Chương 48: Brax's Predicament

Pain. I'm ripped from the blissful embrace of sleep as agony spreads through me. I try to move, but my body doesn't listen. My eye flickers, but there's nothing in the room attacking me. Heat grows under my skin and spreads deep into my core. The feeling of worms thrashing under my skin tells me that this is another session of optimized anatomy. I try to force out a command and ease the pain, but the only thing that leaks through my spasming throat is a scream. Trouble scrambles into view with terror on his face.

Just as he begins to speak, my neck snaps to the side, a crack echoing through the room. All sensation below my jaw disappears, replaced by numbness. I try to lift my head to see what happened, but nothing happens. This is just the skill. It will be over soon. The thought doesn't help, making me terrified that something went wrong. Trouble fumbles through his bag on his knees with tears in the corners of his eyes. From my position, I spot my shoulder.

Like a witch's cauldron, flesh bubbles and shifts under the skin. Nausea and the absence of it clash inside my mind. I squeeze my eye shut to escape. It only helps a bit. Slowly, my head is pulled back into place with a click. Feeling returns to my limbs. The pain surges back in full force, bringing a small bit of relief with it. Trouble's mouth moves, but the blood rushing through my ears mutes him. Just have to weather it. My teeth grit and my jaw tenses.

After another minute, the transformation stops, leaving as fast as it came. A gasp of air tears through my throat, and I waste no time spitting out a command.

"Kevin! Don't feel trauma or pain!" Foreboding fear and traces of the skill level-up fade quickly. My heart rate cuts in half as the tension in my body leaves. I sigh with comfort, laying my head back on the stone. It feels so good. With blood leaving my ears, sobbing makes itself known. Danger sense prickles over my skin. My eye opens. Tears travel down Trouble's cheeks as he holds a stone over my head.

"I'm sorry, Kevin," he says through sobs. Danger grows alongside the intensity of the markings on it.

"Wait! Stop!" My hand goes up in defence. His eyes open wide, the rock in his hand dimming. He stares at me with bewilderment.

"I'm fine, see?" I wave my arms around with a smile. Once it clicks, he falls to his knees and shoves his face into his hands. The rock clatters out of his hands onto the floor as he starts crying again. Sorry"I-I thought you were dying," he says between sobs.

"No, no no no no no. It was just a skill, I'm fine!" I place my hand on his shoulder in reassurance. At the gesture, he bows forward, wrapping his arms around my chestpiece and crying harder. My arms go up in the air. That escalated quickly. After a moment of debate, I lay my hands on his back. I guess he's a kid after all. I'd never say it out loud, but it's nice to be around someone for so long alone. Two weeks isn't a long time, but it puts things into perspective.

A few minutes pass as I pat the person I met two days ago on the back as he gets it out of his system. Eventually, he sniffs and takes a step back, standing up.

"Sorry," he says, embarrassed.

"Ah, it's fine," I wave it away without a concern.

"Didn't mean to scare you back there. It's just one of my skills acting up." He looks at me with suspicion.

"I've never heard of a skill that does whatever just happened to you." Yeah, hard to imagine there are any high humans having seizures in the streets where he lives. Then again, I have no idea where he comes from. That may very well be a thing that happens.

"Guess you gotta get around more," I shrug. He frowns, but a small smile appears on both our faces as we chuckle.

"Go ahead and keep your secrets. I'm convinced you're over level one hundred, and you're doing all of this to mess with me." He nods seriously. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. I tap my chin in wonder.

"That actually does sound like a good pastime." This time, he laughs. Mission accomplished. Satisfied, I sit down against the wall again. A blue screen appears, confirming my hypothesis. [Optimized Anatomy(lv. 1) > (lv. 2)] Damn, I'm going to go through that at least eight more times. If there weren't a supernatural force of my own creation suppressing my trauma, the thought would devastate me. Now, let's see what has changed.

