Priam
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Chapter 298: Man Proposes, System Disposes
🕑 Added 2024-11-10 04:18:16 +0000 UTCI already can't wait to show you the next chapter! See you on Monday for chapter 299!
Enjoy!
PS: Priam Character Sheet (you can thanks the Discord guys! Come say hello.)
PSS: This chapter should clear up any misunderstandings about the previous reward. I've also reworked the wording—thanks to everyone who helped!
*
Valaryth Quest: Invasion I - Pseudo Alien Tribulation.
Retrieve the heart of the Tier 2 High Tribulation ‘Deluge’ for the System.
Reward: Rewards of a Triple Tribulation, plus validation of the following thresholds: 12 attributes > 600 / 6 attributes > 900 / 1 attribute > 1,200
Difficulty: Mythic
“Best damn birthday gift ever!” Priam exclaimed. This reward would allow him to push his attributes even further before his next quintuple Tribulation. He would face them with the stats of a candidate who had completed seven Tribulations, not just four.
His shadow flinched. “It’s your birthday?!”
“Just like every year.”
“But I don’t have a gift!”
“No big deal.”
“Rose told me you give gifts to the people you love. I love you and want to give you a gift.”
The declaration was so sincere it took Priam off guard.
“Well… thanks.”
“I’ll tell you when I think of something. But why didn’t you tell us? Alain didn’t say anything, either…”
Priam laughed. “He always forgets. But he’s a great dad the rest of the year, so I let it slide. As for me…” He shrugged. “I didn’t see the point.”
“You mean, apart from throwing a party?”
“With all the dangers that threaten us, it’s a waste of time.”
Jasmine huffed, unimpressed. “That sounds like the kind of hyper-pragmatic logic I’d expect from Arnold, not you. If life can stop at any second, we should live it to the fullest!”
Priam respected her enthusiasm but followed a different creed.
“I get what you’re saying, but I’d hate to die because my enemies were training while I was out partying.”
Despite [He Who Eludes Death], Priam knew he wasn’t immortal. Any High Tier could snuff him out like a candle. If death was a possibility, his pride prevented him from accepting it without a fight.
“Not dying is surviving; a commendable goal, but very different from living.”
Priam shrugged. “I don’t have time for semantics.”
“I don’t know what that means, but I’m not letting you brush this off,” Jasmine pressed. “Do you even like the life you’re living?”
Her concern was genuine, and Priam didn’t want to shut her down. He gave the question real thought, scanning his surroundings. The storm howled in his ears, its lethal drops falling harmlessly on his skin. Here he was, facing nature’s fury, standing on equal footing.
A faint smile tugged at his lips. “Yeah, I love it.”
“I'm sure it sounds metal in your head,” Jasmine shot back. “But don’t burn yourself out. When the warning signs show up, it’s already too late.”
The advice reminded Priam of his dark adolescence, and he took it seriously.
“I know. I’ll take a break once my Tribulations are done,” he promised.
“Mhm… I’ll hold you to that.”
A distant thunderclap sounded, and Priam focused on the trial ahead. Stretching out his body, he set off again. Two thin kinetic platforms hovered under his feet, letting him step through the sheet of rain into the third zone. The deadly downpour lashed at him uselessly, while the wind’s force multiplied, a crushing weight bearing down as if to drag him into the whirlpool below. But Priam bore the storm’s wrath with brute endurance, striding almost serenely toward the center of the Deluge.
The tempest raged around him. Heavy raindrops hitting the water’s surface created splashes, sending up clouds of mist at shoulder height. The sheer volume clouded his vision, but thanks to his Mist Concept, Priam could partially pierce the chaos.
At his tenth step, the wind shifted. Instead of pushing him down like a giant’s hand, it suddenly pulled him upward. Instantly, Priam used his kinetic mastery to anchor himself to the churning sea surface. Without it, he would have been swept up, carried by the gusts to hundreds of meters high, toward a grim fate.
The use of his kinetic skill displeased the Tribulation. The air charged with electrons, and Priam’s instincts screamed.
In a flash, he rode the mist, reappearing about twenty meters away. The thick, alien ambient aether limited his range.
Behind him, a lightning column struck the ocean. Priam only caught it out of the corner of his eye, but it was enough for the flash’s image to be imprinted on his retina. A vision of death. Then came the sound. The thunder shook his eardrums like the death knell, confronting Priam with his own mortality.
