Chapter 112

Nightmare Mode

You ever have one of those days, where you wake up and think you are more than prepared enough for anything that could possibly come your way. So, you go in, expecting multiple choice, only to find out that it is essay format that must be written in a unique cipher while timed. Also, you cannot use notes or keys to remember your cipher, so you come up with something that you think will work, but mid-way through you think you know the cipher but can’t remember if it is a word substitution or a Playfair square type of substitution, but it gets the job done.

Well, that is what this test was. At least that is what it would have been like, had my Attributes and Powers not been ridiculously powerful. To be fair, I did have a lot of free attributes after my killing the Mega Behemoth thing. That netted me 900 levels between my three classes, which resulted in 297 Free Attribute points. Of course, the first thing I did was spend 180 of those bad boys on Spirit, which effectively increased my other attributes by that much as a percentage. That left me with 117 Free Attribute points to use as I saw fit, and I went to town.

Well sort of went to town. I increased my base Power to 100, then matched Willpower and Intelligence to that. Then tried to even out my attributes and ended up with one left over, which I threw into Willpower. This was done to make sure I didn’t get headaches from having a Power rating that was so much higher than my combined Willpower and Intelligence. This was something that I had to find out the hard way my first time through.

Once I was done, my Attributes looked pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Attributes Free Attribute Points: 0 Physical Attributes (Base Max: 358) After Modifiers Strength: (30) 310 Dexterity: (30) 310 Agility: (45) 465 Endurance: (30) 310 Mental Attributes (Base Max: 358) After Modifiers Perception: (50) 516 Intelligence: (50) 516 Willpower: (51) 527 Power: (100) 1,033 Spirit Attributes (Base Max: 358) After Modifiers Spirit (358) 608

With my attributes I should have been more than a match for Nightmare mode, and I was. The only problem was Alternate Jess.

Nightmare mode is timed and made with spawn gates; in case you were curious. So, you must run around, solve a problem, close the spawn gates, while it is spawning monsters on you. At first, I tried to let Jess help by solving the gates, but that was a headache in and of itself.

In the end I did everything. While Alternate Jess clung to my back like a howler monkey backpack.

After a few runs we found some rope that we used to make her a miniature papoose.

During the first few levels of this, it was rather, exciting. Due to her proximity she would have to either rest her head on my neck and shoulders, or turn her face inward towards my next to avoid the splatter of alien particles.

That was the other thing, the nightmare spawn gates spawned delicious cert bearing monsters. Certs that went right into my violin case.

With my levels so high, I didn’t even think about spending the 564+ certs needed to level. Instead, I just kept on gaining more and more certs, as these were basically the equivalent of Liquid Gold at the end.

Then at the end of each run Jess got not one but three free attribute points.

I on the other hand got zero free Attribute points. I took it as a win that I would at least get certs, but that was a small consultation prize.

Fortunately, these nightmare runs still came with the rejuvenation potions, but they were far rarer. Rather than coming at the end of every run, like they did for my run, they now only came at the end of every ten levels. This meant I had to limit myself. Or at least I would have had to limit myself, had my Attributes not been so ridiculously high.

With the knowledge of the certs, and the fact that the Prolaxians that we were fighting in here were no longer going to be seen outside. I explained the leveling system to Jess.

“First you need to take and put 49 certs towards your class. This will get you an Omega variant of your class.” I began.

Then I continued. “Now that you have an omega variant, you will want to take and put 1,000 of these certs towards your class. This will unlock a new power. The powers gained at the fifth and eighth spots are passive powers. Meaning they can run all the time and do not require you to focus on them to work. My Healing Aura that you are feeling is one such power.”

I admitted to her.

Once my violin case was full of certs, I went ahead and let her start consuming the extra certs for her class. My violin case could hold 2,000 certs exactly. Meaning that after floor five it was either waste certs or tell Alternate Jess about what was possible.

Once she maxed out her Psychic class, something she did around floor 22. We switched over to doing the same for her magic class. Of course, this was only possible from my using magic-based powers to kill the Prolaxians. Fortunately, level 22 was around the same time that the lieutenants began to show up.

Using my Spirit-X power, I was able to gain control of the magical spells being used by the lieutenants. I took them over then had those spells attack their own forces.

Again, being a Support mage was tough when it came to killing. But this allowed me to gain the 49 magic certs I needed to help Jess unlock her mage class. From there it was a slow tedious battle of trying to kill monsters using their own magical powers.

By the time the level 40s started, I almost thought about having Jess call it quits.

The Prolaxians were ramping up in strength, and if I had to guess, I would have sworn that we were going to have to fight the Prolaxian heralds soon.

I got confirmation that we were supposed to fight the Prolaxian Heralds when we reached floor 42.

Everything was going just fine, until we saw the final message.

Prolaxian Herald Unlocked: No escape. You must survive to move on or die. Note: That if you die, a terrible evil will be released upon the universe.

We waited for a good ten seconds for the heralds to appear. Then just as quickly as it all started, we received our next system message.

Congratulations: Prolaxian Herald vanquished. You may proceed to the next level.

“What the fuck was that?” Alternate Jess muttered from my back.

I tried to think about it for a second, but then realized. “I might have had something to do with that.”

“You killed him?” She asked, still breathing into my neck, so she could speak into my ear. She was so close that I could feel her hot breath against my neck. I must admit her proximity was doing things to me.

“Yeah, my first time through.”

“First time?” She asked. Then a dawning recognition filled her. “Wait, you were serious about all that saving the universe stuff? I mean, I know you believed it, but you actually, did it?” She asked, her voice incredulous.

“Yeah, sometimes I even surprise myself.” I admitted.

