Chapter 43 - The Price Of Power (2/2)

I was home alone.

Ma’ra and Rya’de were both at work, Kai’ra with them. Cle’de was still in school, which didn’t end for another few hours.

Athreial had transported me back straight into the living room. I still wondered how a wyvern could learn spacial magic- especially up to that level.

Once I’d transformed back into my potato body and returned to my room, I called out Eve. The headache had returned too, pounding even more furiously than before.

‘Eve. Do you know why my body was damaged like that?’

[Hello again, June!]

Now why was she so happy today?

[Are you referring to your human body?]

‘Yes.’

[Well, I was wondering why you didn’t ask me before! The reason why your hand imploded like that was because it simply couldn’t handle your xera.]

‘I didn’t ask you before because…’ I groaned as an onslaught of mental pain crashed over me. ‘Because they might have thought I was crazy. I don’t think anyone- not even Gifted or L’Ders, have a personal assistant like you they can call out at any time. Also, for some reason, it seems like no one knows about Gifted, L’Ders, or the magic stones. But what did you mean ‘it simply couldn’t handle my xera’?’

[Let me explain.]

[Pretend your human body is a funnel of sorts. Your xera is the stream of water that has to be pushed through the funnel. In your potato body, you can use your entire capacity of xera… at once. Although I don’t like it, that’s simply the way it works. If you overload the funnel with too much xera at once, well, it goes boom. Like what happened to you. It’s permanent damage, so you’re unable to regenerate whatever damage you took during the overload. The more you overload, the more the damage.]

God damn it. ‘So you’re telling me that I have yet another restriction placed on me?

[Yep.]

I sighed and almost threw my chair across the room in frustration. ‘It’s almost as if the system wants me to stay in this potato body.’

‘And fuck this headache! How is it possible for a potato to get a headache! This is ridiculous!’

Just as I said it, another splitting pain shot through my head.

[I may have an idea on why that is happening.]

‘You… do?’

[Of course. I am an assistant designed to help you.]

‘Then what’s the problem- OW!’

[If you would like to check your skill window for {Potato Body}...]

‘Alright.’ I grumbled.

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Potato Body

Tier: Mythical

Category: Race

Type: Active

Xera Cost: 100 on activation, 1/s to sustain

Potatoes have been rumored to be able to sustain life. When activated, it creates a ‘body’ surrounding the host potato. The longer you spend in this body, the more you will change to suit it. This body can vary in size and shape and may restrict certain skills from being used. The host potato will reside in the body’s core. Creatable potato bodies:

Human (Original)

Human. Creates a replica of the human body you are most familiar with, but at its peak performance level. Some aspects may be slightly altered from the original species.

Potato roots run through the body to re-enable touch, smell, hearing, sight, taste, and sense of pain. The host potato resides in the chest of this body, where the heart is. If the host potato is removed, the skill will end.

This body prevents the use of: [Germinate], [Area Of Awareness]

Human (Opposite)

Identical to [Human (Original)] except for gender.

If unspecified, [Human (Original)] will be selected.

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Nothing seemed different from last time. Except the tier. Mythical. That was pretty good.

[The system has automatically nerfed this skill during the latest update. ‘The longer you spend in this body, the more you will change to suit it.’ At a first glance, this may not seem like anything serious. But if you look at it from a different point of view, it certainly could be the cause of your headaches. Have you experienced anything different, thought differently or acted out of character while in your human body?]

‘Well…’ I thought about this for a minute.

Had I changed?

That time with Cle’de and the maldakive snakes. Did I ‘act out of character’ then?

Now that I thought about it…

She had put me in that dangerous situation. Almost killed me in her eyes. Set me on fire. And what, I’d just accepted it? Just carried on? Pretended it never happened? Teased her for it?

And when did I ever care about lowly commoner’s feelings?

Hell, I hadn’t even shouted at her once.

‘You’re… right.’ I admitted softly. But the problem still remained. ‘So how do I stop this headache?’

