Chapter 152—Generating a Profit

Tom lounged in the seat next to Kang’s bed. They were both in the real world and he was reading a treatise on magic out loud. It was nothing particularly profound and almost certainly not anything Kang was interested in. Hell, even before he suffered the mental damage he had, this was not a topic that he would have voluntarily dedicated time too. The intricacies of mana affinity in different spell structures were relevant to Tom, but not to any of his friends. That disconnect didn’t matter. Kang liked to hear the sound of other voices and for it to be meaningful to them. He didn’t want to be read fantasy books he just wanted to be part of another improving themselves.

He glanced at Kang, and he could see how his eyelids were starting to droop. The orphanage knew in vague terms about the boy’s ability. Dimitri had even organised ordinary kids to come in and use the virtual obstacle courses that Kang could create both to speed the children’s development and to provide a smokescreen for Tom’s own use. The medical team had a different opinion and wanted to improve Kang’s soul to body connection and encouraged Tom and the girls to spend as much time in the real world as possible. 

But doing so to the point of him collapsing unconscious helped no one.

“Hey mate, do you think you could take me… um… elsewhere.”

There was a long pause and for a moment Tom thought he might have made the request too late and Kang had already entered one of the frequent blackouts that always followed him staying alert for too long.

Cautiously, he grasped his friend’s hand and squeezed. “Kang, use your ability.”

Another five seconds passed and then the invitation came. 

Tom sighed in relief when he stepped through and found himself in Kang’s system room.

There was a second room his ability maintained. At any, one point in time, there were three or four non-reincarnated kids using it and it was frustrating when Kang slotted him into that space when Tom only wanted to spend time with his friend. The obstacle course offered was useful if you were opposed to pain but Tom got no benefit from it. He would prefer a real one with real risks in case it helped with an earned title.

His friend waved.

“Thanks mate. It’s good to be able to talk.”

“Wat, appen. It ood.”

Tom grinned pleasantly surprised. He had remembered their conversation from yesterday. “Yes, it happened. The disks were distributed and Briana has her extra layer of protection.”

“Ood, ood.”

“Yeah. I totally agree and I got paid.”

“Big?”

“Yep. I got the new skill I was talking about.”

“Me, me.”

“You want me to show you?”

Kang nodded furiously.

Tom focused and the TV over the bed got a little bigger, the screen less TV and more intricately printed poster.

Skill: Integrated Domain – Tier 8

This domain can incorporate all skills and spells you have learned. Passive abilities are absorbed automatically while active ones will need effort to embed.

The primary benefit is that active spells and skills can be cast from anywhere in the domain and it gives secondary benefits of improving spells by 20% and skills by 50%.

Starting domain size is a thirty-metre sphere. 

Tom smiled when he read the description. “It’s pretty good isn’t it.”

“orks?”

“Does it work?” Tom sighed heavily. “Unfortunately. Not yet. I’m working on it. I’m going to get Spark first as its my most versatile spell and I want to expand its range. Then it’s the same for Touch Heal and Earth Manipulation. Converting them to ranged abilities is just cheating.”

“Harrrd?”

“Yes, it’s really hard. I’m getting headaches from doing too much of it. But I’ll get there. It’s feels strange to have a domain which doesn’t currently actually do anything.”

Kang nodded happily and then as often happened when he was talking about random things his hourly wave of fate was released and unsurprisingly it targeted him. Sometimes he wondered if he spent as much time here as he did because of the fate being thrown around to bring him. His presence made Kang happy, so it made sense that the opportunities he got to come here might not have been engineered by Dimitri, but instead by guided luck.

His friend’s eye lids drooped and inside he frowned a little at what he was planning. He didn’t like this part of himself, but he had to do it.

“Hey Kang. Can you bring Briana here?”

“Op oo oral.”

Tom winced. Usually, he could interpret what came out, but that… he was drawing a blank. “I don’t… sorry I didn’t catch that.”

“imme. Opt imme.”

“Opt imme,” he repeated and then he suddenly realised what he was saying. Stop time?” he guessed.

Kang nodded.

“Do you really have a choice?”

