Chapter 377 – Titles Conveyed (Patreon)

Bir wiped the snot off her face with the sleeve of her dress. It was disgusting, but Tom made sure he didn’t react as such. It wasn’t about keeping up his cover, either; it was about her. She had always been fragile around others, and Tom’s heart bled for her. She was the worst person this could have happened to.

The girl sniffed repeatedly. New tears began to form.

“He ate poop,” Pa reminded her.

Tom doubted that Pa, who was almost five, had noticed the same signs he had, but the interjection got through to her.

“Yuck!” She half smiled and wiped the other half of her face. Tom really wanted to push her into a cleaning loop, but he knew that wasn’t going to happen until lunch. “So yuck.”

They all chuckled and then slowly headed back toward the orphanage while pointedly staying on the correct side of the road. Tom realised he didn’t resent the decision to head back to safety. For now, he had no desire to explore further. He didn’t care how big the town was anymore. What he had seen had told him enough. The town’s population was in the thousands, probably tens of thousands, but not higher, but it no longer mattered. What was important was that he was safe. Powerful defences had been set up, and there was more than enough security to let him develop to his full potential without feeling like his life was continually in danger.

He had been expecting to grow up as a kid in a small tribe perpetually running from monsters. Basically, to live in a continual struggle to survive. This outcome was infinitely better.

As they descended from the hill, Tom realised after about ten metres that he was moving far too lightly on his feet, given the discipline he had received. Bir tottered significantly more gingerly, and in response he tapered down his own range of motion and pretended to be just as crippled. Relative to what he had experienced as an adult, the slight discomfort he was in was not enough to slow him down, but little kids had different pain thresholds, so he didn’t blame her for her weakness. She was young, and he knew that his younger self would have been similarly affected. They reached the park and played in the safe spaces outside the orphanage, where they had full rights to be – and, as a bonus, there were no adults in sight to harass them.

Collectively, they were drawn to the cartoon space laser and managed to scramble up to the eighth disk. That left them two stories high, and the fall was onto the hard moulded metal supports of the weapon. The setup combined with the height they had climbed was clearly unsafe, but, unlike on the hill, no one came to tell them off. They were allowed here, and Tom was sure there was some sort of indirect monitoring to make certain they didn’t fall or spells that would save them if they did. Despite his certainty, he was not willing to throw himself off from this elevation to prove that point.

The day had warmed up, and Pa, being slightly larger, had reached the eleventh disk while he and Bir had got to the tenth.

A bell went off, telling them it was lunchtime, so they retreated inside.

Lunch was fun. It was not a dedicated health day, and there were no adults to direct what they ate, so the full range of exciting unhealthy options were available. Tom gleefully chose pancakes combined with a thick dose of maple syrup and vanilla ice cream. It was a perfect meal, because it agreed with both his and little Ta’s palates.

Having eaten their lunch, they immediately disappeared into the child fortress to hide. They ascended deep into its internals, so that, rather than being positioned to look over the rest of the gymnasium, they were on the far wall instead. It left them as far as away from the teachers as possible. From Little Ta’s memories, he knew it was a futile effort, but for appearance’s sake he went along with it anyway. Plus, the poor attempt suited him, since he wanted to get into the isolation room.

While they attempted to be quiet, they played heroes against terrors, whispering the spells each of their figurines used, such as pasta blast, isolation walls and big bird poop.

Croak.

All three of them jumped at the unexpected noise.

They spun as one.

A green frog, larger than his head, was staring at them. Instinctively, because of the presence of a monster, they all tensed up. The figurines were of the hard variety, and Tom held them out like weapons. They were trapped in a dead end. There was no flight here - only fight. Luckily for them, the monster was small.

“Froggy.” Bir said after a moment. 

Little Ta’s memories filled in the blanks, and he lowered the figurines. He recognised that it was not a monster, but a familiar. Dimitri’s familiar, to be precise.

Pa was less forgiving. He shoved Cam toward it:

“Pow, pow.”

The frog blinked and then waited.

“Pow, pow,” Pa’s voice became softer, and then trailed into silence and he brought Cam down from the attacking position and into his lap.

It blinked again:

“Follow,” the frog ordered in Dimitri’s voice. “It’s time for your daily isolation room.”

