[System Decay] Chapter 16: Tick, tock

Time until tutorial failure: 23 hours, 58 minutes, 27 seconds.

“So you’re telling me that if I fail I’m dead,” Will said.

Helper: Not exactly dead, but if you fail, you’re not going to get any of the benefits of the tutorial. Depending on the cycle, you may lose access to many of the events that come with it.

“I’d become a system native, basically?”

Helper: Somewhat. This is, to be clear, not ideal. Even when you get to bronze rank, you’re going to be hard-pressed to survive underneath the Arcadian surface.

“Not ideal is putting it lightly,” Caiyeri said. “You know that.”

Helper: I’m trying not to scare him.

“Helper, two days ago, I got thrown into outer space. You’re going to need more than threats of death to scare me.”

Helper: Very well. Your odds of survival in the tutorial are still low. Judging from the threats you have seen, I estimate 20-30%. Outside the confines of the tutorial, your odds are so infinitisemally small that I would rather not give them. There’s too many zeroes to display conveniently.

“Oh, great. That’s just lovely. Why do you figure that? What even changes?”

Helper: You lose access to tutorial safe zones, your tutorial helper, the tutorial quest, and your system is impaired.

“You have to live like me,” Caiyeri said, tossing her hair back. “Except without the charm, skills, or luck.”

“You have charm?”

“You certainly don’t.”

Will sighed. “Okay. Alright. This just moves up our timetable.”

“It moves up your timetable,” Caiyeri corrected. “Not mine.”

Will eyed the elf. “Are you going to make that a problem?”

“Nope,” she said beatifically. “The faster we get there, the better. This just gives us a limit.”

“You’re a pain in the ass to figure out, you know?”

“The same to you.”

He had just under three days to complete the tutorial.

Phase 2

Prepare yourself as much as you can while you’re alone. You’ll thank yourself for it in the next phase.

- Reach Bronze 0 [0/1]

OR

- Reach Unformed 20 [0/1]

- Kill 100 monsters [57/100]

OR

- Reach the exit on floor 3 [0/1]

Reward: 1000 credits. 1 random Elemental Gem.

Right now, it was looking like the first or second parts of it were the most likely. They were still on the first floor, and if it only got harder on each floor, he was reasonably sure he wasn’t going to make it out.

At Unformed 15, Will was five levels away from hitting the level requirement for the second level. Killing the boss hadn’t granted him any levels, but he was very, very close to hitting Unformed 16 thanks to the experience it’d granted.

He’d gained less from this one than the previous bosses. Maybe that was because Caiyeri had been here?

Will asked about it.

Helper: The advancement gained from any boss will vary depending on the party, manner of defeat, difficulty of defeat, and the boss itself. The elder rune turtle was sleeping. You likely received less because of that.

“That makes sense. The Carrion Lord should still provide some levels when we kill him.”

Helper: If.

“When,” Caiyeri said confidently.

“Like I said,” Will continued, “when we kill him. Unless there’s some other way they can cleanse corruption? Could they have gotten ahold of one of your amulets?”

“They only absorb corruption from elves,” Caiyeri said proudly. “The amulets won’t work for anyone that’s not an elf.”

“So if I lost my resistance to corruption, I’d just die?”

“Yep!”

“You don’t need to sound so happy about it.”

Caiyeri gave him a suitably terrifying smile. “Test your skill out while we have the luxury to do so. We’re going to have to move a lot faster from here on out. That means we might start having to take direct fights or take down large groups. The big channels are almost all blocked up by big multi-clan parties.”

“Let’s burn that bridge when we get to it,” Will said, opening his inventory. “Alright. Let’s see what this thing can do.”

Destructive Synthesis stated in the skill description that it consumed the item entirely, so Will didn’t want to use any of the really good loot like the axe or the seven-shooter.

He did, however, have several crates in his inventory that were packed to the brim with loot from a whole bunch of dead goblins.

Will popped a corrupted goblin shortsword from a crate, then activated his new skill for the first time.

The sword distorted, flat smoke enveloping it like the corruption was spreading further. Once it was no longer visible, the weapon disintegrated in Will’s hands. The smoke sank into him, dissolving into his skin.

Mana restored.

You have gained the [Keen Edge] skill at bronze rank for [1 minute].

