Achievement Unlocked - Specialist (Resilience)

  Specialisation is a tool. By focusing your talents, time and rewards down a single path, you have forgone others. Yet without those who chase power, all would fade. This example of refined growth before reaching Grade One has added weight to your soul.

  Effect: +1 Resilience per level, +1 free attribute points per level

  Within my makeshift igloo, bored into the ground to avoid the worst of the weather, I enjoyed the feeling of the achievement landing on my soul. Describing the sensation accurately to anyone without experience with the feeling was probably impossible. When the ancient Greeks were talking of the nectar of the gods, this was the feeling they tried to imagine. A velveteen caress snaked from my forehead and eyes across my forehead and down my back.

  As the weight landed on my shoulders, most of it stayed there like a cloak brushing the ground I walked, wrapping my form with aura. Imperceptible for the most part, but my own experience with Spirit was enough to give me a sense for it. Each time I sensed the strange feeling connected to my soul, I felt further away from truly understanding it. Thankfully, I had Tag to figure that stuff out now while I simply made use of the techniques we discovered together.

  I remained still for a while, simply feeling my body and the magic within. I had placed one attribute point in Resilience for an achievement, and I also realised that a single point more for both Strength and Agility would mean I received the achievements for those at level twenty nine. Next level would grant me seventeen free points to bring Dexterity in line with the rest of my array, and from there I planned to concentrate any more into Command, Power and Regeneration.

  I flexed my fingers. For my level, I was essentially a boss variant. It could be felt most in the casual ease at which I dealt with once lethal issues. The cold in the tundra was no joke, but my hands weren’t even numb. I had no thermometer, of course, but what I did have was an incredibly high Perception stat. The only issue with my guess was the lack of a previous scale for the cold, but it had to be at least forty celsius below freezing. That was before adding in windchill and snow I faced outside.

  If I hadn’t gained so many more attribute points per level, I would have found simply traversing this place life threatening. As it was, the only real danger I had faced so far was boredom. Said malaise is what led me to facing three elementals at a higher level than myself with nothing but my staff. It had gone well, but it was undoubtedly arrogant. I found that I couldn’t help it. Despite the horrors I had faced, I had to admit I was having fun. Part of that enjoyment was definitely down to how overpowered I currently felt.

  I first awoke to the System while surrounded by the gory mess of Clive’s Café after the old-woman-turned-dragon Naeboroseax piloted my body into slaughtering the room and then taking her own life with my hands. I surprised myself by moving on from the event successfully and it would be disingenuous to ignore the part magic had in that. Mental traumas aside, that event had given me my first levels and attribute points which then became the basis for my survival in this harrowing place.

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  The foundations I had gained there had allowed for a powerful base to form above them. To begin with, I had fifteen attribute points placed seemingly random across my character page and thirty five free points from the seven levels. If five free points per level was the standard, and I saw no reason to assume it wouldn’t be, a “normal” person would receive one hundred and fifty placeable points as they rose to level thirty and the threshold for Grade One.

  I had received four hundred and sixty.

  Even my most sceptical view of my own power had me as one of the strongest humans on the planet. Monsters were in a weird place in that regard, but I had a feeling I outscaled all but the most powerful boss variants around in terms of attributes. For those, it was their skills and experience which made them dangerous. Arriving to the world with a premade memory of violence and orders to inflict more set them up better than myself in regards to outright danger or lethality.

  So, I couldn’t rest on my laurels. The System had only just arrived and I had no clue what the world outside looked like. I had no desire to be a ruler when I broke out of the dungeon, despite the whispers of the draconic part of myself. However, I knew humans. Power was what people understood, and it was no different for the System. I needed strength to escape this dungeon. That same strength is what would keep me free and those I cared about safe.

  If they were still-

  I burst from the ice, shaking off the cold and the dour thoughts together. I couldn’t let myself assume anything. The sun remained obscured behind the clouds above. The unending tundra spread out from me unbroken by anything but the tower. I would reach it in a few hours I expected, though due to the size of the place any distance relative to it was hard to judge. When I got there, I wasn’t sure I would be able to open the doors. They must stand five hundred metres, easily.