They could have split up and run. If they all went in different directions, one or two of them would have escaped, but they instinctively knew such defiance was pointless. Dimitri finding them like this was a mercy. As usual, he had scheduled for them to all go in at the same time, which for them was the best situation possible, and, if they ran, even if they managed to evade long enough to skip today’s session, it would only mean they would get a double tomorrow. Four hours in the isolation room was more terrible than two sessions on separate days. Not only was it extra boring - they all knew from experience you would spend the last couple of hours with hunger cramps.

The frog hopped ahead of them, and they trailed behind. The route it took was surprisingly direct, and Tom would have to check Little Ta’s memories, but he suspected Dimitri had used magic to speed up the trip by opening up routes that weren’t usually available.

At the bottom of the exit slide, the large man waited.

His eyes still went nowhere near them. There were none of his usual kind words. Instead, he turned and walked away. They watched him.

Croak.

As one, they glanced at the frog.

“Follow.”

It hopped after its master, and they did the same. When they reached the first floor, it turned out there were four rooms available. Because of the sensitivity of the moment and the presence of an adult, Tom retreated to his system room to ensure Little Ta had control. There was no hesitation on the part of his younger self. He skipped over to the doors, scanned himself in, entered the room, and then waved to Bir, who was doing the same in the room directly opposite to him. Both their doors shut mere seconds apart.

Tom made a point of waiting until the ding that signified a full sealing occurred before taking charge once more.

With a massive grin all over his face, he glanced around the isolation room and wondered what he should do.

The bookshelf was the obvious destination, but there was also the exercise equipment, the combat dummies, and the final display which his eyes settled on. There was an alcove that contained a variety of practice spears, and he went straight over to them. Not a single one of them was full size, and the shortest was still too long for him.

He seized it anyway and retreated to the middle of the room.

Once there, he held it in both hands. His right index finger traced over the grain, and he lowered his nose and breathed in deeply. It smelt faintly of the oil used to maintain it.

It was a spear, and it was his to use. Experimentally, he spun it and then thrust forward with a single explosive movement, then pulled back into a resting position. A smile blossomed on his face. There was something about holding a proper weapon, even a practice one, that let him shrug off some of the shroud of impotency that had been dogging him.

At three quarter pace, he performed a simple kata, enjoying the simplicity of the movement and the freedom as the spear whistled through the different positions. The full-length mirrors let him observe just how terrible his form was, but he persisted. His new body had to start somewhere. Besides, as it was, he had no muscle memory to fall back on and very little coordination, not to mention that the nerve connections between his brain and his muscles felt like they were frayed. Movements that had been basic in his past life were beyond his ability now, no matter what speed he attempted them at. Slow, half speed, at full pace - none of them helped. He couldn’t perform them. It was more than just a lack of system skills and attributes. His failures went down to the shape of his body and subtle stuff like having less fast twitch fibres. There were other issues. He was pretty sure his arms were slightly shorter than expected, given his height. That mis-balancing caused him to struggle with motions that should have been routine.

After ten minutes of a light workout that made a single bead of sweat roll down his face, Tom stopped. He didn’t know if physical activity was safe yet, and leaving this room with blisters would be less than ideal.

He put the spear back and quickly rearranged the weapons so they were positioned in an identical arrangement to what they had been before he entered the room. Later, if he had time, he would do something more appropriate, like repurposing all of them into a poorly constructed balance course, an evidence of a four-year-old playing, rather than hiding the idea the weapon had been used at all.

Job done, he faced the bookshelf. It was time to give context to his new life. The reincarnation primer he had spotted in the other isolation room was available in this one, too.

He grabbed it and started to read.

This book is written for people who have reincarnated, but can serve as a source of inspiration for everyone.

Whatever, he thought, he didn’t need to read platitudes. Quickly he scanned the introduction, focusing on ignoring the fluff to extract the hidden gems; to find the truth amongst the dross, so to speak.

You are facing a long grind, and it will be many years before you gain access to the experience shop and the ability to purchase the classes, levels and abilities that you need to have an impact on the ranking ladder. For individuals of your calibre, this will be difficult. Remember, Patience is a Virtue. 

Tom grinned as he read that piece of advice. Individuals of your calibre he guessed was probably code for murderhobos, given the target audience. Counselling patience was absolutely required for people who, like him, would have spent decades on the edge between survival and failure. He could feel that itch in himself. He wanted to go and kill things, to destroy them, to get the rush of power like he had achieved when he had first arrived in Existentia. However, logically, he knew that path was not available, because the experience metric and the shop to use it were locked. Instead, he would have to bide his time and develop naturally rather than supercharge everything by killing lots of monsters.  

