Chapter 185: The Beaten Path

Class Advancement review:

Contribution: An external error has caused Trial Contribution points to be divided by zero. Default to maximum points.

Methodology: Evasive, indirect, traveling, Ability-heavy.

Outcome: No detectable changes: Presumed Failure.

Generating Advanced Class…

I don’t fail at shit, Will thought sourly. Obviously whatever trial that was administered while I was asleep was simply confused by the enormity of my success.

Will told himself that to ease the sting.

Advanced Class generated:

World Traveller:

A World Traveller scorns borders, both real and imagined. Their drug of choice is the path untraveled. They embody the question unasked, action untaken.

They go places and do things solely because none before them have, and from these experiences, they derive strength in ways hidden to the naked eye.

They are strong, mentally and physically. They are tenacious, enduring. The World Traveller receives bonuses to tools, Meta Relic use, hardiness, and mobility, with a focus in Earth and Spacetime.

Will reviewed the Class changes for a moment, head cocked.

The ‘flavor’ portion was longer than it had been originally. Two paragraphs instead of one, and that little nod to ‘going places none before have’ felt like The Tower itself acknowledging his desire to sidestep the sudden end his predecessors had suffered.

The third paragraph, the description of the Class’s effects, was nearly the same as Resourceful Climber’s. A few key words were cut off, though.

‘But most importantly’ had been cut off in front of ‘tenacious, enduring’.

‘Minor’ had been removed in front of ‘focus in Earth and Spacetime’.

Does that mean my toughness max potential got slightly downgraded in exchange for a slightly upgraded focus in Earth and Spacetime? That’s it?

Does that mean I might be able to grab a better Teleport Ability? Will thought, frowning. I mean it is a Traveller Class, so I could see it happening. If I get a true Teleport out of this, that would be so awes-

Will’s thoughts stopped in their tracks as his new potential Primaries began marching through his mind. And they were...really good.

Generating primary Abilities and Upgrades based on your new Class and performance during the Advancement Trial. You may choose one of these options to add to your Primary Abilities.

Upgrades:

Phantom Hands:

Note, not a Primary Ability. This is an upgrade to Phantom Hand. Gain a right-hand Phantom Hand and all the benefits thereof. User will not gain another Primary Ability.

Upgrade Secondary:

User may upgrade a secondary Ability to a Primary Ability, increasing it’s potency and upgrade cap in the process. If this choice is taken, a tertiary Ability will be upgraded to take the secondary’s spot. User Will not gain another primary Ability.

Primary Abilities:

Consume:

Active: 5 Charges

Consume creatures or objects with strong miasmatic signatures and temporarily absorb a fraction of their power into yourself in the form of stat increases.

Map

Passive:

You have a map.

This map is a mental construct that contains an accurate record of terrain you have perceived. Your current location and heading is displayed on this map. You may summon this map and dismiss it at will, and it will only be perceivable to you.

Toggle: 7 Focus

Manifest a physical copy of the map.

Snake Husbandry:

Passive.

You may more easily control snakes and convince them to breed. Snakes view you more favorably and are less likely to become hostile.

Holdna’s Gaze:

Active: 1 Charge

Inflict Psychic damage and (acu/10) seconds of Paralysis on a target you can see. Acuity contested by Focus or Resistance, whichever is higher.

Tunnelling:

Active 1 Charge

Instantaneously tunnel Acu/10 feet from a terrain the user is in contact with to another contiguous terrain. If the location is largely changed or the relocation would cause physical harm to the user, the Ability fails.

Holy…shit.

It didn’t matter what Will chose, he was going to be kicking himself in the dick for the rest of his life for passing up on any of these.

Except maybe Snake Husbandry. I don’t plan on marrying any snakes.

And Map. I remember where I’ve been.

The others were mouth-watering.

Tunneling was a straight-up teleport ability, which was absolutely phenomenal. Will could vaguely guess from context that ‘contiguous’ meant ‘connected’. Maybe it had been created based on an extrapolation of how he’d moved through Kincaid’s fear.

That makes sense.

Will had to look at all these Abilities not just based on what they could do now, but what he could upgrade them to accomplish in the future.

lose the ‘contiguous’ restriction, change feet to miles, and BAM! I’m teleporting miles at a time. And even if I can’t lose the ‘contiguous’ restriction, air is a terrain, and it’s all connected as far as the sky stretches. So I mean…

Will mentally hovered over Tunneling a moment, his mental finger hovering over the selection.

Gah, but Holdna’s Gaze! It’s too freakin good to pass up!

It was obviously a direct upgrade of Serpent’s gaze, but it had an added damage effect, it lasted ten times longer, and didn’t require him to see the targets’ eyes.

Not to mention as a primary, he could take it so much farther than Serpent’s gaze as a secondary, and deploy it through Phantom Eye.

Will’s heart hurt.

…But Consume synergizes with my build perfectly! I could use sourdough on Relics to charge them up, then eat them, retain them with sourdough, and recreate them! And as a primary I could enhance it way, WAY further.

I could even make it give me new Abilities, or make the changes permanent!

The extra hand would give me TEN slots, and I might even be able to slot two of them at a time!