He was at the heart of the unholy fusion of a hurricane and a maelstrom of catastrophic proportions. Beneath him, a vortex capable of sucking an aircraft carrier into the depths, and above, a storm cloud ready to unleash bolts the size of skyscrapers.
Yet, Priam wore an uncontrollable smile.
Without his constitution, resistances, accelerated regeneration from [Three-headed Hydra], kinetic mastery, and Mist Concept, he would have been dead long ago. The only reason the calamity hadn't devoured him yet was that this Tribulation targeted his strengths rather than his weaknesses. Any other Tier 0 would have been vaporized by now, and if he didn't respect this trial, Priam would join the wrong side of the statistics.
“You okay?” Jasmine’s worried voice broke through.
“Yeah.”
Turning back toward his goal, a focused Priam pressed forward.
The cyclone’s pattern soon became apparent. Every ten steps, the wind direction changed to destabilize the Tribulation candidate. Instead of brute-forcing through, Priam summoned his spectral scales. [Smooth Scales] provided friction resistance, forcing the air to slide over him. It wasn’t perfect, but it bought him enough time to hop through the mist a few times, reaching parts of the zone where the wind pinned him toward the ocean. Here, he was relatively safe.
After several minutes resting to restore his willpower—the resource that fueled his Concepts—Priam set off again. He moved from one safe zone to another, and after an hour, he reached a fourth wall of swirling blue and white. In this new zone, water and ice mingled to crush those not discouraged by the last trial. Deadly rain was now joined by hail, a storm capable of eroding a cliff in minutes.
Priam was harder than rock and pushed onward.
Third zone of the Deluge cleared. Valaryth’s Ocean’s reward: [Shear Resistance] x15…
Seal detected. Progression delayed.
Before he could survey his new surroundings, a hailstone the size of his head smashed into his shoulder with cannonball force. He was catapulted backward, flung from the fourth zone to the third, where a gust of wind hurled him skyward before he could react. The jaws of the Deluge had seized him and wouldn’t let go.
White of the lightning, gray of the rain, black of the storm, then white again. Colors spun before Priam’s eyes like a kaleidoscope, further blurring his bearings. Swallowed by the opaque cloud and tossed in every direction by the furious winds, he lost all sense of up and down. His speed prevented him from sensing his surroundings through his Mist Concept. As nausea climbed, he realized he couldn’t even rely on his kinetic mastery to get out of this one. Lost in the storm’s heart, he doubted he could dodge lightning without seeing it. All he could do was wait.
So, like a garment in a hellish washing machine, Priam waited.
*
Titus stepped into the second zone, his face set in a grim expression. His Storm Dominion kept the deadly rain from shredding him.
“You feel anything?” Gooru asked from his right. The old warrior faced the raindrops stoically as they crashed against his body. Between Valaryth’s rewards and Micro, his tempered physique was able to withstand the downpour head-on. On the other hand, his harmony with Storm was so low that he couldn’t hear it.
“The storm’s whispers are strange,” Titus muttered, frowning.
“What do you mean?”
“It hasn’t tasted blood today.”
“That’s impossible!”
“Unless the intruder survived the lightning.”
Gooru looked up at the sky. “I tempered my body with the lightning in the second zone—I know how destructive it is. There aren’t more than a hundred Rhems who’d survive a direct hit. He must’ve dodged it.”
“How may someone avoid lightning?”
“I have no idea!” the grumpy warrior shouted. If the gates of Atlantis weren’t closed and the Deluge wasn’t sacred to their race, he would suspect an Elder decided to stretch their legs. “You have his location?”
Titus pointed toward the third zone. “Over there.”
“...Shit.”
Even for two veterans teetering on Tier 1, the third zone was dangerous.
*
Curled up, tossed around by winds miles high, Priam waited patiently for the chaos to tire of shaking him. At last, his Mist perception detected a cloudless space, followed by his Domain sensing the waves. The next instant, he collided with the ocean's surface at twice the speed of a bullet train. He felt his bones crack and his lungs fill with water.
Lvl Up: [Smooth Scales] lvl 36
AGI +3
A wave covered him as he barely regained his senses. Feeling a powerful suction dragging him into the depths, Priam realized an underwater vortex had him in its grip.
Fuck!
If he let himself get dragged kilometers beneath the surface by that overpowering current, he was as good as dead. Analyzing his options in a split second, Priam chose to fight back.
Lvl Up: [Adaptive Golden Meridians] lvl 20
META (Focus) +3
META (Endurance) +6
His meridians trembled as he unleashed all his kinetic reserves in one burst. An omnidirectional shockwave erupted, blasting the water away like a mini-nuke.