Tom skimmed the rest of the introduction chapter, and, despite there being no more individual sentences that caught his attention, he didn’t put the book down. Then he pondered if there were any hidden messages.

There was a secret message. He was sure of it. The text kept referencing the importance of the independent acquisition of skills and the benefit that such an approach gained. Then, separately, it mentioned that interviews with reincarnators revealed they ended up with more titles than expected by the time they reached maturity. The two lines of thought were never linked in the same sentence and rarely in the same paragraph, but on his third re-read Tom became certain of what it was trying to say. Effort spent on gaining abilities would lead to titles, and both quality and quantity counted.

“This is a chance for me to make a difference,” he whispered to himself in the empty room. He would do whatever it took to independently acquire as many abilities as possible. It was not like he hadn’t already been intending to do so, but it was nice to know that there would be a carrot down the line to reward his efforts. What was important was that while he was sure the orphanage would offer some specialised training to gain abilities, taking advantage of this kind of service was a trap. It was something he would actively avoid, if hard work gave him a chance of obtaining it independently.

Having gleaned everything he could from the introduction, he checked the table of contents and flipped through to the chapter dealing with Abilities that Persist Through Reincarnation.

The collective experience of everyone who had gone before him was neatly laid out for him to view.

Traits

·        All Experience Shop or ones bestowed by trait stones are lost.

·        Ten percent of contribution shop purchased traits are carried through. This appears to be at DEUS discretion.

·        Only traits awarded by retained titles are guaranteed to be kept.

Spells

·        All spells not associated with a retained title are removed.

Skills

·        All skills below tier 4 not associated with a retained title are removed.

·        Skills above tier 4 may be maintained unaltered or reduced in tier level. Higher tier skills have an increased chance of persisting and doing so unaltered.

Tom nodded to himself.

It seemed that the system was not generous when it came to allowing abilities from the first Existentia life into the second. The only exception out there was for the high-level skills, and that last line explained why Social Silence still functioned. He wondered if any of his other high-tiered skills had made it through. He guessed it was unlikely, as his other two prospects - Fate Weaponised, Black Dodge, and Contract Binding - had only been tier five. However, if his Black Dodge skill had gotten through the gauntlet even at a lower level, that would be a massive win. As for Contract Binding, Tom really couldn’t care much if he lost it.

Tom flipped the page and saw the sub-heading of titles. This was the entry that he had the most hope for.

The points below are the key guiding rules for the transfer of titles to the second Existentia life.

·        All titles ranked uncommon and below are removed.

·        All titles related only to the body are removed.

·        Titles rated above uncommon and related exclusively to the soul are maintained.

·        Titles that bridge this divide may be kept, downgraded or lost entirely. Evidence suggests this is at DEUS discretion, as some individuals lost identical titles that others kept.

Tom read the summary once, then a second time; he still didn’t understand what it was talking about. The first condition was easy enough to follow, but what about the other three?

He flipped the page and was relieved to see a significant amount of extra detail - a worded explanation in natural English with clear examples. Two paragraphs in particular caught his attention.

An example of a body-specific title is something like the classic healing sponge version that most primary community tanks receive. This title is earned exclusively by the body receiving a set amount of healing over a set time.

An instance of a soul title would be one awarded by someone achieving a unique, or a near-unique, insight into the system, competition, or knowledge field. The award of such a title is completely independent of anything happening to the body.

It was that second paragraph that let him understand what the different terms meant, because he had received a soul related title in his first Existentia life.

Title: Complex Conspiracy Discoverer:

·        Reward: Your highest-cost contribution store item ‘DEUS’ Chosen’ has been upgraded to require only six days between question resets.  

·        Awarded for: Discovering that the flexibility of human racial gift was artificially hobbled in the tutorial and teaching others about the fact that it is restricted in Existentia.

·        Legendary Title. Competition Rank: 1st, 500 Ranking points, 10,000 experience.

·        Geas of ‘Fate Restriction’ Strengthened: Extra constraints around discussing or even alluding to the extended capability of fate have been placed on your soul.

That title had been earnt by him working out that the GODs had been preventing communication about the use of fate. A Geas prevented written instructions from being exchanged on the auction house and even made it hard to talk about fate with your friends.