You have been inflicted with a level of [Corruption].

[Corruption Resistance] negates bronze-rank [Corruption].

Skill: [Keen Edge]

Bronze

- Spell (transmutation).

- Cost: low mana per second.

- Cooldown: none.

Apply a cutting edge to a blunt weapon. Your unarmed melee attacks gain a preternaturally sharp edge, and they now deal increased slashing damage.

The basic item didn’t restore his mana all the way, but the skill addition was just as advertised.

On the other hand, Destructive Synthesis hadn’t said anything about taking on the corruption, but he supposed that wasn’t much of a danger to him with the skills he had.

Keen Edge, on the other hand, was interesting. It didn’t seem very high-power, but that made sense given the fact that the swords were otherwise unenchanted. Even within the same rank, there were disparities—while the swords would affect a bronze-rank just fine, they were much worse at doing the job than, say, his axe of despair, with much fewer benefit.

He tried the temporary skill out, punching the fleshier parts of the dead turtle. Sure enough, every blow came with a moment where force penetrated the flesh deeper than it should have. Although he’d never tried brass knuckles before, he imagined the two were similar.

Soon enough, the skill duration ticked to zero. A small indicator flashed, telling him that he no longer had access to Keen Edge.

Even though he’d been using Keen Edge for the full minute, the amount of mana he’d spent was less than what he’d gotten for destroying the sword. That was a pretty good deal.

“I can definitely work with this,” he said out loud. “If this works with items in my inventory, I can ditch mana potions altogether.”

“That’s good news, given your pitiful capacity,” Caiyeri said.

“Oh, shut it.”

Will had enough spares to test out a number of other items.

Armor granted Iron Skin or some variant of it, which essentially gave the same benefit as armor except applied to his body, which synergized way too well with Escape Artist. He had a ton of goblin armor that didn’t fit him—if he could use it to protect himself, restore his mana, and keep Escape Artist at full capacity the whole time, that would be a game-changer.

Bows gave him a variety of effects, ranging from Sharpshooter, which was an aim assist, to Strong Pull, which just gave his arrows more speed. None of them let him shoot arrows without a second bow, unfortunately, but consuming one assisted him in shooting more effectively.

Gauntlets gave strength skills. Simple enough.

Clubs gave variants of Stunning Blow, giving him an increased chance to inflict a level of stun, bleed, or another condition on a successful unarmed hit. Will could already think of comboes with Keen Edge and Ghostflame—this was looking good.

He didn’t use up too much of his gear, of course, and soon enough it was time to get moving.

Time until tutorial failure: 23 hours, 8 minutes, 37 seconds.

They were still a solid few miles from the stairwell. They’d been making progress inches at a time. Even where there weren’t goblins to directly fight them, the unlikely pair kept on running into problems. The clans had laid traps everywhere, and the native fauna and flora weren’t exactly friendly.

They had originally been planning on hitting another safe zone, but with their accelerated time window, it made much more sense to just try blitzing it straight to the next level down.

The turtle’s vault was on the way, which was convenient. It also happened to be guarded by a dozen goblins, which wasn’t.

Unfortunately for them, they hadn’t anticipated Will and Caiyeri coming their way. They had more of a camp than an ambush set up, and from what little he could hear of their conversation, the goblins clearly didn’t think they were going to see any action.

“And I told him, yeah, you can see your sister,” one of them was saying to raucuous laughter. “So I showed him her head!”

The goblins, who were armored but not in guard positions, broke out into hooting and shouting.

Next to Will, Caiyeri’s expression tightened. The two of them had heard the goblin camp long before they’d seen it, and she had a stealth ability active, cloaking the sound of their footsteps as they approached from the side. The goblins hadn’t sighted them yet.

“Don’t just go running in,” Will said, taking a pair of oil barrels out from his inventory. “We play this smart.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Caiyeri said, barely restrained anger clear in her eyes. “You have a plan?”

“Can you shoot one bullet?” Will asked, taking his seven-shooter out. “You’ll know the one.”

She eyed it with distaste. “My amulet is just about fresh. I should be able to handle it.”

“Alright. On three.”

Will opened a crate in his inventory, selecting a set of gauntlets inside and manifesting them into reality.

“One.”

