Chương 4: The Best and the Brightest

The sea breeze was cool, the sun was bright but not overly hot and the sand beneath his seated form was soft and white on the deserted island that Nihil knew wasn't all that deserted. The former necromancer slowly moved his awareness through his body as he considered the past and the future. Becoming a Black Thread Human was interesting, but it was just another skill to him after the many years he'd spent in the tower.

It affected him only a bit more than his previous body modification skill, which had consisted of strengthening himself by a certain amount depending on how many undead he'd had stored in his corpse inventory. Having a body that wasn't human anymore was something that he would get used to. It would just require practice. No, what was more bothersome was the fact that Hope had regained her memories of the future as well.

A thread as thick as a pencil snaked its way up to his chin from the tip of his thumb and provided a minimal amount of support in a mockery of the classic thinker pose. He'd gotten too excited and a bit arrogant, he could admit that. But, to be fair, excitability and arrogance were core parts of his character. If he stopped having these attributes he just wouldn't be the same anymore. Where was the fun in that? In the end the new score remained at 1: 1 between him and Hope.

He'd made her send him back and she'd forced him to delay his reacquisition of his necromancer skillset. As for why she hadn't killed him when she had the chance. Well, he could take a stab in the dark and guess. Hope's goal for this run of the tower was to keep as many people alive as possible, for altruistic and aspirational reasons.

Altruistic because she just had that thing called a moral compass or whatever, and aspirational because she believed that humanity carried the potential to climb the tower and thus the more of them survived, the better. Nihil's view of the situation was more pragmatic. Humanity's climb had been a rather sad affair in his opinion. Unclear, often contradicting efforts and strategies that led to more mess than progress.

Gathering humanity under a single plan proved impossible with the amount of god-complexes that sprung up with the advent of the system and the distrust sown by the administrators through level design. Most of the idiots Nihil had met served humanity better as pilotable corpses, and despite the fact that he now knew he needed at least three living allies for level 99, he wouldn't have minded adding some particularly belligerent if powerful people to his collection regardless.

He looked at the calm sea that stretched out endlessly in front of him as the threads his body was now composed of whirled inside of his human form, chaos slowly turning into order. Experience points +3 Experience points +2 Experience points +1 Experience points +1 It was nice to see the experience points he'd spent slowly start recovering.

In the tower, experience was literally just new experiences, and since he'd never had a body completely composed of modular threads that combined to form one sentient whole, he was pulling in a great harvest right now. It would be time to think about his next skills soon, but not quite yet. He raised a hand to put a finger to his forehead. The place where Hope had planted that bullet in the now defunct future. The reason Hope hadn't killed him was because her brother hadn't come back.

Without her brother she was missing a powerful combatant who was ostensibly on her side. Nihil had made his way to level 99 in one go. He was doubtlessly superior to a duo that had needed god knows how many attempts only to fail on the same level he had. Hope needed him because it was unclear what the levels 99 and 100 were. He was a proven product, adaptable and strong. More than anyone else at least.

It was clear she didn't believe he'd actually try to save that many people, which, fair, he hadn't been planning on doing that. Save enough to make it impossible to fail level 99 and harvest the useful ones just like last time. That's why she'd forced him away from the necromancy skill tree he'd crafted for himself. In terms of experience gain… he'd need a year to afford his Corpse Reanimation skill, maybe nine months if he got lucky and managed to find the secrets of each level.

"Talking about levels," he muttered quietly. The levels could not be crafted in a way that was impossible to pass, but level 99 had been. That confirmed one hypothesis, that the levels were pre-planned and preset. A gamble by the creators of the levels to fuck any humans who reached level 99 as a duo rather than a trio. He looked around the beach, still seeing nobody, before turning around and looking at the jungle behind him where the dangers lurked. This story has been taken without authorization.

Report any sightings. Standing up, now steady, he stretched more out of habit than need and pointed one finger in each direction in front of his torso. Left and Right. He hummed a children's ditty before settling on right and started to walk. Hope had played him quite successfully, to be perfectly frank. The thing was, without the Corpse Reanimation skill he couldn't start building his collection for another year even if he found the answer to the bullet aimed at his head.

Pragmatically, that meant that he should attempt to increase the amount of survivors now while he still couldn't benefit from their deaths. By the time he did figure out how to break the vow or survive the repercussions, Hope just might have another way of restricting him. Nihil calmly set out a list of priorities, looking at the list of skills and additions that would help him brute-force the vow even if he failed to find out its conditions and escape it more elegantly.