His friend grinned and used his fist to tap his temple.

“That’s really powerful. Should you use it? Probably she’s currently in class and in case she’s talking or something we should probably stop time. That’s if it’s an option.”

He felt the reality he was in tremble and the background noise ceased. Half a second later, Briana appeared two metres from the bed which was the distance Kang always placed people when he brought them in.

She looked around, realised where she was, and she hurried to the bed without giving him a second glance. “Kang, are you okay? Do you need anything? You don’t normally summon anyone.”

“It’s just a test.” Tom assured her. “I figured it was time to find out what he could do.”

“Maybe warn me next time, I was worried.” She patted Kang’s hand.

“In real life, are you sitting down?” Tom pressed.

She nodded.

“Mate, can you send her away and bring her in normally for a moment.”

Kang nodded, and then Briana disappeared.

Reality distorted, and he heard the background noise from the hospital room.

Because Bri was in a classroom, he focused and created a monitor for her. It was important that she remained aware of what was happening around her body. Instantly, the voice of the teacher echoed in the room as she discussed the requirements and advantages of a pottery aligned career.

Briana shook her head to clear it. “What’s with this?” she waved.

“Time’s not stopped. Your body functions, but only to the point of grunting in reaction to stimuli. Providing your sitting and not interacting then it’s pretty decent camouflage, but if someone addresses you then you need to know straight away and go pilot your body.”

“It’s loud,” she complained.

“Yes, it is. But I have a solution.” Tom concentrated again and then held out his hand that contained two small white buds. “Slip these in your ears.”

She glared at him suspiciously, and he pointed at his own, which served to both illustrate that what he was asking was normal and how to put them in. What ever magic Kang used to support the functionality was powerful. With these in he could hear movement in the corridor, which in real life would have been impossible. It made visiting Kang in his system room extremely safe.

Once she had slipped the earbuds on, the background noise of the lecture thankfully vanished.

“This is good.” Briana said immediately. “But why am I back?”

“Just testing. You can go if you want.”

She vanished.

“Now can you invite Dimitri.”

His friend nodded, and a moment later, the school headmaster stood in the room with them. Unlike Briana, his eyes swept the space and then landed on him and ignored Kang.

“This your doing Tom?”

“Yes.”

“What’s my body doing. Why am I here?” Dimitri demanded, cutting straight to the chase.

The background noise from his body had vanished once more. “Your body is doing nothing this  is frozen time.”

Dimitri rubbed his hands together happily. “Excellent.” He glanced around once more. “This is nothing like what the other kids are reporting.”

“No, that’s an ad on. This is the real crux of the skill. I didn’t even know the obstacle course existed until it started happening.” He glanced guiltily at Kang. “It’s a subconscious thing. It’s not like he can actively manage it. Even though it’s based on his experiences I’m not sure he’s even aware of it.”

“Fair enough. I don’t know how much time we have, so first what happened to Kang?”

Tom flinched. It had been weeks and Dimitri must have been itching to have this chat the entire time, but had resisted the temptation. “How can I explain this. He was tricked and fought an opponent, I mean a monster we call the trident without any GOD shield protection. He lost, and it’s a miracle he survived as intact as he did.”

Literally, he thought but didn’t say it.

“And you and Briana? Can you be tricked.”

“I can’t. You know the whole title priestess thing.”

“I do. Mind you, that’s turned out quite well. Your little experiment is yielding impressive results. No one is questioning my budgets at the moment. How about Briana?”

Tom having expected that had already materialised one of the Danger Sense Rituals. He had crafted it in Existentia, but as it sat in his hands he realised it was only a prop. He couldn’t physically pass the real thing to Dimitri. Kang’s skill obviously didn’t allow that level of flexibility. If it did it would be truly broken. “She has one of these.”

The big man examined it for just a moment. “I’m guessing you created this?”

“Yes.”

“Then how was Kang not protected?”

He considered telling the truth and could almost feel the geas proactively wrap itself around his throat and start to squeeze. He abandoned that idea. “There were reasons.”

Dimitri looked between him and Kang. “Beyond your control?”

