Chapter 166 – Accelerating the Exploitation

The day preceded as normal. That was lots of disk carving and magic practice in the divine champion’s trial while his avatar did the usual twelve-year-old stuff. He had made considerable progress, and each disk now took less than an hour to create and more importantly he had eight spots where he could safely stop his transformation of the wood. He used each of these natural breaks to spend a few minutes consuming his fully regenerated mana pool to practice his spells. Expert Danger Sense, as always, prevented him from casting anything hazardous to his health. It was not perfect. It still let through the occasional backlash, but nothing that couldn’t either be fixed in ten minutes or would go away by itself. He chose to have a break when the cohort lined up to do obstacles courses with the added complexity of everyone else getting to fire blunted arrows to make the entire thing harder. It looked interesting, so he joined, mainly to see how much it changed the course. Naturally, he made sure to increase the difficulty by the usual amount with his ring. . His Fateful Earth Body meant even when he fell or was hit he wasn’t hurt. The burst of attributes or hardening of the skin were enough. Luckily, he had learnt to control the trait so that the stone shielding wouldn’t trigger unless he wanted it to, so that very visible manifestation of a trait that he shouldn’t possess didn’t give himself away.

He went from there to the isolation rooms and then the three of them met in the hallway after their sessions with Eloise almost skipping. She was that excited.

When they reached the dining hall, the reason for Eloise’s excitement became clear. There were not-parents everywhere. Eloise looked around, squealed, and then sprinted toward familiar figures.

“Mum, Dad, you’re back.”

Eloise’s dad grabbed her and even though she was almost twelve and was tall and lanky, he lifted her and swung her around as effortlessly as he always had. “Ellie Babe!”

She yelled in delight as he whipped her around before placing her smoothly back on the ground.

“How did the raids go.”

Her mum grinned. “Great, amazing. Can you believe it? We got a first clear bonus.”

Eloise’s face rather than sharing her parents’ excitement hardened. “Was it safe?”

“Yes, dear,” she said in a manner that made it clear that it was anything but that.

“Mumm!”

“It was fine Ellie,” her dad said sternly. “We’re supposed to be the protective ones, not you.”

“But first clears are the trial type that kills people most frequently.”

“Bah… Only if you’re amateurs. We didn’t even have to use fate.”

“At least not in the trial,” her mum clarified. “It would be stupid to not use it before going in. We spent two days camped outside it and I’m very impressed by the fact the geas didn’t stop me from saying that tells me that all three of you are smarter than you should be.” She thankfully didn’t probe further. “Now how’s my favourite trio.”

They chatted about everything they had done and when bedtime approached, Eloise’s dad knelt so that he was on eye level with all of them. “Now it’s time to get serious.” Out of nowhere, a bag filled with items appeared. “This is to be donated to the gifting circle that Eloise has mentioned in every letter she’s sent us.”

“Have not,” she protested her cheeks reddening.

Tom could feel the power contained in the bag. There were multiple high leveled items in them. It was too good an opportunity to waste. “Can I distribute them?”

“Yes, of course.”

Tom stared at him and tapped his foot impatiently.

The not dad appeared confused. “Yes, you can.”

“Um…” Tom stuttered and tried to look embarrassed. “It’s silly you know, but that’s not how things are supposed to works.” He twisted his hands in mock agitation. “You’re meant to gift them to me and then trust that I’ll pass them on to others.”

The not dad shook his head. “Right. Tom, these are for you.” He thrust the large bag into Tom’s chest. He could feel a dagger pressing against his leg through the fabric. Thankfully, it was sheathed. When he got an opportunity, he would send it into his soul storage and upgrade the miscellaneous items without anyone being wiser. Everyone else would just think Eloise’s not parents had been particularly generous. Plus, this way even though he would never know it Eloise’s dad was about to get a fate boost.

“That’s for the community, but I also have gifts for you each individually.”

Briana got a fancy gem that he could tell would increase her water affinity. It was absolutely not something that a child should have received. Eloise’s gift was a flower.

“Eat it and it’ll settle in your stomach and make you more resistant to any poisons you consume.” Her mum explained.

“Is that an actual natural treasure.” Briana asked her eyes wide in amazement.

“Yes, it is.”

Briana reached out and touched it. “So soft and smells so amazing. What tier is it?”

“It’s a six.” Eloise’s dad said only to be elbowed by his wife.

“That’s too much,” Eloise immediately protested.

“Take it dear. We want you to have it.” The mum was quick to insist.

“But that’s an adventurer level treasure. It shouldn’t go to me.”

The not mum glared at her husband. “That’s why I told you not to mention the tier, you know how this place harps on about assignment of resources.”