For a brief moment, calm reigned in a twenty-meter radius around Priam. He stood at the center of an ephemeral crater of water.
“Note to self: never get caught by the winds again,” he muttered, spitting out the water he had swallowed.
High above, the storm roared back. The Deluge would not tolerate the use of active skills as a means of defense.
Raising his hand, Priam focused all his aether proficiency to hastily trace a massive rune, boundary, inspired by his perfect fight with Clock. A heartbeat later, lightning struck his shield. The aether-imbued barrier held off the assault for a heartbeat. Then the lightning shattered the bubble and drenched Priam.
He screamed as the energy surge boiled his blood. The vital fluid escaped his body, partly turning into vapor. Nearly driven mad by the agony, Priam had enough presence of mind to realize the lightning wasn't dissipating. The Deluge was channeling a continuous strike to reduce him to ashes. Worse still, the attack was burning his aether, preventing him from using his skills. He could barely keep himself airborne.
Fuck! Confronted with death, Priam quickly assessed his quest and made a radical decision.
Disabling attribute seal: Constitution.
His own Potential stopped blocking his progress, and all his recent experiences caught up to him.
Lvl Up: [Shear Resistance] lvl 3,..., 34
CONST +96
Lvl Up: [Thick Blood] lvl 14
VIT +3
[Tribulation]: An attribute above 1 200 was detected in Tier 0.
A Tribulation is coming.
[To Play with Fire - Bronze] becomes [To Play with Pyro - Silver] !
[To Play with Pyro - Silver] - Six Tribulations await you for the third time, and yet, you haven’t passed any of them yet. Either you like playing with the rules, or you are completely stupid. Probably a bit of both.
Take your upgrade and go die somewhere else.
META (Chance) +20%
In mere moments, ambient aether poured into Priam’s body and soul, energizing his skills’ runes. His cells mutated at a frenzied pace, transforming to support his evolution. His constitution surged, allowing the warrior to survive a second longer under the relentless electric flood.
As a cascade of notifications appeared, [Homo Elysian Obsession] and [Life is Hard; I’m Harder] rallied to help Priam's body adapt. The essence of the Juggernaut squared off with the Deluge. Would he develop [Lightning Resistance] before the lightning consumed him? Bets were open.
Millions of spontaneous mutations erupted within his body, some effective, others less so. The suboptimal changes vanished as the Tribulation’s punishment smote them. Amidst the ruin that was Priam’s body, beneficial alterations persisted. As if reenacting the theory of evolution in fast-forward, his surviving cells multiplied, communicating with one another, mutating to survive.
Priam's physique fought to survive as his lifespan burned to sustain his boosted vitality. While his vital fluid evaporated, his bone marrow produced fresh blood to keep him alive a few seconds longer. Backed by the force of a High Tribulation, the electric javelin faced off with the Juggernaut’s body. The ultimate strike against the supreme cockroach.
As scars were spreading across the battlefield that was his body, Priam screamed at the top of his lungs. His bodily fluids were boiling, and his overheated fat was frying him from the inside out. His nociceptors—pain sensors—blazed as high-voltage currents coursed through them. Though his nerves had recently become aether-sensitive thanks to his agility’s evolution, they weren’t yet immune to electric shocks.
Many words to express a single reality: Priam was suffering torment. Yet, as a rune materialized on the second layer of his soul, he wouldn’t have traded places with anyone.
Defying the world’s order and the very forces of nature, the Juggernaut was right where he belonged. His blind eyes turned to the sky, he laughed as he felt his soul gain a new rune.
You have gained the skill: [Lightning Resistance - Rare].
[Lightning Resistance] - Electricity is part of a broader phenomenon: electromagnetism. If you have never heard of Maxwell’s equations... consider yourself lucky. Ignorance is often bliss.
If you are seeing this description, you have probably gotten a bit too close to a transformer or a storm. This skill will help you survive the next time you try tightrope walking on a high-voltage wire. Your body passively absorbs some of the excess electricity, converting it into aether.
Your girlfriend calls you Lightning as you are too fast. My wife calls me Lightning because my rod is shocking. We are not the same.
CONST +2
VIT +1
“About damn time,” Priam muttered as his cells began converting electric energy into aether. After going through hell, his new resistance gave him back control of his skills.
Ignoring the pain, Priam kinetically manipulated the water beneath him to form a protective dome. Saltwater, being conductive, absorbed the lightning, which finally dissipated after a few seconds. The Deluge seemed unwilling to exhaust itself by vaporizing the entire ocean.
