Chapter 61

It was a gloomy weather outside. Thick forbidding clouds, but no rain. Given the look of the day, it would not surprise him if they ended up engaging the echidna in a storm. That sort of turn of weather would feel poetic.

Jules approached a woman who was hurrying along the street. “Excuse me, where can we find a trader?”

The woman with blond hair, wearing a good-quality tracksuit stopped, pointed, and then recoiled backwards. “Level fifty-three, what the hell?” She finished backing away.

“We are the part of the group passing through on the way to Melbourne,” Jules explained, playing into her young innocent teenager look.

“Berserker,” the woman muttered and her eyes got even wider. “That way,” she said, pointing. “Two blocks and then take a left.”

Her duty done, the woman hurried away. Jules looked so shocked that he burst out laughing at her expression. “Now you understand how I feel. World Saver this, World Saver that.”

“That was so awesome.” She jumped up and down grinning. “Did you see she almost fell over?”

“I did.”

“I wonder who else I can do that to.”

“You’ll need to go quickly if you want to surprise people.”

“Why?”

“She was a gossip, I’ve seen her type before.”

“Excuse me, do you know where the trader is?”

This time, a twenty-year-old or so kid looked up. “Not the next, but the one after. Turn left.”

Then he went back to fixing his front door. Jules almost pouted.

“He didn’t have identification.”

“Oh.” Jules brightened up and began gesturing at people. “Him?”

“No.”

“Her?”

“No, but the dad.”

“Sir, we are looking for the trader.”

The older man used his identification and his eyebrows barely even twitched. He pointed the direction with a grunt and then ignored them.

“Not fair.”

Jules proceeded to ask everyone with identification that they met. Most reacted like the old man. That twitch of recognition and then careful, but not over the top deference. They were country Victorians. Adrian was surprised they even showed as much as they did. One guy, who had clearly travelled up from the city, literally jumped after seeing her level and class.

“Worth it,” Jules assured him as they approached the trader and slid into line. There was a mini market in full swing around them. It had everything, skilled skinners and butchers from what he could see. A wolf carcass would get deposited and a thin Indian woman would skin it in about twenty seconds, aided by her magic. A perfectly tanned skin would come off. Then the rest would be passed over to one of a dozen butchers who would quickly extract the meat and all the valuables. The valuables were sorted, presumably for crafters, and then the miscellaneous junk got thrown into a pile to sell to the trader.

Adrian had to admit it looked efficient. There was a steady line into the skinner, but all the dead animals were low-level kills. Either the more exotic stuff was dealt with elsewhere or Seymour just did not have anyone ranging out far enough to find something more challenging. It was probably the latter, given his own exploration. He did not know what he hoped for in Melbourne. Levels helped, but so did the safety of having weak Alpha creatures nearby. With Melbourne’s size, he was sure it would be a mixture.

Jules nudged him. He was startled and noticed the line had cleared.

He walked forward to the trader. It looked a lot like a swooper. The same feathers, wings and fish lips. He shivered. It wasn’t a pleasant look.

“World Saver,” the trader said, formally bowing its head. “How can I help you?”

“I was hoping to purchase this.” He handed the list to the trader. The wings grabbed it, and hidden within the feathers were fully opposable digits. “Can you fly with those wings?”

“Yes, they are functional. At least with Alpha physics. Pre-event, they were only good for gliding.” The bird tapped the list. “Two and a half million.”

“No negotiations?”

“We don’t negotiate price, you know that, plus with your World Saver title you’re already entitled to the best deal I can give.”

Adrian nodded. “I will buy it all.” Given the crazy that Kiyoko had proposed, he would not stint on anything that might keep him alive.

“Bag.” Adrian handed it across to the trader, authorising the energy to be made available. The trader took it, positioned the bag next to his cart and then pulled out a magical draw that was facing downwards. Adrian knew the precious items he had just bought were being dropped in.

The trader flicked the door shut and handed the bag along with two memory stones.

Memory Stone of Forecasting the Future

This stone generates a simulation of future actions up to 1 second in the future.

Memory Stone of Blink

Teaches the spell blink that teleports self forward for a maximum of twenty metres. Cost fifty mana per seven metres. Neutralised by portal locks.

“Thank you.”

He walked aside. “What are those?”

“The first is a pathway skill, and amongst other things will help alchemy. The second is a cookie cutter blink spell.”

“Shadow step and blink. They do the same thing. Why get both?”

“Shadow step doesn’t work, and this uses mana.” He waved the stone around. “It’s a mana hog, but the flexibility and reliability of the blink makes it important.”

“Any other advantages?”

“Yes.” Adrian grinned. “Blink can go through walls. I can’t do that with shadow step.”

“Oh,” Jules said. “Blink is for emergencies and stealing stuff. While shadow step is bread and butter movement.”