“Because it’s right,” Eloise protested.

“No, it’s wrong.” The mum snapped. “I earned this and I can do what I want with it and that’s for you to consume.”

“But…”

After three minutes of protest to absolutely no one’s surprise, she ate the flower. Nothing visible happened as she consumed an item worth at least half a million experience but that was the nature of the treasure. She would be immune to any poisons up to tier six and most venoms to boot. Her protections earned in a second were far better than what he had managed through dedication and hundreds of nights of suffering to earn each of his titles.

“Finally, we get to you, Tom,” the not dad smiled kindly at him. “I have two things for you, but nothing as amazing as what the girls got. First this.” He handed over a book.

Internal Mana Manipulation - Jump.

Tom stared at it in shock.

“I want you to know I don’t approve of your choice, but if you’re going to try that crap I thought this might help.”

Tom opened the book and discovered it was filled with diagrams that detailed the whole process of creating the technique. He glanced up at Eloise’s dad in shock. “This… it’s honestly amazing.”

“Yes, an acquaintance of mine did it and when I asked him to, he put it down on paper. The drawings are a bit rough but he’s a clever guy, so I’m sure he’s communicated all the details you want to see.”

Tom’s eyebrows rose as he read the summary. “Ha… He got a fifty percent more powerful jump, wow… that’s actually significant.”

“Yes, it was,” the other man said simply. “Particularly impressive given that it’s a persistent benefit at low mana cost. Jumping is not as a niche skill as you think. He’s an archer and uses it to reposition all the time, but even a front liner jumps multiple times per battle. If developing internal mana manipulation abilities wasn’t such a crap shoot, I would’ve signed up for it.”

“Thank you. This is priceless.” Tom admitted.

“But also cost nothing,” he responded. “Just a conversation and Tony was more than happy to write it all down. My second gift is as equally worthless and priceless. It’s a sensing skills so not very valued and you’re only getting it because you’ve got a high affinity in earth magic.”

He handed Tom a distinctively non-intricate spell stone. The part of him that had leapt in excitement at hearing he might get a powerful earth sensing skill crashed and burned.

His feelings must have been visible because the other man’s lips turned down. “I get you, son. No red-blooded boy dreams about being given a sensing skill. Kids like you dream of earth spike, golems, crushing hands of death and earth quakes. I can’t redirect something like that to you, because Dimitri would probably kick me permanently out of the orphanage for it.” He wouldn’t Tom knew or maybe he would if only to preserve Tom’s hidden status of being reincarnated. “But I can give you this. It’s only tier two, but as I said with your high affinity, it will hopefully be potent.”

Automatically, he assessed and shifted briefly into the system room to see what he had gotten.

Spell: Earth Pulse (Special) – Tier 2.

Create a pulse of energy that will travel through stone and reveal details of enemies in it or standing on it.

Special: Accuracy, distance and mana cost of the ability improves with every point of affinity over 75.

The reason why it had been described as worthless and priceless was obvious. While the description didn’t say it, Tom could feel how the spell worked. Every point above and below weakened the ability by ten percent. If you had an affinity of seventy, you would end up with a spell that was forty percent weaker than the normal Earth Pulse, but with his affinity of eighty-seven the opposite would occur and the spell would be three times higher. The affinity bonus of around seventy percent he was currently getting would be applied to that elevated base to make the overall spell five times stronger than usual. And even more once he got the divine fruit. Those multipliers were the bits that made it priceless, but only in the right hands.   

“Thank you, it’s amazing.”

The session finished and on the way back he slipped into an isolation room. Once the door was secured, he sent everything into his soul storage and then brought it all straight back out. The bag filled with goodies got noticeably heavier, but his focus switched to the personal gifts he had received.

Spell: Detect Earth (Special) – Tier 3.

An expensive mana spell that will allow you to sense any movement on the ground or in the ground for thirty metres in all directions. Range increases and mana cost decreases with skill level. Can be channelled.

Special: Accuracy, distance and mana cost of the ability improves with every point of affinity over 77

Tom licked his lips as he studied it. Each point of affinity was still ten percent, but the parity point had risen by two to seventy-seven. That meant that currently for him it was only two and a half times as powerful as the standard version, but that was still material. As for the skill itself, Tom knew how handy it was because he had possessed a non-special version in his previous life. The ability to sense the movements of enemies made it difficult for opponents to sneak up on him and had allowed him to launch ambushes without line of sight.

He wanted to claim it immediately, but doubt crept into him. With the number of tier four skills he was going to earn and the various abilities that had already been gifted to him, a mere tier three ability felt underwhelming.