Destructive Synthesis took hold of the gauntlets, obliterating them in instants.

Mana restored.

You have gained the [Mighty Strength] skill at bronze rank for [1 minute].

You have been inflicted with a level of [Corruption].

[Corruption Resistance] negates bronze-rank [Corruption].

Power pulsed through Will’s veins. I could totally break my PR right now, he thought.

“Two.”

Will tossed Caiyeri the gun. She caught it, the expression on her face making it look like he’d just handed her the Manhattan Project demon core.

“Three!”

With his temporary strength skill, Will lobbed both oil barrels through the narrow aperture that led to the camp.

Too late, he remembered that Caiyeri’s aim wasn’t perfect—but then he saw magic glitter over her, adjusting her position, and he relaxed.

She fired twice.

[Incendiary selected.]

[Explosive Shot selected.]

Immediately after the second shot made contact with the falling flaming barrels, she dropped the gun like it was hot.

“Fifty-six percent,” she said, looking at her amulet. “This gun corrupts fast.”

“The safe zone wasn’t kidding when it said these were corrupted items,” Will said, retrieving the gun from the dirt.

A moment later, the screaming started.

Level up!

“Want to put some goblins out of their misery?” Will asked, grabbing his axe of despair.

“Out?” Caiyeri asked, tilting her head. “No. I’d like to make sure the miserable bastards go out suffering.”

“Jeez. Alright.”

They descended upon the burning goblin camp like vultures. Will trained up Escape Artist, Weapons Free, and Destructive Synthesis, eliminating any potential resistance by teleporting the swords and shields they reached for before consuming the item and executing them with his axe.

After their initial wave of killing, Caiyeri got to the grim business of interrogation.

It… didn’t go well. As it turned out, when you tried to torture prisoners that were still on fire, they had a nasty habit of dying.

“I made it to Bronze 4,” Caiyeri crowed afterwards.

“Unformed 16,” Will reported. “And I’m up to sixty-three kills. If you don’t hurry, you’re going to lose me.”

“If you don’t hurry, you’re going to lose your life,” she countered. “Now let’s get you another element. We’re going to have to make it a straight shot from here.”

“Gotcha,” Will said. “I’ll load up as much as I can. Let me start with these bodies.”

#

The fragment of turtle shell that served as a vault key set a massive stone wall retracting into the ground, revealing a cave with what looked like a dragon hoard at the center.

“Do you have dragons here?” Will wondered aloud. “Does ‘dragon hoard’ translate?”

“We do,” Caiyeri said. “Even their children are in the gem ranks. I’ve never seen one myself, but their hoards tend to be more orderly than this. Many of them are bankers.”

“You have dragon bankers?”

“Yes. I’m not so sure what’s special about that.”

“You—okay, no. You’re trolling me on this one.”

“Trolls? We have trolls. Awfully nasty folks at first, but they’re not so bad once you get to know them. I think.”

Will stared at Caiyeri flatly. She stared back.

He broke first, snickering. The elf joined in a second later.

“Hurry up,” she said. “Or I’ll take all your loot instead of half of it, and you wouldn’t like that, would you?”

Will got to it.

127 bronze credits have been added to your inventory.

Elder Elemental Gem has been added to your inventory.

5 Space Runes, 5 Electricity Runes, and 5 Death Runes have been added to your inventory.

Tablet of the Dark Forest has been added to your inventory.

“More runes. Sick.” There was definitely a lot that could be done with those—in particular, Will wanted to see if he could get an extra effect out of them using Destructive Synthesis.

What really caught his attention, though, were the elemental gem and the tablet.

Item: Elder Elemental Gem

Epic.

Found only in elder monsters who have bathed in the storms of corruption for decades or centuries, this gem grants the power of the survivor; those who have not only braved the corruption but thrive in it. Though they do not wield the power of chaos, their strength lies in their overwhelming presence.

You may choose to affix one of the [Storm], [Demon], or [Chaos] elements to [Power] or [Resistance].

Affixes one skill of the chosen element.

He checked through each of the elements it could grant. Will discarded chaos, since it seemed too similar to corruption—in fact, corruption looked to be outright superior as an element, though he supposed it was banned.