[As far as I know, the skill changes you to suit that human body ‘better’. Since you were originally human, its changes shouldn’t have been obvious. My guess is that it tried to make you more compassionate, more caring, as that is one of the root emotions of humans.]

She guessed? I’d thought she knew everything.

[To stop the headaches, I suggest spending only minimal amounts of time in your human body. Return to this potato form when you can.]

Oh, she had to be kidding me. ‘What? But this potato form is useless!’

A moment of silence passed between us.

[Your base potato form is not useless. Just because you’ve found a temporary solution, doesn’t mean your problem is gone forever. You have to learn to appreciate this body, if not you will not be able to walk the path of the potato god.]

‘Yeah, right.’ I mentally rolled my eyes and flew to my bed.

‘I don’t have arms or legs. I don’t even have a bloody head for goodness sake! What can I do with this body? Tell me!’

[Perhaps, nothing for now. But if you don’t stop believing that, you’ll fall far, far behind. At least I know that. Because I, too, used to be just like-]

‘Just like.. What?’ I had the feeling that she was about to say something important. Very important.

[Oh, dear. It appears that I’ve said too much once again.]

[Do you have any more questions for me? If not, I will take my leave.]

So she was just going to blatantly change the subject. Great. It wasn’t like I could force it out of her, anyways.

‘No.’ I said, uncaringly. ‘Not that you can answer, anyways.’

[Very well. See you later, June.]

I laid alone like that, staring up at the ceiling for a few more minutes. Now that I was doing this, I figured I might as well look through the other skill information to see what had changed.

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Divine Being

Tier: Legendary

Category: Class

Type: Passive

Faith Buffs (General): -16% time needed to level up skills, +16% strength for active skills, 16% xera reduction on active skills, assortment of special benefits to skills

Faith needed to generate quest: 500

Enables the L’Der to gain {Faith}. {Faith} is a unit that determines when path progression quests can be generated. {Faith} will also enable the L’Der to rank up, which may lead to unlocking new skills. The L’Der with {Divine Being} gains {Faith} whenever a Gifted places their trust in them. As trust grows, the amount of {Faith} the individual contributes increases. {Faith} will allow the L’Der to grow stronger. {Faith} can be lost.

Update:

Faith will now boost all statistics by 0.1% per unit.

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Xera Transfer

Tier: Rare

Category: Path

Type: Active

Xera Cost: Interchangeable

Enables the user to transfer xera in limited amounts to other people or beings. Xera can only be transferred from the user of the skill to a recipient. To transfer xera, you must either be touching or within a three centimetre radius of the recipient.

This skill is compatible with {Germinate} and {Super Weak Telekinesis}.

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Potato God’s Eye

Tier: Godly

Category: Path

Type: Passive

Buffs: Increased Area Of Awareness

The first path skill, which is unlocked at the beginning. A path specific skill that utilizes the system to reveal a portion of a Gifted’s profile. Profile information will be shown in comparison to the user’s own statistics. Can be used as a power gauge. This skill also works on your Gifted. This skill also works on monsters after your path has been altered. The skill ‘Perceive Domain’ is a sub skill of this skill.

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Set Quest

Tier: Common

Category: L’Der

Type: Active

Faith Cost: 20 on activation. Varies depending on the rewards promised.

A method of controlling or instructing your Gifted to perform tasks with special rewards. Compulsory rewards include: Double experience points for all skills used during the quest timeframe. An allocated amount of experience points will also be rewarded depending on the amount of Faith used to generate the quest. Quest conditions and penalties are all custom set by the L’der. The L’Der will receive a notification when the quest is accepted and completed.

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O.C.C (Open Communications Channel)

Tier: Common

Category: L’Der

Type: Active

Xera Cost: 80 Faith to open, 1/s to sustain

An L’Der must have a method of communicating with their Gifted. This skill creates a channel through space to a designated target, allowing their surroundings to be heard by the user.