He licked his lips and throught of Kang and how much fate the boy was burning daily. He tossed the stone that had developed silver etching up and down in his hand and glanced down at the bag at his feet.

How many kids had an earth affinity over seventy-seven? Out of the hundred or so people in their gifting circle, there might be five of them with an affinity above eighty-five where absorbing this stone would become almost irresistible.

Doing what he planned would be a gamble, or was it?

Once more, he thought about Kang and fate. Statistically, the attempt might only have a fraction of a percent of chance of working out how he envisaged, but with fate at play that became a near certainty.

So was it a gamble?

He flipped the stone and watched it sparkle as it spun through the air. It was an educated bet and even if it failed, there would be future opportunities. As impressive as Tier three might be to some, he couldn’t judge things like normal people. He wouldn’t be happy with only reaching the basic powerhouse status. He needed to be extraordinary, and tier three was almost too weak of an ability to justify including in his bag of tricks even if it was for free.

Tom knew he was lying to himself, but greed had taken over. With a shrug, he opened the sack Eloise’s dad had given him and dropped the stone to join the other random items he was going to gift to others.  If fate was on his side, it would come back to him and if had gone through enough hands and with the changes to his title it would be able to be upgraded. He, of course, would have to be very careful of what he said to Kang. The GODs did not like people exploiting what they had built, and he was under more scrutiny than most. He definitely couldn’t be specific, but maybe a simple comment that he wanted a tier four non precog sensing ability would distant himself enough that when it came back it would be upgradeable, because that was the line he was walking. If he engineered things too much, he would not be further punished. It was just the additional chance to upgrade would be denied.

“Hmm,” he said to himself. Maybe he should play things more carefully and be less specific. Maybe he’d just have a conversation about his high earth affinity and a desire to exploit it. Kang would tailor a prayer around that wording and if as a result this spell stone that did exactly what he wanted came back to him then that would be great. If the GODs thought that was against the spirit, then they would block the stone and the fate would probably send something as equally useful to him.

No matter the outcome he would probably win. Decision made he left the stone in the bottom of the sack.

Finally, he materialised the book he had been given. It, too, had been changed by Known Heretic. The binding was more professional but still amateur, but the most exciting part was its name had been altered. That made goose bumps rise on his arms.

A Comprehensive Guide to the Implementation of the Internal Mana Manipulation Technique - Jump.

It was now ridiculously wordy, but explained everything in amazing detail. It was also he realised, after skimming the first page a different technique. His awe grew. The boost this new jumping method gave was seventy percent instead of fifty. The masterpiece he now held wasn’t what he had been gifted, but a better version.

While the title had said it could upgrade anything, he hadn’t expected for the contents of a book to be improved by it. The quality of the paper, sure, but the actual worded substance? That was way beyond his expectations.

He thought about the spell books that Dimitri had gifted him and he wondered if unknowingly he was using a more advanced version than what had been physically passed over. He didn’t know because when he had received them with the exception of a cursory glance at the title; he had slotted them straight into his storage.

He licked his lips and made a mental note to never show them to Dimitri and when he was finished with them and had to re-gift, he would have to do in a way that the headmaster would never get to see them.

It didn’t change much, but it also changed everything. 

He flipped through the technique and, studying it he knew he would be successful in learning the ability. Everything now made so much more sense. The book by itself wouldn’t have been enough, but he now had over five years experimenting and that prior knowledge with this new layout would be sufficient.

The previous journal had been an excellent attempt to capture the ability. It had been comprehensive, with the minutiae recorded, but written manually by a user rather than an educator. It had been high quality and detailed, but that previous book was trash in comparison to the transformed one. The rough diagrams now looked like ones that belonged in medical textbooks. They were precise and there were far more illustrated schemas that Tom found he could understand immediately. The layout was superior. It wasn’t because it was tailored to him personally it was just that the system knew how to communicate technical details far better than the author of the technique had.

“Wow,” he whispered to himself, and then he thoughtfully studied the bookshelf across from him. One filled with painstakingly constructed wireframes that contained all the spells required to take any of the common affinities up to tier six.

Then he looked around the room more generally, at what was visible, and he remembered what was in the hidden cupboards.

He sighed. “Well, this is just grand. How am I going to trick Dimitri into gifting me all this.”

Then Tom smiled. It would take time, but with Kang’s fate, Social Silence and time he was confident that he could manage it and he couldn’t wait to see how much more advanced the new books would be.

AG. Health wise, I'm improving. Domestically, speaking, Anna has a recoverd a little bit but best case it'll be weaks and possibly months until she's recovered. I also slipped up and have multiple kids upset at me when I failed to get washing done.