“I’m not stealing stuff, but yes pretty accurate.”

“Whatever you say Mr. Master Thief.” She waved at a patch of ground between two random houses. Backyards, front yards, all that old world stuff had gone. Only the house itself was private and even then, not always. Seymour had been touched lighter than elsewhere, so property rules from pre-event still held. “Learn them. I’ll watch out for you.” Adrian sat in the spot she had picked. Everyone walking past could see him, but he did not care. No one would be dumb enough to try anything through Jules, and if they did, then they would regret it pretty quickly.

Adrian first raised the blink stone to his forehead. It activated, there might have been an exchange of information or an instruction to flick an existing flag from unavailable to available. It was impossible to tell. Whatever happened, the spell became available. He lowered the stone from his head. Adrian could feel the new capability. He had to imagine him being somewhere else or input coordinates like ten metres forward twenty centimetres higher. Then if there was space where he was targeting, the spell would trigger. Both methods worked as equally intuitively according to what he could feel.

“Finished?”

“Yeah, that one was cookie cutter.”

Adrian focused ten metres up and ten metres straight ahead. A hundred forty mana vanished instantly, and he appeared above everyone’s head. The spell had even rotated him to look back at Jules like he wanted. Gravity took hold and air counterbalanced it as he floated gently down. He waved. The rush of wind being generated made everyone clear his landing spot.

However, Adrian did not wait until he reached the ground. This time, he imagined being next to Jules and activated blink. He appeared right where he was targeting. No nausea, no issues. It was incredible. “Pretty good,” he told Jules, “but unless you have hundreds of mana spare, it’s pretty useless. That,” he waved, “cost me two hundred and forty mana.”

“What?” Jules said in shock. “That’s more than my pool. And by that time you have that power to spare you’re probably better investing in spells to crush opponents, rather than running.”

“Absolutely,” Adrian agreed and sat down, tossing the second stone between his hands. Jules nodded.

“Do it.”

He raised the second stone to his forehead, knowing this one was a pathway, and he was in for a crazy flood of information.

The knowledge exploded. His brain wasn’t smart enough to follow what was represented in that torrent of data chunks. He saw snippets of codes. Programs that tracked energy and effects of the material and immaterial world around him. Most went into the interface, but fragments got dragged into his personal core and incorporated into the growing structure he was building. Sections of the pathway were devoted to the calculations necessary to enable foresight, and he felt part of his personal core becoming exclusively dedicated to that mathematics.

Then the new skill clashed with his domain. For a moment, he thought they were both going to shatter before he realised the ridiculousness of that assumption. The system had a solution and if it didn’t, Adrian knew how fast the calculations occurred in the background. It was immediately apparent that there was ridiculous synergy between the new knowledge, his domain, the personal core, the master internal haste ability and his ridiculously high identification skill.

Kiyoko!

This was the sort of thing that Jaracol would have done.

Cheat and find loopholes to exploit.

The oracle, paying for the levels he had gotten her by telling him to purchase this one stone.

The foresight skill at its core used mana to paint a picture of the world around him. Track all the relevant attacks that were forming and speed up the brain to interpret it. For an untrained mind, they would see the attack before it happened, but he was already doing parts of that, and his domain was more sensitive than what the interface would usually have access to and his core was an untapped repository of potential that in this case provided a multiplicative effect. There was no need for networking across multiple nodes that slowed things down and created inefficiencies, instead the myriad of calculations could occur in one spot. While that made it more fragile by introducing a single point of failure, it also enhanced the capability to process the massive calculations required to extend the skill.

The foresight skill clicked in but it was a pathway. It was supposed to be something that could be adapted and expanded on. Rather than just seeing where the firebolt was going to land he saw how it formed and the calculations that underpinned the trajectory it would take. Those calculations were available and he could see the spell happening when the enemy first started a spell as opposed to when the energy reached the current fifty percent or ten mana threshold that he currently needed.

The foresight spell was supposed to take mana to apply because you had to send out mana filters across all the different flavours to gather the accurate information the ability required, but Adrian did not need that. At any moment, his domain already processed most of the information that the skill needed. Not all of it, but most. Then it was a matter of linking routines to manage the data. The fact he could predict physical movement for the next two seconds did not mean that he wanted to. If someone was swinging a sword at him, then the foresight was damn useful, so he wanted to know. That rule clicked into space. Or at a friend… another component of the routine was created.

However, if a coconut fell, that would hit no one, then he did not care.

Sound, heat, mana density, all those bits of information were part of the defensive network that was spun up around him that would warn him before attacks landed on him or his allies.

Over time, he could expand or narrow the scope of the ability, but that took real-world experience. This skill was one of the skills that would only strengthen as he got older. Not because it or he got more powerful, but because he got better at using it.

