You have selected the Modifier: |Evolver| for 30,000 E.P.

New Total E.P. - 85,000

Congratulations! You have decided to take part in the Beta test for the |Evolver| modifier. As the first of your kind, you will gain the founder bonus.

Now that this modifier has been added to your soul it will remain active until death in your next life.

!ERROR!

Modifier |Avatar| Is in effect, and is unable to be changed.

!ERROR!

Modifier |Evolver| Is in effect, and is unable to be changed.

!ERROR!

Modifier |Avatar| Is in effect, and is unable to be changed.

"Oh shit.. now I've done it." Peter groaned.

This back and forth between the windows continued for a solid 5 minutes. Peter did everything he could to stop it. He tried to say 'Status', and nothing came up. He even tried to use voice commands to bring up the original 'Equilibrium Shop' menu. Nothing worked. Peter was stuck in a loop.

"Well what now?! I better not be sitting here until the end of the universe or I definitely will lose my mind." Peter looked around the room with a worried look on his face. "Crap, I already miss B67 beating the living shit out of m--"

Peter was knocked out of his chair and sent flying into the back wall of the room behind him. The chair he was in was totally shreaded to pieces, and he himself was embedded in the concrete like surface of the wall.

"Listen you little trouble maker, I appreciate the notion, but quit yer potty mouth talk. It makes me angry." B67 rubbed his sore fist and winced slightly. "Hmm, you really have gotten a bit tougher with that last rank up to your trait eh? We never did get to test that out with a figh--"

B67's jaw was impacted with large, yet scrawny, golden fist. Peter had shot out of the wall with a small Boom, straight at B67. Peter fully indended to take revenge for all the cheap shots that curly haird jerk loved to throw his way. They were in a small room so there was almost no time to react, and Peter had never withstood one of B67's hits before, so he had totally caught B67 off guard.

B67's large mass flew away like a rag doll, and he hit the wall with a thud. The hit Peter took was obviously much harder than the one he dished out, but it was still satisfying as hell.

"Hello to you too Professor B67! Come to debate a theory with your student?" Peter smiled viciously, then got down into a 'runners pose'.

***

The room was at least 30 feet wider, taller and longer than it was before the fight started. Traces of blue foam and white torn up toga cloth were all around the room. The fight had ended in a stalemate due to Peter's regeneration and his soul's armour. B67 had a certain degree of regeneration as well, but it wasn't nearly as strong as Peter's. If B67 stopped for even 8 seconds, any damage done to Peter would be completely undone.

He was no longer able to break Peter into pieces with a single punch when Peter was fully healed up. It took many punches, kicks, and throws to do any real lasting damage. The only reason Peter couldn't win was because B67 was just stronger. Once Peter made a mistake, B67 got a hold of him and neither could move after that. Without the ability to move, Peter couldn't fight back, but without the ability to get any kind of speed B67 was unable to hurt him.

"HAHAHA, I've lost all my pride as an Avatar Manager, but it's also one of the greatest days of my life! You'll go far, boy. You'll go far."

Peter stretched out his limbs a little bit as the last little bit of blue was reabsorbed into his body.

"Sorry about your toga, but I had no choice but to fight back with everything I had!" Peter thought for a second,"Well that's not true I suppose. I wanted to really badly." Peter let out a cheeky smile.

"No problem boy," B67 snapped his fingers and his toga was good as new. Along with a new wreath in his perfectly curled hair. "It's gonna take more than you got to do permanent damage to me!"

"I could say the same you know!" Peter imidiately shot back.

"Alright enough bickering. Now, what the heck did you do?! I got a warning signal from the system saying that the Equilibrium Construct is stuck in a logic loop, and can't seem to figure itself out. Do you realize that I've never even been allowed in here before?!"

Peter was still watching the windows appear one after the other off to the side of his vision.

"Yeah, I had a feeling something was up. I went to this weird category called the 'Modifier' category and it said I"-B67's eyes went so wide that they nearly split his face down the middle-"could only have one, but gave me the option to buy one even though I was already an Ava-"

"WOW, Peter. Slow down for a second," B67 yelled, "You should have never been able to get into that category in the first place."

