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(BUS)Chapter 29: Price match
🕑 Added 2024-10-22 18:17:02 +0000 UTCNice as I believed the trait would be the price stung a little if I'm being honest. Twenty K for a trait was not cheap and likely never would be. That didn't even take into consideration that traits might get more expensive in the future as I got stronger. Right now my body was sorta like a blank slate with plenty of room for improvement and upgrade. But eventually it would get covered in traits and the price it would cost me to add new traits would as a result increase.-
Higher graded traits cost more because they impacted more and took up more "room" in my body. It should be remembered that the price I pay to get traits is determined by how much lifeforce my body needed to add them and the spent lifeforce is a used to sort of preload this process into the trait rather than truly disappearing. Knowing this I had been making sure not to take too many stacks of any particular trait lest I made the prices start growing out of control. Some traits were worth grabbing as many stacks as possible in like [Energy projection] but even then it wasn't exactly a common trait and so I only had the two copies integrated.-
[Active camouflage] wasn't one of these kinds of traits as I estimated that after the third copy I'd be basically invisible whenever I flipped it on so long as I was naked. Yeah slight downside there as the trait being a part of my body didn't extend to my clothes or rather would need some special usage to do so. My traits were the tits and let me mix and match traits like fucking legos so I could get some traits to act differently than normal with the right combinations.-
In this case applying [Active camouflage] to [Energy projection] should in theory allow me to create a small area around myself that was invisible as well, probably. Bioengineering stealth aside I left the now ash corpse behind and continued walking through the forest. As it turned out [Morak] were territorial as shit so I hadn't found another even hours later. I had found some new creatures during this time but they were all Grog shit useless for traits. I either already had the traits being offered or they came with big downsides.-
For example there was this one trait called [suicide](yeah seriously) that let the creature off itself if it wanted to. I understand the idea behind WHY something would have such a trait as sometimes death is preferable to suffering but to have a built in night night switch was off putting as hell. Thankfully the odd mouse creature didn't cyanide pill itself when I caught it since it hadn't been hurt but it was still fucking crazy to find. I should also make it clear that by the end of the day I was miles away from the monastery.-
I set up my house and ate a nice dinner before grabbing an hour of training in the sim room before feeding my monster egg some lifeforce.
'For my next trick I'm going to disappear!' I thought with a chuckle as I stripped and nudged my [active camouflage] trait to integrate. I immediately felt a burning sensation like a billion fire ants going to town on me all over my body. I couldn't be blamed for scratching at my skin at that point as I developed a whole new set of nerves to control my new color changing skin.-
The discomfort like usual didn't last long but the phantom itch was real as I had this psychological urge to scratch an itch that I was certain didn't actually exist. As for functionality this new trait wasn't quite what I had expected as while it could indeed let me change color and even alter the color of a small area around me for a short period with [energy projection] it worked based on my sight. Now I had some damn good vision thanks to my traits but not even I could see behind me, in other words this trait was not as great as I thought it would be. Still useful but like situationally useful rather than invisibility that was OP as fuck.-
Everyone seems to fail to realize that true invisibility meant that if used correctly you were untouchable. People forget just how much we rely on our sense of vision until it's taken from us so when confronted by something that bypasses that sense entirely, well I hear hell's nice this time of year. Now I'm not saying this is an absolute case as instincts and the other senses can play a part in surviving against such an attack but not many have those at the level that becomes possible in.-
Anyway I was disappointed in the trait and after sending my clothes through the cleaner went to sleep in a bad mood. I was feeling better when I woke up and got dressed before heading back outside my house before putting the place away. I ended up walking another three hours before I came across a new biome that held new possible traits. In this case it was a whole ass mountain complete with rocks, rocks and you guessed it more rocks.-
There was a bunch of moss and some shrubbery as well but that was more or less it as far as plantlife went. I used my hands as well as my feet to climb up the steep sides of the mountain and was rewarded for my effort.
{Athenian Rock lizard
Lifeforce: 843
Traits: [Keen nose-Common grade]- 500 units, [Efficient lungs-Rare grade]- 5000 units, [Frail form-Trash grade]- 50 units, [Hard skin-Common grade]- 500 units}
Ignoring the lazy naming sense the small stone colored reptile with six legs had a really good trait that I was glad to grab since it solved a problem I'd have much later.
