored clothing – save for a slit near the top of the face, of the cheeks and eyes. Die! He thought as he stabbed down.
But, to his surprise, even though he stabbed the right eye and got some depth – the blade stopped a few inches in. Not deep enough to pierce the brain. Some type of metal fluid seeped out of the wound.
It wasn’t a killing blow, and even as Flosho put his weight behind the blade – it did not sink any further.
The figure screamed out as the sudden trauma woke him up. A grey dot appeared next to him.
Flosho tried to dodge. He couldn’t dodge in time. Reality seemed to slow down as he came to a sudden realization, and a slight, grey-purple glow shot towards him.
I’m going to die.
The world went dark.
>>>---<<<
Jace screamed out in pain. He reached up to his face and felt something hard sticking out of it. He had the worst headache of his life. Feeling around, he froze as the realization of what had happened hit him.
He had been woken up by the searing pain in his right eye, and when he opened the other one, he saw the cat man above him. He had used Dark Energy Beam at its lowest Rank and shot the cat-man through the temple – killing him instantly.
But now he felt the handle of what had stabbed him. He felt a chill of fear down his spine as he realized how close he had just come to dying.
Pop! Ollie appeared. “Oh, thank the System, you are alive! How do you feel?”
Jace did not answer, instead scrabbling around inside his bag for the can of medical foam. He pulled it out and fiddled with the nozzle, hands shaking as a dull pain spread through his whole body. The piercing pain was still in his head, and he barely got the device open. Okay. Breathing exercise. Calm down. You need steady hands.
He steadied his breathing and felt the shaking start to subside. I’ll lose the ey- no, I’ve lost it already. This is just wound care, now. Remove it. Survive. He held the can in his left hand, and gently gripped the blade with his other. 3…2…1!
He yanked the knife out and let out a scream of pain as he doubled over. Shoving the nozzle into the socket, he pressed the trigger and felt an instant, soothing, cool relief. Some type of built-in painkiller that brought instant relief to his head wound. Fishing into his backpack, he found the medical kit, pulled his hood and mask back, and began dressing the wound. A large patch of clean gauze over the socket, and a bandage wrapped around his head.
“You…you okay?” Ollie whispered.
“I’m alive,” Jace replied. “He ambushed me.”
“Laid traps, too,” Ollie replied. He had a look of relief on his face, “You killed the dragon! That’s something.”
Jace nodded and laid back in the snow, just breathing in the cool, crisp air. His whole body was incredibly sore – even his prosthetics that he could feel just like they were his original limbs. The impact from the fall wasn’t as bad as it could be, but he saw that his legs were damaged. Reaching into his bag, he fished out the Omnitech prosthetic repair module. The device was a rectangle box, and reading the accompanying instruction manual, he slid one of the tubes from the inside of the box onto his left leg.
Tapping the small button on top, he felt a tingling as the device glowed a bright orange before vanishing. The leg was fully repaired. That’s one charge. He used another for his other leg. That means just one charge left.
Standing up, he looked around and saw his sword had landed point-first in the snow nearby. He walked over and grabbed it, sheathed it, and then looked down at the cat-man. “Dust him,” he ordered. “And the dragon,” he muttered, looking over at the nearby, colossal corpse.
<<<<<>>>>>
[Stardust Acquired: 1520]
<<<<<>>>>>
“Done!” Ollie shouted as he swam around. “That puts you at 1620 Stardust and 19 dungeon cores.”
Jace sighed and nodded, scooping up the rest of his gear and packing it away inside the backpack. “I survived.” I can’t believe I lived through a stab to the eye. That guy must have been really weak.
“You did. Good job!”
That was close, Jace thought. He replayed the combat with the dragon through his head. I didn’t make any errors. I avoided all damage and was handily winning. It was that trap that screwed me over. “I thought I was highly resistant to electricity,” Jace stated as he glanced at Ollie.
“You are. If you had Dark Matter Shield (Rank 3) active, then you would not have been affected at all. But your base form only has Dark Matter augmenting it. You are still vulnerable to massive amounts of electricity.”
“And you said it shorted out my brain?”
“Well, it probably just made it so that your brain could not contact your body parts. You were able to use Skills, so you did not have your mind fried.”
Jace rubbed the bandage over his missing eye, “I could use an Equipment Boon that gives me a new eye. I have Common rarity ones, right?”
“Yup! But you should hold out until you have one of a higher rarity. You have that CIF stuff inside you, and I bet you could get an eye that lets you see traps.”
Jace nodded and went over to the World Pillar, standing a few feet away from it. “Can you see any more of those mines?”
“Oh, the Aspirant is dead. Any that were here are gone now. Skills cannot persist past the death of the Aspirant or Ascendant who used them.”
Jace rummaged in his bag, set up the tent against the pillar, and right after buttoning it back up passed out from the exhaustion and pain.
>>>---<<<
Shhiv finished her fifth rep of a bench press at her set of home gym equipment. Wiping the sweat from her brow, she re-racked the weights and prepared to go and hit the squat rack. But she stopped when she received a notification on her cosmopanel. Scrolling through, her breath caught in her throat. What?! How’d he get so badly injured?!