  Distracted by my planning to sneak into one of the lower windows, I almost missed the first arrow. Twisting so quickly I hurt my back a little, I was only grazed on the cheek by the projectile. Technically it was an arrow but it was longer than my arm. Moving at such a speed it vanished into the ice, I just barely managed to inspect the item before my muscles seized and I crumpled.

  Storm Arrow

  Crafted by the skill of a tower guardian using power gifted by one who commands the storm. The strength of the arrow is determined by the mana used to create it. The effect of the arrow is determined by the mana used to create it.

  I registered that this wasn’t technically an item at the same time I put together the word “storm” in the name and my own situation. Electric energy shot through my face, jumping from the slightest touch of the arrow to my brain and then the nervous system beyond. Nervous indeed. While I couldn’t move, my biggest worry was not my paralysis but the threat of more attacks.

  A fear which immediately came true. I flared as much power into Mana Manipulation as I could while I grit my teeth. Another reason why these might be called Storm Arrows became apparent as I saw the world light up with a deadly and vibrant hail of mana-charged projectiles.

  Sweating from the exertion despite the cold, I fought against the invasive mana with my own. Both liquid and solid at the same time, my mana attacked. I couldn’t be careful, so bursts of lightning were expelled directly from my flesh. It charred and tore at me but I exploded with enough power to get out of the way. I still couldn’t move perfectly, but I would recover.

  At least if I survived the incoming barrage. The tower had apparently responded to my approach and the welcome was less than ideal. A few thousand arrows were raining down on my position, blanketing a massive area. I had one plan, and I asked Tag if it would work. His reply was not as hopeful as I would have liked but he didn’t come back with a better idea either.

  Magic Missile.

  Magic Missile, Magic Missile, Magic Missile.

  For every mana point I had, I created a projectile. My head spun as I placed a drop of Spirit into each, carrying a singular intent. The frozen world came ablaze with the energy from the attacks. The cold mana in the area was pushed back by that of the Storm Arrows and my own salvo. The dungeon itself seemed to take a breath as the two attacks prepared to meet. I sucked in one of my own and braced for impact. Then I released the Magic Missile bombardment.

  When the first one hit me, I grunted. By the time the twentieth missile hit me I was a battered mess. Arrows landed around me, barely missing my uncoordinated form as missile after missile hit me and moved me out of the way. It had taken every ounce of brain power alongside a copious amount of Spirit but it was working. The intent to help me escape was written firmly onto each of my missiles. I hadn't been able to add gentleness, unfortunately, but getting hit with the Storm Arrows would have been worse.

  Thrown like a ragdoll into the air, back down again as the next missile caught me and then punched in another direction by the follow-up, I evaded the assault with the finest of margins. Storm Arrows fell around me, ripping apart the ground and missing me by a hair each time. At least mostly.

  The arrangement of missiles had needed to be incredibly precise. The arrows fell at varying heights and speeds, which was the only reason I could avoid the assault in the first place. I paid the price regardless as the Magic Missiles had to be strong enough to move me, which meant each one felt like a cannonball hitting me. Between the stop-and-start inertia and the impacts of the missiles, I didn’t know which was worse. Both were better than dying though, and I only took damage from one more Storm Arrow in the process of dodging. It was one of the final in the area of attack though, so I managed to survive, if barely.

  That was a monstrous attack and, from what I could see in the description of the arrows, it wasn’t even from the Claimant itself. That was troubling, but not as much as the newest round of lightning-infused mana within my body. After using so many Magic Missiles, I was spent. I couldn’t muster the strength to force the antagonistic mana from myself and my health was too low to leave it where it was. After all that, I was going to die…

  “You’re not going to like this plan…” Tag’s voice murmured in my head as an idea filled my mind. I groaned, but there was no choice. My health was too low and I needed to do something now. The mana inside me was angry, potent and destructive. It needed to be… something else. Not so different that I broke things like last time. There was no time. I couldn’t think. I had to throw caution to the-

  My eyes opened, glowing with energy.

  Catalyst.