“You’re smokin’ hot. Literally,” Jasmine teased.
Priam quickly examined himself with Micro. He looked more like a slab of overcooked meat than a human. His regeneration tugged him back from death’s grip within seconds, for the modest cost of a few months of his lifespan.
Opening his eyes, Priam saw he was on a kinetic platform. He could hear the waves crashing a few meters below him. His add-on had saved his ass by preventing him from falling into the vortex.
“Fuck the Deluge and damn the System.”
“Something wrong?” Jasmine asked.
“Another skill description cracking jokes about my sexual performances. I swear I live rent-free in the mind of whoever writes this shit.”
“You don’t think it has to do with you always walking around naked?”
Priam glanced down and realized his mist-woven clothes hadn’t survived the wrath of the lightning. His assets swung freely in the breeze. Jasmine might have a point. But if I put clothes on, then the System wins.
Refusing to lose any battle, Priam decided to stay nude until his quest was over.
As he stood up, Priam noticed he barely felt the raindrops running down his face. Each held the kinetic energy of a bullet, yet his resistance and constitution were now so high they were harmless.
“One step closer on the Path of the ultimate Tank. If the Deluge’s got nothing left, I think I’ve got this quest in the bag,” he grinned.
“Don’t jinx it. Plus, I thought most of your resistances’ progress was limited by your Tribulations?” Jasmine asked.
“I unlocked the seal on my constitution,” Priam admitted.
“WHAT?!”
“I—”
“You already weren’t sure you’d survive a quintuple Tribulation! A sextuple would kill you!”
Priam winced. “I’m not planning to face a sextuple if I can avoid it.”
“Explain. Now.”
“Read the quest description.”
“... Rewards of a Triple Tribulation, plus validation of the following three thresholds: 12 attributes > 300 / 6 attributes > 600 / 1 attribute > 1 200.” Jasmine’s thresholds were different from Priam’s, as their builds weren’t the same. “I don’t see where it says you can cancel your sixth Tribulation.”
“Yet that’s what I’m reading: the thresholds are targeted, and I think that’s a clue. Now that I’ve surpassed one of these thresholds, what happens if I complete the quest?” Priam asked.
“The threshold you just passed will be ‘validated.’” Jasmine paused. “You think it could retroactively affect the new Tribulation?”
“If the threshold that triggered the Tribulation no longer counts, then neither does the Tribulation.”
It was an elegant solution on the System’s part to give Priam the means to claim the heart of the Deluge.
“Are you sure?”
Priam mentally cleared his throat. “Nope. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have waited to unseal my constitution. Still, I’m certain the System would have phrased things differently if it didn’t want me to consider this.”
“Unless it’s setting you up.”
Priam shrugged, turning back toward the fourth zone. “Man proposes, System disposes.”
*
Status:
PHYSICAL:
Strength 893 SEALED
Constitution 1 326 (+127)
Agility 1 173 (+4)
Vitality 1 143 (+7)
Perception 858
MENTAL:
Vivacity (D) 599 SEALED
Dexterity 752
Memory 891 SEALED
Willpower 1 004
Charisma 648
META:
Meta-affinity 999
Meta-focus 554 (+3)
Meta-endurance 896 (+9)
Meta-perception 502
Meta-chance 589 (+33)
Meta-authority 315
Potential: 17 913 (+73)
Tier 0
Sun points: 143 444
[He Who Eludes Death] charge: PRIMED
Concepts:
Breath (T0): 100% / Harmony
Fire (T0): 100% / Unity
Pyro (T1): 100% / Half-step Unity
Mist (T1): 100% / Symphony
Bloodlines:
Phoenix: 2%
Dragon: 1%
Rewards standing:
Fusion Token - Skill (Epic)
Evolution Token - Skill (Legendary)
Affinity Token - Tier 1 (30%)
Alien Concept fragment (7th Terror)
Talent Token - Upgrade (Seraph)
Revelation Token - Ideal Prerequisites (Epic)
Colosseum VIP Token
Reborn Token - Reset biological lifespan (Legendary)
[Tribulation]: Six Tribulations pending.
Future Tribulations delayed until:
Time: 133 days 14 hours 42 minutes 55 seconds.