[Efficient lungs] basically allowed this high altitude reptile to absorb far more oxygen with each breath it took. That didn't SOUND all that impressive at first glance but what I had taken into account was that my body would likely require more and more resources the stronger it got and that included oxygen. Being able to get more of it with each breath I took was a damn good thing to have as a result. Plus it meant that I could hold my breath for way longer so long as I remained still since I'd have much more oxygen than normal.-
I grabbed that trait and moved on leaving the lizard confused but still alive since there was no reason to kill it. As I got higher and higher up the mountain it got colder and colder but to my surprise I discovered a cave with snow packed into the entrance over time into a thin layer of ice. I accidentally discovered it when I reached for a jutting piece of rock and it slipped out and smashed the snow covered sheet of ice. The inside of the cave was much warmer than the outside but what really interested me was the preserved corpse at the back.-
It was a strange humanoid thing with two arms and two legs but the proportions were all wrong. The limbs were long and thin and the body was narrow and slender. The entire thing also had on a metallic armor on that had been clearly cleaved through with some form of claw on the center of the chest piece. The corpse was little more than a mummy that had long since lost all lifeforce and traits and may even have turned to dust already if not for the perfect conditions the cave provide for it.-
"Oh now theres something I hadn't expected to find." I said with a wide grin splitting my face as I laid my eyes on the object resting quietly in the four fingered hand of the corpse, a vault key.
[Name: Athenas vault key
Description: A strange Eridian object with the power to open the vault on Athenas.]
The key itself was made of the same impossibly tough material as the one sitting in my house right now but the shape was very different. This key looked almost like a staff in design as it was a pole comprised of three pieces and covered in curving marks and symbols regularly favored by Eridians.-
I walked over to the corpse and examined it before taking the key from it's long dead hands.
"No blood trail and the darkened stone beneath this corpse is too small, you teleported to this place didn't you?" I muttered confused as I could see no tech on this thing at all much less a teleporter device.
After taking the key with a "CRACK!" that came from the broken bones holding it I didn't hesitate to defile the corpse by stripping the metal armor off of it so I could study it. I remember that annoying time on Baal 3 where I took apart one of those seraphs only to discover that their internal mechanisms defied all logic. It wouldn't be a stretch to think that this corpse that I had suspicions of being an Eridian could have similar tech in it. Don't think I wanted to spare the corpse either as if it really was an Eridian even if it was mummified it was worth a fortune. The problem however was that anyone with a brain would notice that the corpse had something on it that had been removed and naturally assume I as the finder and seller took whatever it was, which was totally fucking true in this case.-
"Tough luck I guess, looks like you get to rest here until someone else finds you if ever." I said to the corpse before heading back out the cave.
I scaled the mountain to it's peak and after taking a shit on it went down the opposite side. I came across three more rock lizards on the way day as well as a rock snake that lacked any traits I really wanted. I grabbed all three copies of [Efficient lungs] which gave me four total with two of those going to me and the other two to my monster egg.-
Honestly speaking Athenas wasn't that great in terms of traits for me to grab. It was too peaceful and orderly for that. The ecosystem here hadn't had the need to create viciously powerful lifeforms or unusual adaptations and so most of what I could find would be pretty common. I don't mean grade wise but in terms of actual rarity in the natural world. Blending with the surroundings and having adaptations for ones environment are to be expected.
_______________________________________________
Alexander Drake
Lifeforce: 503,578
Integrated Traits: [Gun expertise-Uncommon grade], [Clever mind-Uncommon grade]X3,[Enhanced senses-Rare grade], [Omega body-Rare grade]x4,[Superior bones-Rare grade],[Armored hide-Rare grade], [Fire resistance-Uncommon grade], [Bone regeneration-Uncommon grade], [Corrosion resistance-Uncommon grade], [Energy projection-Epic grade]x2, [Superior vitality-Epic grade],[Flame breath-Uncommon grade],[Minor regeneration-Rare grade][Iron stomach-Uncommon grade], [Disease resistance-Epic grade],[Amphibious lungs-Uncommon grade], [Thermal sensing-Uncommon grade], [Water resistance-Common grade],[Active camouflage-Epic grade]
Stored traits: [Amphibious lungs], [Water resistance],[Quick thinking], [Energy reservoir], [Efficient lungs-Rare grade]x4
Comments
Christian Jeffress
Thank you very much for another excellent chapter