B67 looked down at the ground and paced in deep thought. Peter noticed that he liked to do this a lot.

"Tell me that at least the 'Magic' category and skills were grayed out. I hope you didn't buy anything that you'll never be able to use."

"No no, the magic category was off limits, along with the affinities category. Modifiers was the only one that seemed strange."

B67 sighed, "Well that's a relief. You having a magic skill would be useless. Too bad you couldn't purchase an affinity before level 50 though. Those Drake races are really too lucky to have an affinity at level 1."

"Yeah, I saw that being a random Draconic race was one of the modifiers, but it was way too expensive for me, though. I didn't even have one-fourth of the required Equilibrium Points required."

"Peter," B67 said in a calm but serious voice.

"Yes?" Peter carefully replied.

"Tell me everything you remember... about all the categories."

***

Peter relayed everything that he remembered to B67. Literally everything. [Powerful Mind] was showing its prowess in this situation as Peter was able to ring off every word he read in proper order. Even the absurdly high [Stamina] cost of [Turtle Stance]. Which was 40 per second by the way.

The first thing which B67 wanted to go over were the 'Modifiers'. Peter was extremely disappointed as he told B67 that he couldn't afford the 'Draconic' race modifier.

"PFFT," B67 rolled his eyes, "Those Drakes don't have it so easy Peter. They have to stay underground for upwards of 500,000 years before they become anywhere close to 'Powerful'. Their level only gains at a decent speed from 'World Energy' after they've leveled their affinity to at least rank V or VI. As you can imagine, that trait levels up much slower than you would think."

Peter nodded while he listened, "Yeah I suppose that makes sense. But draconic races only have a 95% reduction in level gains by getting kills. Why wouldn't they level up that way instead? Sure it'd take 20 times longer than it would for me, but with their unlimited life span who cares?"

"Peter, everyone cares. Draconic races are hunted down on sight by every single country in the world you're going to. But I'll stop you before you ask me why. I am not allowed to say. It's one of those things I'm not allowed to tell you about the world you're headed to beforehand."

"Ahh. I see," Peter raised his eyebrows, "I sure am glad I didn't have enough to pick that modifier then. I was seriously bummed that I couldn't."

B67 laughed, "You can be envious of their affinity they get for free, but never be envious of the life of a drake. Their life is not one you would appreciate. HA. Imagine you having to sit around looking at nothing but dirt for 500,000 years! You couldn't even handle 4 or 5 days alone without going nuts."

Peter laughed with B67, "That wouldn't be my first choice I suppose. How would I spread Adrestia's ideology if I had to stay underground to survive?"

"Good point! Hey speaking of the 'Avatar' job, you mentioned that 'Avatar' was selectable even though you were already an Avatar, and the price was invalid. Why didn't you choose it?"

"I didn't want to take the risk of choosing that option doing nothing," Peter replied flatly, "When I saw what the modifier category had to offer, I knew I was not supposed to have access to it. If I was gonna have a one time chance to exploit the E.C., I was going to do it right." Peter paced back and forth, "You see, I realized while reading all the categories that I am totally at the mercy of this Equilibrium Construct. It could offer me amazing abilities, or it could offer me garbage... like [Turtle Stance]... seriously that [Stamina] cost is outrageous... anyways. I need to make the most of every single opportunity I'm given by the E.C. or I'm asking for death." Peter finished resolutely.

B67 was impressed. Peter had the exact right idea. He couldn't afford to miss out on any power spike he could recieve from the E.C. because everything mattered.

"Boy, you sure are putting that [Powerful Mind] trait to work today." B67 stared at him with pride, "I don't think I could have had such a calm approach if I were in your position."

"I know. By using it I've realized something very important is missing." Peter stared at B67.

"What would that be?" B67 asked.

"There's still one thing about stats you haven't told me yet!" Peter threw his hands in the air, "And It's real. damn. important."

"I know," B67 said with a straight face. "You know almost nothing about leveling skills other than the names of some of the stages that they go through."

Peter smirked and raised an eyebrow, "Well professor? Let's get started with the final lecture."