“Yes.”

Very deliberately Dimitri crossed his chest.

“Exactly, something like that.” Tom said with a wry smile.

“That sucks.”

“You have no idea.”

Dimitri snorted. “You’d be surprised about what I’ve experienced. I think I understand. Will you ever meet this trident.”

“Yes, I’m training to slaughter it.

Dimitri laughed. “Why does that not surprise me.”

“I’ve been preparing for years.”

“That long?”

“Yes, I met it while under a full GOD’s shield early on in the process. It uses illusions.”

“Oh, with your talents did you fight it?”

“No. I got slaughtered like a helpless baby piglet, but I made progress against the illusion which no one else had managed. I’ve been preparing to gain the skills I need to kill it ever since.”

“And do you think it’s likely you’ll get what you need an opportunity to kill it.”

Tom considered what he had gone through. “I can defend myself already, but it only fights under a partial GOD’s shield. The only way to kill it is to do to it what it did to Kang.”

“You want to damage its soul?”

“I want to cut up its soul so badly it’ll never get reincarnated.”

Dimitri nodded, then scrunched up his nose. “I get why, and while I appreciate a good revenge story, do you really want that type of power. It stains you.”

“If it lets me kill it and remove it from the trial so it can’t hurt anyone else then yes, I don’t care about any stigma.”

“I obviously don’t know how this works, but will you get a chance to kill it.”

Tom shrugged. “They’re training me and I’ve made progress but honestly I don’t know how long it will take. When I started, I thought success was guaranteed, and it was a matter of time. But now I’m starting to feel otherwise.”

“You think it’ll take you longer than five years to get the skills. That doesn’t seem likely.”

“Not that. I’m more worried if I don’t get the skills in the next couple of months it might age out. I might lose my chance for revenge.”

“Where are you with the training?”

“I’ve completed the first two steps to gain a sense of the soul and some defence. I don’t have anything offensive yet.”

“Hm… and do you think there are rating points in it.”

“That’s a fucking messed up question. These are kids whose souls are getting obliterated. It’s not about ranking points.”

“Easy Tom. I’m looking to help you here. I’m not the enemy. Do you think there are ranking points in you killing this trident.”

“Let’s put it this way. It’s killing children who are the last hope of their civilisations. If we kill it those children will survive.” He met the bigger man’s gaze with an angry stare. “But that’s not why I’m doing it. For me it’s not about ranking points.”

“I understand,” Dimitri glanced at the bed and alarm flashed across his face.

Tom followed the look and saw beads of sweat across Kang’s forehead. Tom appeared instantly next to his friend, having used the unique nature of the room to teleport to the new location rather than walking. He placed a hand on Kang’s cheek and it was clammy. “Are you okay mate? What’s happening?”

“Ard.”

There was a shudder, and he could hear noise through his earbuds. When he glanced back, Dimitri had vanished.

“Ard.”

“It was hard and you couldn’t keep it up.”

A tired Kang nodded. 

“You did good. Just tell us next time. That’s enough testing for now. Let me do this.” He left the system room and grabbed his magic study book and started reading.

Over two months had passed and Kang’s health in Existentia had improved to the point he could shift the position of his arm along with his eyes, but nothing had changed in his system space. His soul to body connection was improving, but as for the soul itself. That, like Tom had suspected from the start had shown zero improvement. He still struggled to move, form words, and was confused by any sudden topic change and had no capacity to carry out any complicated visualization or mathematics.

Basically, his brain was still scrambled and Tom along with the girls had settled into a routine. Kang nearly always had someone at his side during awake hours. The three of them collectively took about five hours of those blocks with most of that time spent in the actual system room. Often with Dimitri or Wan Na who were both reincarnators with years of experience and they carried out magical classes to speed their development.

In fact, when he visited Kang he usually had a couple of reincarnated kids in his system room either waiting or already receiving expert tutoring. Dimitri had ruthlessly taken advantage of the opportunity to tutor reincarnators, Kang had been moved into his own converted gymnasium and there were always a handful of normal kids exploiting the pseudo training grounds.