The process finished, and he took a deep breath before checking the skills he had just created.

Forecasting the Future

This skill generates a simulation of future actions up to 1 second in the future at the cost of five mana per one minute of use.

It was the base skill that the pathway was supposed to grant. Admittedly it had a massive discount on the mana cost. The spell to someone without his synergy advantage would cost a hundred mana for a minute. His discount was twenty times.

Adrian then checked the next skill that he knew had been created.

Danger Warning (passive)

This skill is a subset of forecasting the future. It will predict threatening actions against allies and self within thirty metres that utilise physical, air, nature, fire or ice abilities. Attacks that concentrate mana significantly will also be captured.

This skill can forecast events up to two seconds into the future.

He wished Jaracol could express himself. The interface would have been giddy with joy.

The final skill was also valuable, given his skill set. This was one he had mentally pushed for when the information had been thrumming through him.

Portal Sensitivity

Grants the ability to identify portal locks or forming portals.

He would no longer accidentally wander into a portal warded area. The trick that he had been petrified that Adhava would execute would no longer touch him. If someone or something tried to throw a portal lock on him, he would blink or shadow step out of there instantly before it became active. That was a hard rule. He did not even need to consciously register the threat, if he lacked shadows or he was in the physical exhaustion state of shadow steps then blink would be used instead.

“You have your Cheshire grin back.”

“Hit me.”

For him, the world stopped, and he saw the trajectory Jules’s fist was about to take. She had not hesitated. He swayed the right way and the moment he started moving the Jules forecast changed. She was kicking at him. He somersaulted over the leg. Another fist was coming for his head. He could see the movement, but she had not even commenced the strike. He pre-emptively bent out of the way.

“Enough,” he said, laughing.

Jules stopped. “That was impressive. Not perfect or amazing, but pretty good.”

“I didn’t use Shadow Evasion or mana,” he told her.

“Very good then! I thought you said it was for foresight and not really combat.”

“It was. I was predicting where your blows were going to land.”

“But?”

“No buts. As far as I can see, I just need to get used to the movements. It was a bit disorientating.” The fist lashed out at him. He had plenty of time to step back. “Passive as well.” Jules looked annoyed that he had avoided the blow so effortlessly. “We should see the others.”

He turned away, walking toward their hotel. Jules jogged behind him. The skill triggered as she swung her club hard for his shoulder. Even without the warning his domain would have seen it. Adrian was stepping sideways, then prancing left, doing a hop and then a forward roll as Jules launched a flurry of attacks. None of them strained him. The ability to see the attacks in advance made every dodge easier.

Foresight showed lightning arcing out over a wide area, electrocuting him and people around him. He only saw it as she passed the threshold of concentrated power. There were no shadows under his feet and no time to save anyone. He blinked. There was a flash followed by a thunderous boom.

“Enough,” he said quietly from behind her and leant forward to heal the one other person who had been hit. Jules had pulled the spell at the last minute. “Sorry, she gets excited.”

“It was a minor shock,” the man stammered. “I didn’t need healing.”

Jules spun to face him. She was grinning. “Spoil sport.”

“What, I’m supposed to let you hit me?”

“Yeah, that would be nice.”

“Yeah, no. Come.” They linked arms and kept walking back to the hotel.

“It’s fun travelling with you.”

“Yep, it’s been an eventful but enjoyable trip,” Jules agreed.

“What are you going to do in Melbourne?”

Jules hesitated, clearly thinking it through. “I figured I would form a team, train them up and go fight infestations. Similar to what we’ve been doing as we travel.”

“I think that’s a great idea.”

“You know, I’m recruiting you for the harder monster grouping.”

“If you can get Emily to agree?”

“What, you whipped?” She made the gesture.

“No, but it’s a mature relationship. We don’t do things like buy a house without consulting each other or you know go out to fight five tonnes of muscle and teeth.”

“Doesn’t matter. Mum says Emily is a sweetie. Bring her cookies, mind the kids occasionally, and she’ll agree to almost anything.”

“Including sending her husband to get eaten by a monster?”

“I make good cookies.”

“That simple, hey.”

“Yes.” She looked uncertain.

“I’m sure if you need help, I’ll be available.”

Jules nodded in relief.

“It’s a pity Steve and Mum didn’t make it.”

“Lucky. It’s not like they would get to Melbourne, anyway.”

“True. Do you think Charlotte will come?”

“I hope so, but she won’t.”

“Why?”

“I don’t like Mike.”

Jules looked around worried.

“My sound barrier is in place.”

“I don’t like him either,” Jules confirmed. “She’s too good for him and he’s bad for her.”

Adrian nodded. “Not our place to say anything.”

“Yeah, I know. If she agreed to come, it would solve everything.”

They lapsed into silence as they walked to their hotel.

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