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Germinate

Tier: Rare

Category: Race

Type: Active

Xera Consumption: Interchangeable

Buffs: None

Potato race unique skill. When activated, enables the user to produce potato ‘seeds’ out of themself. These seeds will then grow into new potatoes. Options available for germination.

Identical: 10 Xera Consumption per potato

Identical. The potato seed will grow into the exact same form as the ‘parent’ potato.

Each potato seed has a 1/100 chance of becoming sentient. Sentient potatoes can communicate with the ‘parent’ and inherits its parent’s {misc} skills. Sentient potatoes may/may not be granted a class depending on their type.

Each potato seed has a 1/500 chance of unlocking a new type. This type will then be added into your potato dex, which can be found in this skill window. Once a new potato type is unlocked, you will be able to constantly produce it.

Non sentient potatoes will retain the parent’s {Potato Battery} skill.

Currently, it takes 160 minutes (minimum) for an identical potato to be grown. Different environments may cause the seed to grow slower.

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Potato Battery

Tier: Mythical

Category: Race

Type: Passive

Buffs: Multiplies xera regeneration rate by maximum capacity

Potato race unique skill. Enables the user to passively intake more xera. The potato body is incredibly flexible, and attracts more magical energy than the human body. When overloaded with magical energy, the potato will explode. This energy can also be transferred from potato to potato.

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Hull

Tier: Common

Category: Race

Type: Active

Xera Cost: 200

Creates a protective layer around the user’s body. This is made out of hardened potato roots which will sprout from within your body. This skill will also activate while {Potato Body} is active. This skill will deactivate once 60% of the roots armour has been removed. It can also be automatically removed by deactivating this skill. The root armour will not regenerate.

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Mind Speech

Tier: Common

Category: Miscellaneous

Type: Active

Xera Consumption: None

Buffs: None

Enables the user to communicate their thoughts directly into another individual’s mind. Range is limited. Amount of individuals one can communicate with at once is also limited.

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Perceive Domain

Tier: Mythical

Category: Miscellaneous

Type: Passive/Active

Xera Cost: Varies

Buffs: Heightened Sense

A more powerful form of the human’s senses. Allows the user to see and hear in a radius around them. Current radius: 100m. Several other advanced methods of sense are available for use in your domain at the cost of xera. Methods of sense:

Xera Vision (10/s) Foresight (200/s) Night Vision (10/s) Slow Motion (1/s/second slowed)

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Mutation

Tier: Epic

Category: Misc

Type: Active

Xera Cost: 450

Mutates random aspects of your current form. This skill is completely random and cannot be controlled. This mutation can form limbs, weapons and allow you to use special abilities. A twenty minute countdown will commence once the mutation is complete. Once the countdown has begun, you will be unable to change form or revert your mutation back to normal. Once the timer ends, your body will revert back to normal, resetting any injuries you have sustained during the mutation time period. This skill can be used to unlock different species of potatoes produced via {Germinate}.

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The answer? Not much. The new tier system for the skills was cool, but I didn’t really understand how it worked. Was it due to the amount of xera needed? How useful the skill was? Was it a rarity, of sorts?

I dismissed most of the information after looking, but kept the skill window for ‘potato body’.

‘Potato body.’

[Error: Potato Body is on cooldown. 6:02:51]

I sighed and was about to close the screen as well when something caught my eye.

‘Human (Opposite)’

It was the second section of the skill that I had merely skipped over before.

‘Identical to ‘Human (Original)’ except for gender.’ I read in my head.

Wait. Did this mean… This was a girl’s body?

‘No fucking way…’ I said breathlessly.

How could I have not seen this before? The things I could do with a girl’s body! Sneak into changing rooms, peek on girls, the possibilities were endless!

‘But wait. It’s still on cooldown…’

Deflated, I flopped back onto my pillow and returned to staring at the ceiling.

But hey, it couldn’t hurt to try, right?

‘Potato body. Human opposite.’ I said, expecting the same error notification to appear.

Well, for once, it seemed like things not going the way I expected had actually helped.