The net effect was a slight boon to their collective powers.

Tom didn’t care about that.

He did his training with Dimitri, getting personal tutoring on his spear work against a sword and shield fighter before he left for the Divine Champions trial.

Mr Cricket sat across from him. “I’m impressed at your progress”

“I don’t care.”

“You know you’re a genuine menace. I don’t know how you sourced a tier six skill. I’m surprised a species in the competition can throw such resources at a child no matter how talented.”

“What can I say I’m resourceful.”

“You don’t have to be hostile. It’s not like I’ll be in your life for long.”

Tom didn’t respond. His glare said everything.

“It wasn’t my fault. The geas.”

“I don’t care about excuses.”

“There’re not excuses. You know what? It doesn’t matter. Be angry with me if you want. The skill you got only saves you years if you can get a proper attack skill. And honestly, I’m not sure you’re putting in the required effort to match your good fortune.”

Tom licked his lips. After his conversation with Dimitri, the headmaster had apparently been motivated and had sourced and then gifted him the ability Soul Hack that his trait had converted to.

Skill: Soul Scalpel – Tier 6

Form a tendril of soul that can act as a scalpel upon others.

Sometimes Tom wondered if the non-upgraded version wouldn’t have actually been better. The higher tier ability was more powerful, but it was also more specialised. It was an ability for editing and removing negative skills from people. It wasn’t intended for battle like he would have to do with the trident.

Mr Cricket however had reacted to the new ability with joy and ramped up his torture sessions something Tom hadn’t realised was even possible. The intensity had paid off.

Skill: Soul Stun – Tier 4

Through suffering repeated sessions of soul torture and a deep understanding of an offensive soul ability, you’ve learnt to inflict a deliberating soul slap on others. That can briefly stun an opponent or kill them if their soul is substantially weaker than your own.

It unfortunately took him a couple of seconds to pull together, which meant it didn’t translate well to a typical fight, but if he had someone protecting him at his rank, it would be deadly against his typical opponent. He had gone and fought the water elemental lair, and the ability had been devastating against a monster type that couldn’t leave its pool of water. Apparently his soul was substantially stronger than an equivalently ranked elemental and every Soul Stun had destroyed whatever it hit. It almost felt like popping balloons with a chainsaw.

But outside very specific and often over engineered niche situations it was kind of useless. That delay in initialisation was a brutal weakness in fights where every single second counted. However, it was a massive boost to his title chase and made the years of suffering worth it. That single skill was worth over a year of April’s tutoring.

He still remembered what Mr Cricket had said. “You might consider this to be earned, but it’s only because of that scalpel ability. Without that intimate understanding, it would’ve been years if ever before you got it.”

While Soul Stun was one of the two abilities he needed, it wasn’t the only skill he had gotten.

Skill: Soul Bulwark – Tier 3

Due to repeated soul torture and an intimate understanding of souls your soul has gained an increase in resilience of ten times.

It was doubtful that even if he lost the fight against the trident that it would be able to hurt him. That ten times multiplier was significant and meant that the only way his soul would get damaged is if it went up against something way out of his weight range. If he was rank ten, then even individuals or monsters specialising in soul attacks would have to be over rank one hundred to injure him. Of course, if he was up against anything that was ten times his rank he could be killed by it sneezing, so for all intents and purposes he was now immune to soul attacks.

Not that it would help him. As Mr Cricket was quick to point out if his resilience started to matter against the trident then he had lost because it meant it had the upper hand and would be able to escape. No, he needed to feign weakness, hit it with a stun and then tear its soul apart before it could recover enough to do its body self-destruct and escape.

“Are you ready to continue Tom.”

“I am.”

“Then strike me. Make your childish dislike a reality. Tear me to shreds.”

Tom unleashed everything he had. He chained the skills he already possessed. Scalpel cutting into his tormentors soul even while he struck with Soul Stun multiple times.

Mr Cricket’s arms slithered through complex patterns as he effortlessly battered away Tom's attacks. The body language translator flagged the display as an expression of amused mockery. “Are you trying to be cute? Because that’s all you doing. I thought you were a man. Kang got turned into a vegetable because you were too slow. How does that feel?”