Ollie had given her limited access to Jace’s information within The Cosmic System, and there were plenty of firewalls put up by some person who went by X. But, Shhiv had enough access to the records to know when injuries happened and had set up alerts for when they did happen.
He had just suffered a grim injury. She tapped through to her account page and held the cosmopanel over her Civilian symbol.
<<<<<>>>>>
Boons: x33 Common (Variable)
<<<<<>>>>>
Right. I can convert 27 of those into 1 Epic rarity, and then assign an easy Quest. She tapped away at her cosmopanel and put in a simple Quest that Jace could complete quickly. That leaves me with 6, she thought. She would get 1 Common Boon every month she kept working in The Cosmic System, in addition to her Stardust salary. It’ll be worth it. He needs to be able to see.
Variable Boons were able to turn into any type of Boon, based upon the user’s desire. She had swapped them to Equipment. That should get him a nice prosthetic replacement, she thought. She set the cosmopanel down and went to set up the squat rack.
But she hesitated. She felt a pit in her stomach and was overcome with worry and anxiety. Don’t die out there. We just made a connection. You better not die on me.
>>>---<<<
<<<<<>>>>>
[Quest: Pack up your camp.]
[Time Limit: N/A.]
[Reward: Epic (Equipment) Boon.]
[Sender: Shhiv-zal <3.]
<<<<<>>>>>
Jace woke up to the notification message. His head was pulsing with pain, and he rummaged inside the medkit, found some potent painkillers, and popped a few of them into his mouth. Within seconds they began to kick in.
Ollie reappeared with his pop. “That quest? Shhiv sent it. She must be really into you.”
Jace smiled and began to pack up.
<<<<<>>>>>
[Quest Completed: Pack up your camp.]
[Time Limit: N/A.]
[Reward: Epic (Equipment) Boon.]
[Sender: Shhiv-zal <3.]
<<<<<>>>>>
“Let’s use that to get an eye. Something that lets me see…magic? Skills? Something that lets me analyze items in the environment?”
“You got it!”
<<<<<>>>>>
[Using Boon: Epic (Equipment).]
[Manifesting.]
<<<<<>>>>>
Jace gasped in pain despite the potent painkillers. He held his head in his hands as a pulsing headache spread throughout his skull, threatening to rip it apart. But just as quickly as it started, it faded. Pulling his hands away, he blinked a few times and ripped off the bandage.
His vision was weird. Keeping his right eye shut, he saw as he normally saw things. The snow was white and grey in some places, the sky above was silvery and gold intertwined, and the pillar behind him was grey.
Opening his right eye, he could see in much greater detail. He could see the separate crystals of ice composing a bank of snow. The glittering, shimmering display showing a fountain of fractal shapes that were perfect in their intersecting, geometric beauty. It was a little disorienting, and he found himself instinctively shutting his left eye in favor of the prosthetic right eye. I should get two of these. This is way better than regular sight.
“All-Seeing Dragon's Eye,” Ollie stated. “It has enhanced perception – much like a pair of binoculars. Plus, it can see magic. Since The Cosmic System merges magic, technology, and magitech, you will be able to see any Skill – even if it is invisible.”
Jace looked out across the landscape. The glacier where this World Pillar was located was tied for the highest point on this world, and he stared in disbelief at his increased visual acuity. He could spot the groups of Aspirants roaming what must be hundreds of miles in the distance. Even making out their appearances. This is insane! He cracked a grin. “Pull up a message to Shhiv.”
The box showed up. Thank you. When I get back, I’m going to rock your world. “Send.”
He felt full of energy from his restful sleep, and the day was only about halfway over. “We have more dungeons to clear up here,” he stated with confidence. “Let’s also use that Skill Evolution.”
“What do you want to improve?”
“Swordmage Stance.”
<<<<<>>>>>
[Using Boon: Epic (Skill Evolution)]
[Applying to Skill.]
[Skill Name: Swordmage Stance.]
[Evolution Name: Astral Annihilator.]
[Effect: The user’s bladed weapon becomes capable of sundering Skills.]
<<<<<>>>>>
“That is handy,” Ollie said as he flew around Jace’s head. “If you do get more Skill Evolutions for Swordmage Stance, you will have to ‘toggle’ between them by thinking or saying the new prefix-version. For now, though, it will default to the Astral Annihilator, since that is the only Evolution you have for it.”
Jace took a deep breath. “Let’s go. We have more dungeons up here to clear out.”
Comments
Seras Streams
So Quinn is doing a mercantilism route and getting a TON of Stardust because she is doing a whole bunch of sales-type stuff. Eventually, the market will become diluted, and she won't be getting nearly as much. But for that time being? The supply vs. demand was huge, so she could basically charge what she wanted.
Scyfe
One thing I don't really get is he is getting like 1.5k for killing a dragon and a few chapters ago we flashed to Quinn who got like 40k for farming a lower tier area in less time
Seras Streams
Mayhaps… The CIF or the serum did something there…
Aclys
Wait, so did the super soldier treatment do that to his eyes or did the cybergoop somehow swarm his eye to save him?