Black Thread Biomass conversion: Human and animal biomass can be converted into additional black threads. Experience Cost: 1295 Risky since he'd technically vowed to not create skills that would benefit from human death, but he was 99. 9% sure Hope wouldn't have the experience points to let her bullet travel through space and into other levels for years to come, if she ever would.

Even if she did, she wouldn't have the points to make it actually lethal to his new biology either, considering how expensive spatial manipulation was. The danger was more meeting her before he could survive an artillery shell since she could technically just upgrade her skill in terms of pure power. Black Thread Inventory: Black Threads can be stored in a metaphysical space tethered to one's identity, the amount of space correlates 1: 1 to the level of the user in terms of cubic meters.

Experience Cost: 2018 The same skill he'd used for his corpses in the past, made possible by the limitations on the material that could be placed inside and cheap due to his knowledge discount from having already once possessed a similar inventory. Black Thread Clone Network: Once a critical mass equal to the original weight of the skill user is reached within the inventory, a black thread clone can be created and controlled remotely. The bodies become interchangeable as the main point of identity.

Experience Cost: 6019"Almost 10. 000 points for functional immortality," Nihil muttered to himself as he walked down the beach and around the bend of the island.

"That's a pretty good deal."

"Of course then I'll delay Corpse Reanimation even further. A perpetual arms race of chain and prisoner where I'll never actually be able to focus on my previous skillset again." He sighed loudly.

"Well, it would hardly be as fun with an incompetent adversary," he consoled himself, hands in his pockets. He'd find a solution.. He always did. He looked up at the sky to remind himself of the rules of this Level as he started hearing voices in the distance. Level 1: Deserted Island How horrible! You've been stranded on a deserted island. Survive thirty days to pass this level, but wait, will you really make it that far with the limited food available?

Number of participants: 10 Still the same level as he remembered, Nihil confirmed as the voices started growing louder. He started counting the coconuts he was seeing on the trees of the beach while also counting his steps. Mentally he bumped down the number of participants to nine. Another benefit of not quite being human anymore, he no longer required sustenance. One of the many annoying parts of life he was happy to eliminate. No more foraging, no more looting, no more reliance on an unstable energy source.

The black threads moved, that was that. As for replenishing them if he ever lost a few? Well, that would have to be done with biomass conversion, a more elegant method in every way. It was after he'd counted two dozen coconuts and 691 steps that Nihil came into view of two other participants standing around on the beach with a certain intentionality he didn't like. That had always been the stance people took before doing something idiotic in his experience.

He winced as his theory proved himself and one of the distant figures ran forward and dived into the clear sea with a makeshift wooden spear in hand. Running forward, Nihil just about reached the shore before the water started churning and turning red. A human hand emerged above water, thrashing widely. The red-head woman screamed while Nihil threw his arm forward, detaching it with a jumble of black threads connecting it to his elbow as it flew towards the water and grasped the suddenly limp arm by the wrist.

Nihil reeled it in with a mental pull at which the woman's screams got worse. He looked down disapprovingly at the torn off human arm he was left holding. He mentally tallied the number of participants needing food down to eight.

"He- He's dead!" the woman shouted after she'd stopped screeching. She'd sank to her knees at some point. Nihil for his part looked down at the arm in his hand and wondered if he should keep it as bait, before discarding the idea and dropping it onto the sand a bit away from his feet. The cost and the limitations of this level were quite clear.

"Go run in that direction," he told the woman, pointing in the direction he'd come from.

"I'll go the other way. Tell everyone to not enter the water or the jungle until we meet up on the other side and discuss options." The green-eyed girl blinked up at him like a lost doe.

"W-What?" she eventually asked.

"I walked down at least a thirtieth of the beach by now," Nihil told her again, trying to stay calm.

"The beach is safe, but the water certainly isn't and the jungle likely won't be either. We need to warn others before they make the same mistake." To her credit, the girl eventually gave a shaky nod, stood up and started running in the direction Nihil had pointed her towards. Nihil for his part shook his head and took off as fast as he could in the other direction.

He didn't regret checking his abilities before starting to move, after all, getting a grasp of his new skills and analysing the chaotic past took priority. He would save people, but it was impossible to save everyone. The first time around he didn't remember more than five people surviving this level; if he could make that six it would already be a win, although he wouldn't beat himself up if more died due to things outside his control.

As had just been proven by the genius choosing to spearfish without checking what was actually in the water, he wasn't really dealing with the best and brightest here.