Tom’s mind shuddered to a halt in a very familiar manner. Usually he would fight against it in this situation, but right in this instant he didn’t care.

How dare it say that?

It was its fault that Kang had died and despite that culpability it was willing to say that..

It was depraved, and it had to be dealt with.

Unmeasurable fury blasted through him. Tom recognised the signs, but had no desire to fight it. Right now, in this moment, he needed to crush the annoyance and correct the injustice of its very existence.

Blind anger consumed him.

Only the ugly ball of arms death would satisfy him and not just bodily destruction, he wanted to crush its soul. Nothing else would satisfy the all-consuming rage in him.

Even through the blinding fury, he knew a physical attack was impossible, but that didn’t matter he had extra weapons now. His soul could strike with as much deadliness as his fists.

With a growl, Tom threw everything he could into a single blow. He combined bulwark, stun and scalpel together. He wanted to reach out and dig into the soul and leave wounds that would persist through reincarnation. His will consolidated the abilities and something clicked and compared to his previous surgical cuts, he was now striking with the sharpened blades of a ten tonne excavator.

Mr Cricket’s soul flashed.

There were trumpets.

The blow continued shattering the defences that had been thrown up.

It was working.

Then he was alone in the room. The final swish struck nothing. His prey was gone.

“No,” he screamed.

He hit the table with all of his power.

It shattered.

That should have meant something, but it didn’t. Everything paled in comparison to finding his target and releasing his rage. He leapt up, but before he got to the door, it vanished, leaving solid stone in its wake. Tom struck where the exit used to be with his fist. He consumed bursts to boost himself and he tried to punch his way through so he could reach the person who did this.

His knuckles came away bloody despite Fateful Earth Body’s best attempts to protect him

Screaming, he punched again and again.

Bones broke.

He wanted to kill, but he couldn’t.

His stomach demanded recompense. It screamed for satisfaction.

The artificial anger vanished, and the trumpets were still going off.

He stood there heaving for breath with his fist throbbing. The pain, while significant, didn’t bother him. It was the implications of what had just happened that consumed his focus.

His rage disability had not flared at an inopportune moment for years. Managing it during the battles he was destined to lose anyway had worked almost perfectly. But today he had lost himself when he hadn’t wanted to. Yes, Mr Cricket had dug deep in a deliberate attempt to trigger it. He had discussed it with Corrine in its presence, so the bastard knew and was probably also aware that Tom had won the last five fights, so was particularly susceptible.

But that wasn’t what worried him. It was the implication that the curse could use his new soul skills that was problematic.

Currently, he had dismissed the ability as irrelevant because even if his strength got a boost he was still a rank 2 nobody and multipliers against such a low base weren’t enough to matter. Any adult could stop him, but if he used soul attacks as well even if a volunteer was present they might not be able to intercede.

People could very well die now when he lost himself to his fury.

He glanced around the empty room suddenly annoyed. “Show me what I just got,” he snapped. Words appeared on the wall he was looking at like the stone was secretly a screen.

Skill: Soul Rend – Tier 5.

Allows you to maul an opponent’s soul.

It was a simple description of such a potent ability. He had felt what he had launched at Mr Cricket and exactly how powerful this was. Scalpel might be technically stronger. It was a soul ability capable of cutting a rank hundred that possessed some specific rudimentary soul defences. Soul Rend couldn’t do that, but against a rank twenty without any defences a single slash would probably tear it apart so badly it would take months for it to mend. Three or four would drop it to Kang’s level and anymore would kill it and that was against something that would otherwise be ten times more powerful than him. 

He felt the atmosphere change behind him.

“You did it.” Mr Cricket said.

“I did.” He said quietly. The rage that had been all-consuming was gone. He no longer felt any compulsion to lash out at it. Through his dislike remained as strong as ever.

“You can kill it now.”

He thought of Kang lying on the bed. “I can I will and I’ll enjoy it.”

AG. School holiday's for the next two weeks. It shouldn't impact output. I beat my 10k published words minimum this week which I'm happy with.