Demon looked more interesting, but it had a scary mind-warping effect to it. Will refused to let his magic have a control over him. He had been thriving because he was finally able to take control over his life, and he wasn’t going to give that up.

Before he affixed the gem, though, he checked the tablet. It was one of two, but Caiyeri had taken the other one. Apparently, even at bronze, she hadn’t awakened all of her skills.

Item: Tablet of the Dark Forest

Rare.

The dark forest hypothesis states that alien civilization exists throughout the universe, but they are both silent and hostile, maintaining their undetectability for fear of being destroyed by another hostile and undetected civilization.

You know that the first part of this is true.

The latter is up to you.

This tablet grants the power of the dark forest. One day, you may find yourself as the progenitor and proof of this hypothesis.

Affixes a [Soul] skill at the highest rank you have access to: [Bronze].

“This turtle has ridiculously high rarity loot for a solo boss,” Will said.

“I told you, I like my odds,” Caiyeri said. “You don’t see an elder rune turtle every day. The last one we found was the one that gave me the Luck element, and that’s not a common one at all.”

“Let’s affix these, then,” Will said. “We need everything we can get to make it to the stairwell.”

“Right,” Caiyeri said, passing her hands over the tablet she’d acquired. “We’ll make sure they don’t stand a Mother-damned chance.”

#

The human and the elf were coming.

Axl did not know how they had progressed so much, so fast. As a boy, it had taken him years to merely reach the peak of the unformed rank. Yet the human had done so in mere days. Hours, even.

The boy was unformed. How was he slicing through Axl’s bronze-rank clans like they were mere children? Yes, some of the troops were children, but they were all at least bronze. They should have at least provided some resistance. The elf girl wasn’t strong enough to carry him through all of these. Already, dozens of his goblins were dead.

But even if his people couldn’t handle them, every death was an increase to his power. Overlord had boosted his attributes back to the peak of bronze, even through the corruption.

Silver was tantalizingly close. The next rank—a true reset. It would be able to annihilate the corruption from his system, purify his body. It would make him the perfect servant to the Hunger.

Yet it was still too far. Overlord could drive him to the brink, but to break through the barrier required action from him.

The elf and the human. They would serve as the course that could repair him.

In the case they did not, though, Axl could see the frightening potential of the corruption. Left unchecked, it could mean the end of the caves. It could mean the end of Arcadia. The end of everything.

As his name suggested, the Carrion Lord was not one to care about the world, but he had been entrusted with a duty.

He readied himself to descend the stairwell, and he drew on a power he had not had to use since he had reached his position clad in the blood of the lord before him.

The Hunger was a cruel god, but a just one.

The sigil activated.

#

Far away, deep in the void, a group of immortals gathered in a space that may or may not have existed.

Even amongst the gods, there was a hierarchy. The Administrator, originator of all, was silent as it had been for the last millennium, yet its empty throne had yet to be touched by a single of the others. Beneath it were the pure concepts—then beneath that, the secondary concepts. Beneath even those were the patron saints.

The Hunger was square in the middle of the hierarchy, but he had enough strength to be a feared name even amongst the other gods.

He sensed his sigil’s activation.

“The cycle deviates,” he said. “Corruption sings.”

“As much as I hate to agree with you, yes,” said the Elven Mother. “My people sense it too.”

“Champions will be chosen earlier,” a deep, masculine voice rumbled. Revenge always loved getting involved, so it wasn’t any surprise that he sounded excited. “The second impact will be sooner.”

“Not yet,” the Hunger said. “Your sigils have not been called. This ‘Earth’ may have time yet to survive. I will observe, and I will report to the Administrator.”

“As you say,” the soft, angelic voice of Peace said. “Don’t kill too many mortals down there.”

The Hunger looked to the goddess, her red eyes glowing bright with hatred. “You and I both know that between the two of us, it is your hands that are bloodied with the deaths of worlds.”

“As you say,” she repeated. “Go, Hunger. Prove that your ascension was not wasted.”

“Gorge yourself and die,” he cursed her. “I will.”

The world was too young, too new to the system to handle the full manifestation of a god, but a fragment? A piece of a god, meant to adjust and modify the Administrator’s world?

That, the Hunger could do.

He would not interfere, but he would watch.

“William,” he said, tasting the name. “Your life and death will be exquisite.”