***

B67 began the information with the way skills were ranked according to the system. It went in tiers:

Novice level 1-10 -> Adept level 1-10 -> Expert level 1-10 -> Master level 1-10 -> Legend level 1-10 -> Transcendent level 1-10.

Skills were obviously more powerful the more you leveled them up. As Peter had seen with the 'On level up' sections of the skill descriptions, the parts of skills that got better were usually varied. But they always got better either by decreasing drawbacks, or by increasing power. B67 added to that by saying that some skills got an extra boost when moving up a tier. Some skills may also be gained at higher tiers than Novice level 1 automatically because of certain conditions.

There was no limit on what skills could be gained, but the System limited how many skills could be active and used at once. At level 0, you could have 6 skills active. Every 5 levels after that, you unlock 2 more skill slots and need to pick from the inactive skills you have available to you to add to the new slots.

B67 added context by telling Peter that normally nobody ever came close to having enough skills to fill up those slots. Skills were very hard to earn for regular people.

Once you pick a skill to add to the slot, you can never go back and change it. Some classes had bonuses that allowed for more skill slots than normal. B67 said there were other exceptions that could add special skill slots, but he wasn't allowed to tell Peter any details about those.

Once a skill was active, how it leveled mainly depended on the skill. Passives typically leveled when they were used, or had an effect on anything. Passives like [Momentum] would only level during combat when he was moving fast and hitting things, but it would level faster than [Fear Aura] which was on all the time unless toggled. In other words, every hit made with [Momentum] would earn way more progress towards leveling than a few minutes with [Fear Aura] spooking a couple people. This was one of the ways the system balanced itself to make the skills more even.

Active skills would progress in level based on multiple factors. Automatically just activating a skill that costs a resource stat like [Mana] or [Stamina] will make it progress, but if that skill also had an effect on something else, it would gain progress faster. For instance, if you had a skill called 'Power swing' that made your sword swings harder at the cost of 10 [Stamina], you could just activate it over and over in your spare time to level it up by a small amount. But if you activate it to hit a monster, you'll gain much more progress towards leveling. If you use that skill to kill a monster, you'll gain even more progress than that!

***

Once the final lesson was over Peter finally asked, "You know, we've gotten pretty sidetracked... what on earth are we going to do about the 'Logic loop' that the E.C. is stuck in right now? I still see the windows flying by as we speak."

"I'll be honest with you Peter," B67 tightened his gaze, "I don't actually know what you've done to your soul, but it has changed. The E.C. can't seem to make sense of it, but you have two active modifiers right this second," B67 shrugged, "We're in new territory now. I don't know what'll happen to you once you come out of the Equilibrium Construct and all the changes are applied completely. All I do know is I can forcibly stop the loop, then let you continue with the selection of your stats and skills. Now that I'm in here I can give you advice if you need it, but I would rather not. It feels a bit like cheating."

Peter sighed in resignation, "I suppose we just have to move on with it then. No worries though B67. I did all I could, and I have no regrets no matter what happens."

B67 smiled weakly, "Alright. Here goes."

Suddenly in the middle of the loop a new screen appeared.

- Code: Red -

Advanced moderator protocol activated:

Equilibrium Construct reboot initiated.

Major !ERROR! detected

Order: Disregard all further errors.

Acknowledged.

Reboot complete.

Accessing menu to display.

Peter suddenly had the main menu with all the categories come up just as they were. 'Quality of Life', 'Magic', and 'Affinities' were all still grayed out. 'Modifiers' was also grayed out this time. Peter laughed a bit at that and thought: 'I wouldn't want to even open that tab if I could at this point.' Peter went through all of the remaining categories one by one. The only problem was when Peter accessed the 'Active' category again and came up with the following.

Showing 'Physical' and 'Passive' skills only.

A 'Passive' skill is a skill that requires no conscious action to show its effect. It usually requires no 'cooldown' time, and will never take any amount of a 'consumable' stat. They can, however, permanently limit the maximum amount of a consumable stat.

Example: Lowering your Maximum [Health] from 100/100, to 80/80 in order to give you a buff.

[Fear Aura]

- E.P. 2,000

Passively emit an aura of fear in a 3-meter radius. How badly this skill will affect anyone around you is based on your level and the affected's level.