Upgrading Sourdough to a Primary would unstick its progression, and I’d be able to make even better Relics. Maybe even duplicate them.

At the end of that progression, Will could see himself creating a duplicate legendary weapon every couple weeks, by consuming the first and getting two Starters out of it then baking them in Relic dust.

Agh! This is so damn painful!

Will paused, frowning.

It is particularly painful. Every choice is dazzling and competing for attention. Any one of them I pick will be a huge jump in power for me, making me one of the strongest Lords in the Tower.

…Something smells. The agonizing pain over his choice felt…constructed, and it triggered Will’s paranoia. Maybe that stemmed from Will’s inability to accept good things at face value, but he doubted it.

Is The Tower offering these to conceal something more potent but less obvious?

Will had been Climbing with Loth long enough to recognize juicy bait concealing a trap.

What’s the trap?

Will thought back to his ruminations of changing his mindset when he became a Lord, as well as his musing on the nature of his prophesized death on the 50th Floor.

Power.

Power is the trap.

Power borrowed from The Tower can be rescinded. And while it’s offering me a great deal of power right now, what a good Lord needs, What I need to survive is…information.

Will turned his attention back to the two Abilities he’d casually tossed aside.

Snake Husbandry:

Passive.

You may more easily control snakes and convince them to breed. Snakes view you more favorably and are less likely to become hostile.

…This hooks into the Progenitor thingy, doesn’t it? Will could see himself upgrading it to apply to all the myriad descendents of Ouroboros and creating an army of potent scaled monstrosities.

A Lord among the scaled.

No, this isn’t the one.

Will brought up Map.

Map

Passive:

You have a map.

This map is a mental construct that contains an accurate record of terrain you have perceived. Your current location and heading is displayed on this map. You may summon this map and dismiss it at will, and it will only be perceivable to you.

Toggle: 7 Focus

Manifest a physical copy of the map.

Will frowned.

You have a map. Sounds boring. What can you do with a map? Although…Lords look at maps all the time. They use them to oversee their territory and plan expansions.

Huh, Territory and Terrain sound like they share a root word. I wonder if-

Will’s eyes widened as ideas began to flash through his mind, almost too quickly to keep up. Even though he’d just reminded himself to view each Ability for its potential, he’d still been far too dismissive.

What if an upgrade lets me control my Territory, like Aspect allows me to control terrain? What if I upgrade it to provide real-time information, and can watch my friends and enemies from a god’s-eye view at any time? What if I upgrade it to allow me to teleport myself, or others like pieces on a chessboard?

If the miasma and dimensional effects I can see via Uru Drake Eyes are terrain, could I map out time itself? See the future? Or find routes to travel between Floors without the Tower’s permission?

Dear gods, This is a LORD ABILITY! Will thought, sitting up stock straight. The prospect of simply seeing everything from a god’s-eye view, and knowing things that others couldn’t possibly know was such a huge advantage.

What if-

Will paused.

What if…miasma, charge, and dimensional effects COULD be displayed on the map?

Will held his right hand up to his gaze.

The range of his eyesight had increased by about an inch overnight, so he could just barely focus on the palm of his hand.

Will sat there, staring at his own palm for several minutes. Minutes stretched into hours.

Will heard people come and go, and words were said to and around him, but he ignored them, focusing on his palm.

During a shallow moment of his trance, Anna’s voice cut through.

“Umm…are you okay?” Anna ventured to ask.

“Thinking, don’t worry.” Will breathed, his gaze unbroken as he stared at his palm.

A few hours later…something inside his palm came into focus. His brain still gave it the same miasmatic blue as everything else, but it felt like a vaguely different color to his mind, simply in a way that he couldn’t describe.

And there it is. Will thought, watching tiny squiggles of miasma travel through his palm, coalescing into spots like cities, branching out like rivers and roads, connecting his palm to his fingers, where they ended in little dots.

Will followed the squiggles of miasma back into his palm, back through his wrist, noting the way they suffused his skin, nerves, muscles, blood vessels, each a subtly different color and shape that allowed him to differentiate between them.

Will learned this by spotting where a branching tube of miasmatic squiggles of a subtly different color pressed up tight against those in his skin exactly where the veins in his forearm were most visible.

It hurt his neck, it hurt his arm, it hurt his eyes to stare at his entire arm from two inches away, observing everything tiny piece by piece, unable to physically see all of it at once, like an ant on an apple.

Those squiggles that permeated him that looked like roads and rivers…Those were the effects of his Class, visible through his Uru Drake Eye.

No, not the effects of. That’s my actual Class, as it resides inside me.

That is the framework that directs miasma and Charge around my body, strengthening it, allowing Abilities to be used without any conscious effort from me.

Could I…Map my Class within my own body? And then recreate it on my left hand? Modify it?  Will thought, his skin going cold.

Could I map The System itself?

With that information…Could I make my own? Separate from The Tower?

Will took a deep breath…I’ll take Map. Will thought.

…Are you sure?

Will’s eyes narrowed even as the hair on his neck stood up. He’d never gotten that question from The System before. It was always phrased ‘do you wish’. Never ‘are you sure’.

I’m sure.

Maybe he was making the same mistake every predecessor before him had made.

Or maybe he was going off the beaten path.