With that there was a slight hush, as we tried to leave.

“Wait, what is that?” Jess asked, pointing to something from my back.

“What is what?”

“That?” She said, clearly either going crazy or pointing to something that only she could see. I decided to humor her and walk her closer.

Then once we were in the center of the room where the Prolaxian Herald was supposed to spawn, she reached her arm out.

Chime.

“What is a Specialty Cert?” She asked, as a giant cert that was clearly ten times the size of others appeared in her hands.

Seeing that cert, I was almost overcome with greed.

“Give me that!” I shouted.

“What?” Jess said, as I tried to pluck the disk from her hand. The only problem was the cert was intangible to me.

“No!” I felt tears welling up inside my eyes as I was close, so close to getting what I wanted.

“Here take it.” She said.

Then just like that, the piece that was intangible became tangible.

Taking it, I felt a weight lift from my shoulders, as I visibly relaxed.

Phew.

“You okay there?” Alternate Jess asked.

“This is,” I began, but then trailed off as emotions hit me. “Sorry, this is very important. I got four of this last time and I made a mistake. You can use these to buy new Attributes, Classes, or Powers. If you are smart you will save these up and use them all to buy something that mixes well together. I did that, but I didn’t think ahead and avoided the obvious need. Because of that two people I lo… care for deeply is in pain now.” I admitted.

At that Jess, still strapped to my back nodded. “If that is the case then you can have all the others we find as well.”

I shook my head. “No, this should be enough. I just need the one chance to make things right.”

With that I opened my violin case carefully and tried to find a new place for the overly large cert. In the end, I went with just placing it under my violin.

“That is a very pretty violin.” Jess said.

At that, a slight smile formed on my lips. “When this is over, I will play a song for you.”

“I would like that.” She admitted.

With that we made our way through the different levels. At each end level there was apparently supposed to be a Prolaxian Herald, but since they had all been permanently killed, nothing appeared. Well, nothing, other than a victory disk for specialty certs.

Then on floor 48, the ultimate insult happened.

Just as we got there, Jess was teleported away. I tried to focus on her, only to find that something ate at my resonance to her. For the first time in my entire life, I was unable to use Total Recall as the ultimate cheat power that it was.

What was worse, I knew where she went. She went to the very pocket dimension I wanted to go to. She went to the very place where I could go and buy the Power I needed, in order to save Jess.

An hour or so later, Alternate Jess appeared.

This time she was slightly different, as she had a golden fire to her body.

“I chose the Solar Lancer Class. I also did as you said. I purchased an Attribute, Class, and Powers that all synergized together. I looked for your class, the Spiritual Augmentationist class, but found that it, and the Spirit attribute had been marked out. I don’t know what that means, exactly. I figured it had something to do with the fact that you already purchased it. I also saw the power you spoke about being there as well. The Spiritual Healing. In the shop it had red lettering noting that I was missing both the Spiritual Augmentationist Class, and the Spirit Attribute to use the power. But it was still there.” She admitted.

With that I took a sigh of relief.

It was bad, I was unable to follow her, and she tried to do what I asked. She had clearly tried to gain the powers needed to save my Jess.

“Thank you.” I said, a faint tear forming in my eye.

“For what?”

“For trying.”

“I didn’t do anything. All this time it was you doing everything. I figured this was the least I could do.” She said. Then she added, “but with my new Solar Lancer Class is powerful. It is a hybrid class, meaning I can do both offensive and defensive things with it. I chose a power conversion ability that allows me to absorb any type of energy and expel it as any other type of energy. This will be great for charging my phone or other personal devices.” She said.

With that, I had to laugh. Give my girl unlimited power and what does she choose? One that will power her phone when it goes dead. Then I realize the sad truth, as much as I might want it, this is not my Jess. My Jess is still waiting for me.

“You ready to take on the last two floors?” She asked, seeing my solemn expression.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

And with that, we finished the oddly uneventful final two floors. The second to the last floor had a few minions that Jess used to level up her Solar Lancer Class to an Omega status.

Then the final floor was just a complete let down. Apparently for the final floor we were just supposed to fight the behemoth, or a lesser version of one. But since the Behemoth of this universe was dead, nothing appeared. Instead, there was just a glowing silver potion.

“What is that?” Alternate Jess.

“It is power, but it will likely give you electric silver hair.” I say, as I let my shapeshifting fade and show her my true body. “See this is what I look like after drinking three of those. Though now I have the ability to hide my true powers thanks to Shapeshifting.”

“Oh,” was all she said at first. “Is that permanent?”

“Unless you can learn to Shapeshift, yes. Yes it will be permanent.”

She looked at me, at my hair, and then my true heterochromatic eyes. Then I could see the moment she came to a decision.

“Do you want it, instead?” She asked.

At that I let out a chuckle. “I believe this one will be perfect for you. It should increase your Psychic Potency by 50% if I remember correctly.”

“But I will have to keep the hair?” She asked.

“Yeah.” I say with a nod. “Well, you could be lucky and not have that side effect, but that is likely not the case.”

“No, in that case, I am good.”

For a minute I thought about pocketing the solution. I already had the bonus to my Psychic powers, and an insane Power Attribute, did I really need more?

Glug, glug, glug.

Before I even had a chance to say my first regret was a stripper named Diamond, it was gone.

[Increased Psionic Potency (II)]

Yes, not only was it the same potion I had received in my first time through, but it also apparently stacked.

Shrugging to myself I Shapeshifted back to my true form. Only to find that while I could change my eyes back, my electric silver hair stayed, regardless of how hard or how many times I tried to change it back. Seeing the permanent change, I said the only two words that accurately fit the situation.

“Well fuck.”