On level up: Slightly greater effect, and/or increased area of effect.

[Fervor]

- E.P. 3,000

Every 10 seconds you are in combat you gain a stack of [Fervor]. Each stack increases attack speed by 2%, to a limit: +41% attack speed.

On level up: slight increase to attack speed limit, and gain stacks slightly faster.

[Toughness]

- E.P. 3,000

Automatically deduct 3 points of physical damage from every individual attack.

On level up: slight increase in damage reduced on every attack.

Note: Non-magical damage over time effects are reduced by this ability as well.

[Momentum]

- E.P. 5,000

The faster you are moving right before you attack, the more damage your attack will deal when it lands. Exact damage depends on the weapon used and how much it weighs.

On level up: slight increase to damage dealt.

[Regeneration]

- E.P. 5,000

When standing still, and not in combat, you regenerate [Health] 25% faster than normal.

On level up: slight increase to healing percentage increase.

[Blood Energy]

- E.P. 1000

Reduces your maximum [Health] by 50. Increases maximum [Stamina] by 10.

Warning: High chance of death at early levels.

On level up: [Health] reduction is slightly less, and/or increases [Stamina] by a little more.

[Double Edged Sword]

- E.P. 1000

Reduces your maximum [Health] by 50. Increases damage of every attack you deal by 10.

Warning: High chance of death at early levels.

On level up: [Health] reduced by slightly less, and/or increases damage dealt by slightly more.

[Patience]

- E.P. 6,000

Decreases unspent stat points gained per level by 1. Every 10 levels you will get those points all at once, with a 50% interest.

On level up: Increases the interest rate.

This skill only levels up by gaining normal levels.

[Soul Drain]

- E.P. 7,000

Increases the amount of a soul you consume when getting a kill. The extra soul energy can't be taken in to increase your level because it still won't be compatible with your soul, but you can turn that energy into [Health] or [Stamina].

On level up: Increases portion of soul you can consume, thereby increasing [Health] and/or [Stamina] gains.

"You have to be kidding me right now," Peter said with terror plainly on his face.

The [Reaper] passive had disappeared. Vanished without a trace.

"Could it be that it was taken out when the E.C. rebooted? Maybe it's gone for good now."

Peter was relieved at the thought. He didn't want that in his soul at all. Even though it was relieving, Peter felt suspicious about where on earth the Reaper went. It felt too convenient that it had gone that quickly.

"Oh well. I can only move forward and hope."

Peter went to the 'Stats' tab, and immediately bought the [Magical Resistance] stat. It even said in the description that it was way too strong for most universes to allow. That was an obvious hint that it would be a wise purchase.

You have selected the Stat: [Magical Resistance] for 15,000 E.P.

New Total E.P. - 70,000

Peter was glad that he chose to wait and got the chance to talk to B67. He almost didn't choose the [Perception] stat because he figured the [Identify] skill, which he gets automatically from being an Avatar, would cover him in terms of visual clues. Peter recalled what B67 said.

"Peter [Perception] and [Identify] are not interchangeable in any way. [Perception] is the way you see the world. It allows you to look for traps, see the weaknesses in your enemies and increases how far you can see. [Identify], however, is an active skill that shows you the System description of anything you're looking at. It's not a passive thing that assists you in day to day life like [Perception]. I'm not saying you should get [Perception], just don't make your decision based on thinking they're too similar."

Peter smiled to himself and thought that if he were going to be going to a new world with literal 'Monsters', he's gonna need help knowing how to kill them. So he bought his 9th stat.

You have selected the Stat: [Perception] for 5,000 E.P.

New Total E.P. - 65,000

The last stat Peter thought would be best for him was [Processing]. This decision was made based on personal experience here in the E.C.'s realm where he fought with B67. Peter noticed he was lacking the ability to mentally keep up with how fast he was moving. Everything around him seemed like a blur when he moved, and he couldn't make split second decisions fast enough to avoid getting caught by B67. The trait [Powerful Mind] was strong, but [Powerful Mind] and [Processing] reminded him of the differences between [Vitality] and [Physical Resistance]. [Physical Resistance] increased one important aspect of [Vitality], just like [Processing] would increase one important aspect of [Powerful Mind].