Next thresholds: 12 attributes > 600 / 6 attributes > 900 / 3 attributes > 1 200 / 1 attribute > 1 500
Comments
M. Kazai
The higher threshold would allow priam to bring 5 stats to 1499, which is enough to rank alot of his rare skill to epic. It also allows Priam to do at least 1 more tempering with an Ideal Legendary Resistance, maybe 2 before the Tribs. He can also go with for Concepts at Unity into it. And do his 4th Ideal Legendary Tempering at the start of the Trib. In summary the new threshold for the Sextuple would give the room to make a lot of qualitative improvements.
nicolas
I don't think he has a chance to pass the sextuple tribulation yet... Maybe with the bonus from this high tribulation it might become possible, but remember that Priam already tried his sextuple tribulation once and got one shot by like two or three tribulation. So he must train hard to be able to pass a sextuple.
Zaim İpek
That's going to be difficult to evolve. He would need to merge it with Radiation Resistance and also probably Magnetic Resistance. But the odds of him finding a magnetic field strong enough to train resistance is highly unlikely. It would take at least a Tier 5 or higher to have enough power to make a magnetic field that can do damage to flesh. But also, he wouldn't survive the encounter. A strong enough magnetic field would simply rip the electrons from all his atoms and turn him into a dense ball of nucleons with no definite structure. Developing resistance to that would require someone intentionally making the magnetic field just barely strong enough to destabilize his atoms and maybe destroy a small number but not instantly nucletize him. It's a fine line. This is of course not counting the possibility that he lets it kill him so that he gains the resistance upon resurrection. He seems to be avoiding deaths lately. But if he can merge the three, I think that can become Electromagnetic Resistance. And there is no way he gets it at tier-0. Maybe Tier-2 is possible.
Lijwent
Now he needs to evolve the lightning resistance in electro-magnetism resistance, also, could he get the atomic forces' resistance directly, like that would help against Arnold and his stupidly overpowered attacks
IdolTrust
Maybe combine the lighting with pyro to make plasma concept for fusion/fission generation. That could affect Phoenix bloodline as he would be making himself into a pseudo sun.
M. Kazai
You know, the 3rd zone with it's Mist and the 4th with the Hail sound like great places to push Priam's Mist Concept towards Unity.
M. Kazai
I kinda hope that next chapter the Quest Updates and forces the Sextuple on Priam
M. Kazai
Well, electricity is also a form of kinetic energy, so might start using it when Kinetic Control reaches Legendary
M. Kazai
Which is correct. It's about her Thresholds, not Priam's
Custus
Thanks for the chapter!
stormferret
Thanks for the explanation. The conversation between Priam and Jasmine about resistance being denied behind the con lock, soul baptism and mind and in ennoblment. made me think they tried it off screen. Also I agree the wind sounds to weak right now and other skills are mitigating it's formation which makes sense, but this is a high tribulation so I have extremely high expectations of the winds in deeper storm zone. To have when so vicious that he needs to use his breath concept just to keep it from ripping the air from his lungs or causing them to explode from pressure to differentials, so sharp and fast that's torn and crush the hail into tiny micro crystals that'll blast off his skin worse than any sandblaster. Anyways if he doesn't get it now I'm sure you have plans for it later. Also with your description of the proceeding zone being colder sounds like a good opportunity for him to gain some specific resistances with cold elements, ice, freezing, frostbite. Since Priam previous had thermal and heat resistance but he combined those so I wonder if he's now vulnerable to cold-based attacks and environments
Disclancer
Great chapter! On the section where Jasmine reads the quest rewards it says 300/600/1200 instead off 600/900/1200 though :)
James Faulkner
Agreed!
PriÀm
Great question! Well, he didn't even train it with Kazuki as he knew it wouldn't work. Now, he could try to unlock it, but as it is, the wind is too weak to damage him on its own, plus the blunt damage and asphyxia damage are already covered by other resistances. He would need Kazuki's Wind Concept to get it
Andrew
Thank you!
stormferret
Hmmm wasn't the con cap blocking wind resistance from forming. Storm seems like great place to unlock wind, lightning, water, and maybe some others or a combination like storm resistance?
PriÀm
Fixed!
brennon Petersen
Tftc!
James Faulkner
Awesome, Tftc!!
Sam
I kinda hope Priam does a sextuple trib even after the three tribs are validated, if he can do that, he can beat wave 100 of the coliseum too.
Sam
I feel like he should use electric energy as an energy source along with aether to power things. I hope he eventually gets a nuclear energy creating skill too.
Wanderer
Opening his eyes, Priam saw he was on a kinetic platform. He could hear the waves crashing a few meters below him. His add-on had sa Something is missing here.
Rad
We are not the same. Fucking hilarious.