It had nothing to do with the body, so he knew he still had it. When he had received it the first time, he had been excited by the reward because it had upgraded the most powerful trait he had bought in the contribution store. Forty years alone, struggling to kill things, had gotten him that trait; that sacrifice had been worth it, and that upgrade had made it even more useful.

In this new life, Tom didn’t know if the trait had been allowed to come through with him or if this title could influence it. The trait had allowed him to ask a single yes or no question every eight days. It was an ability that could shape strategy at a level beyond human comprehension. For example, you could ask something like, is it better for humanity to go to war or not? To have that answered explicitly was a massive boon if, as a society you, were considering the pros and cons. The trait had been a trump card that was supposed to get stronger every year that he had survived.

Instead, he had only lasted a little over six months.

In many ways the purchase had been wasted… but, based on the amount of fate that he had had available as a child, it was possible that others had completed his quest. If they had done it, and succeeded despite the odds, then that forty years of sacrifice, of loneliness, in the tutorial would have been worth it.

But they hadn’t…

He put his hands over his eyes in sudden despair.

They couldn’t have done it, because it was supposed to be a knock-out blow. But the competition was still ongoing, and humanity’s position remained precarious.

Failure was the only explanation. Briefly he felt like crying - the size, the consequences, the impossibility of everything almost overwhelming him.

Stay calm, he reminded himself.

“It’s not over. You’re here. You can be the difference. The fact you’re reincarnated means there was a chance,” he told the empty room. Deliberately, he recalled the conversation he had with DEUS when he had died. The only way he could be reincarnated was if humanity could be saved. That was why he was here in the first place, and he would not fail. He would use every waking moment to drive himself to greater and greater heights. Nothing would stop him from getting humanity to the third place on the rankings. That would be enough. They didn’t need second or first. The rewards for third would give Em a future, and his parents too, of course, but mainly he was doing this for his defenceless innocent little sister.

The competition continued, so he prayed that he still possessed the trait, because its power in this late stage would be almost unrivalled. It was only now that humanity had established towns that they could consider acting with a thousand or more people at once. And the more people the questions could cover, the more impactful they became. He had assumed that the trait would be lost, that DEUS or the other GODs wouldn’t let him keep it, but the fact he had a title that had once referred to it gave him hope.

Nothing was certain, though. It was equally possible that the reward of the title had changed. and he made a mental note to explore that once he worked out how to check his status.

There were three other titles that Tom thought might have been transferred. With his excellent memory, it was easy enough to record exactly what they had been. They had all been awarded for outcomes that were non-body related, so he was pretty sure they counted as soul-based for this purpose.

Evolution Master:

·        Reward: Requirements to evolve an existing ability are reduced by 50%.  

Unique Skill Creator:

·        Reward: Provides a boost to the chance of evolution and, when a skill evolves, it has a higher chance of gaining an additional sideways evolution.

Sage of Fate (Earth):

·        Reward: All Fate used is ten percent stronger.

All three titles were going to be a huge bonus for him. Evolution Master would effectively allow him to make twice as many evolutions as he would otherwise be able too. Instead of taking one-tier zero spell to tier four, he could promote two in the same amount of time. In practice, the benefit was significantly higher than that, because to evolve something you usually had to pass three tests:  comprehending knowledge thresholds, determining unique applications. and number of times used.  For the first two of those tests, getting them to fifty percent would take a lot less than half the effort required to reach a hundred percent. If you needed ten unique applications of the abilities, then thinking of all of the first five was probably easier than just coming up with the tenth when you had already found nine. 

The other two titles would also help. His progress was not a hundred percent fate locked, but a substantial amount of what he was going to achieve would be aided by the attribute. Having it work ten percent stronger would make a difference. As for the Unique Skill Creator title, it would mean that as he progressed his skills up the tiers, they would gain useful additional abilities.

Those sideways evolutions, as he had discovered with Black Dodge, would each increase the power of the ability by a significant percentage.

Together, it was a massive head start over everyone else. He kind of wished he had other titles, but the six months he had lived in his second life had not been enough to build up a huge backlog of them.

“You can do this.” He told himself. “You can make a difference.” And, knowing that those titles existed, and he almost certainly had them, made him feel a lot more confident about his chances. He would become powerful, and he would kill the dragon, and this time permanently, Tom promised himself fiercely.

He would do it.

But for now, he had to make the most use of his isolation time, and that meant gathering knowledge. He flipped back to the contents and then opened the book to the chapter titled.

Determining your skills, spells, traits and titles.