Since Peter was likely going to be fighting up close and personal forever, he needed to be able to think faster than anyone else ever could before. If he didn't, he would eventually reach a point where becoming stronger didn't matter. He wouldn't be able to keep up mentally with his own speed. With that in mind, he purchased his final Stat.

You have selected the Stat: [Processing] for 10,000 E.P.

New Total E.P. - 55,000

Stat limit has been reached. Your build has been finalized and is now being processed by the system. Further purchases will no longer affect your status page. You may still browse and buy from the E.C. shop at your leisure.

Peter was immediately forced back to the menu. Now 'Quality of Life', 'Magic', 'Affinities', 'Modifiers', and 'Stats' were all grayed out.

Looks like B67 is making sure nothing else can go wrong with my time here in the E.C., like getting 11 stats or something. Peter thought to himself with a smirk.

All that was left now was to choose his passives and actives. Peter felt close now. Soon he would have everything he needed to begin repaying Adrestia for what she had done for him.

Peter decided to go through 'Passives' first. He realized how strong all of these were, and how they would make it easy for him to become stronger as he leveled them. Peter bought a lot of them, but not all. He realized he would not have enough E.C. to buy everything from both lists, and didn't want to limit himself from something he really needed from the 'Actives' list.

You have selected the skill: [Fear Aura] for 2,000 E.P.

You have selected the skill: [Fervor] for 3,000 E.P.

You have selected the skill: [Toughness] for 3,000 E.P.

You have selected the skill: [Momentum] for 5,000 E.P.

You have selected the skill: [Double Edged Sword] for 1,000 E.P.

You have selected the skill: [Patience] for 6,000 E.P.

You have selected the skill: [Soul Drain] for 7,000 E.P.

New Total E.P.: 28,000

Peter then switched over to the actives skill category and contemplated his purchases. He left himself exactly enough to buy all of them if he wanted to. He began regretting buying the 'Quality of Life' package now because he was only 1,000 points off of being able to buy out both categories and potentially earning two bonus skills for doing so.

He had no idea what those 'Hidden Bonuses' could be. But he wouldn't have even known they existed without buying all of the 'Quality of Life' perks anyway, so regret is pointless now. He could only move forward, and hope for the best.

Peter decided that even though he didn't like the [Turtle Stance], he wanted the bonus skill that had to do with active skills. Not only did he want to avoid any chance of the [Reaper] skill taking over the passive hidden bonus, but he didn't have a lot of active skills to choose from. Peter guessed that the reason there were so few is because even warriors and melee fighters had access to [Mana], and typically they would use that small amount of [Mana] to use whatever skills they had. All those skills, of course, were off limits to Peter.

Also, he was uncomfortable enough with one passive that took 50 [Health] away from him. Having a second would be suicidal. [Blood Energy] was not on Peter's wish list.

You have selected the skill: [Dash] for 1,000 E.P.

You have selected the skill: [Turtle Stance] for 3,000 E.P.

You have selected the skill: [Terrifying Glare] for 4,000 E.P.

You have selected the skill: [Revenge] for 5,000 E.P.

You have selected the skill: [Overcharge] for 1,000 E.P.

New Total E.P.: 0

'Active' category has been cleared.

Hidden bonus 'Active' skill unlocked:

New active skill gained: [Judgement].

A skill that allows you to -------------------

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Congratulations, Peter!

You have completed the Equilibrium Construct program in 15 hours, 28 minutes, and 9 seconds.

Your soul will now be updated with all chosen skills and stats.

Please rate your experience with us in the following survey:

Peter thought for a moment.

"Well, the program was really shitty. It got caught in a logic loop for like 9 of those hours. My ass hurts because that chair I destroyed was really har--"

A window interrupted Peter.

You have rated the Equilibrium Construct:

5/5 Stars!

Thank you for your honest review!

You will now be transferred back to the Avatar Creation Realm you were in previously in...

5

4

3

2

1

"Well, no WONDER this program isn't getting fixed. What the heck B--"

Peter suddenly vanished into thin air.