One Mind/Two Bodies Entering the world of bodily clarity, I can see a few significant changes. Like before, my inner-exoskeleton is growing larger. The plates on my stomach and neck are growing longer, covering a larger area. It should only be a few more level-ups before I get complete coverage. This change also introduced more shards all over my body, from my arms to my legs. Their shapes differ, but I can tell the exoskeleton won't be stopping at my stomach and neck. My organs continue to change in size.

Some, like my heart and lungs, are larger. Others, like most of my digestive tract, grow smaller to make space. One thing I didn't notice before is that my muscles are starting to coil around each other. What? Braided muscles? These are becoming some real significant changes. According to science, humans developed over millions of years. Are these changes really better than progress like that? I mull over the thought, but I have no choice but to trust the system.

And not just because an extra skeleton sounds cool as hell. Surely not.

"Hey, Trouble," I say, looking over.

"Brax," he mumbles.

"Hm?"

"You can call me Brax," he says, looking slightly embarrassed.

"Your name isn't Trouble?"

"That's my public name. Braxan is my personal name." I spend a second in confusion before I realize it. I gotta remember that this guy has a culture from a different world.

"Alright, Brax. Kevin is my personal name, so no need to change that." He nods, smiling softly to himself.

"Anyway… Can you tell me about levels and progression? I hit level 20, but there wasn't any new skill." He adopts his teaching face before speaking.

"Well, the first tier is fifteen, as you know. Every tier after doubles in requirements, so do the skill acquisitions. Skills come every third of a tier, so you'll get your next two skills at twenty-five and thirty-five. The class upgrade will happen at forty-five." Holding my chin and stroking it, I think.

"And for tier three?" I ask.

"Sixty-five and eighty-five for skills, and one hundred and five for evolution."

"Wait, so it doubles every tier? Does that mean you have to hit level bajillion to be a god?" He shakes his head.

"No, after tier four, the requirement increases by thirty instead of doubling. Tier five is ninety higher than tier four. Tier 6 is one hundred and twenty higher than tier five. You get it?" Hmm… So it looks something like this. Tier 1: 0–15 Tier 2: 15–45 Tier 3: 45–105 Tier 4: 105–195 Tier 5: 195–315 Tier 6: 315–465"That's weird," I say with a scrunched face.

"Hm? How so?"

"Shouldn't it be cleaner numbers? Like fifteen, fifty, then a hundred?"

"No? The system doesn't care about clean numbers." Yeah, that's going to bother me.

"How is it different for monsters?"

"Not too much, except they get skills irregularly instead of at set levels. Their levels also reset at evolutions, instead of continuing like normal. But I'm sure you know that already. You've fought tier twos already, right?" I nod.

"Yeah, a few." That tracks with my own evolution as a monster.

"You know, I wish the system would tell me some of these things instead of just tossing me in," I say with a frown. He shrugs.

"In a way, it did." I look at him with a raised eyebrow.

"I saw the path when I first arrived here. It put you against a goblin first. Even someone younger than me without system access can take out one of those. It may not have taught you the intricacies, but it put you in an ideal environment to learn them yourself." The explanation makes sense. I nod while stroking my chin.

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

"Although, it's strange that it put you against hobgoblins and orcs so quickly," he says with concern. The words bring me to my first fight against a hobgoblin, fighting for my life and barely making it out alive. For some reason, the thought brings a smile to my face. Pride.

"Yeah, good times." He looks at me like I'm an idiot. I cough awkwardly.

"So, at what age do people usually get access to the system?"

"It happens exactly on their two-thousandth cycle from birth." I frown again. Damn, I gotta do math for everything here. One year is like, a hundred and twenty-something cycles… Realization strikes me.

"Fourteen!? There are fourteen-year-olds running around with system abilities!?" He jumps slightly at my tone.

"Fourteen what?" He says with apprehension. I sigh and contemplate the knowledge. God, if I got that much power at that age… The thought makes me shudder.

"Wait, what happens to kids under… two-thousand cycles during the tutorial?"

"I don't know? I never really learned about tutorials for new galaxies in school." I pace around the room as I think. The system wouldn't just kill them off, would it? It's been pretty fair so far, so I don't think so. They're probably just in some kid-friendly tutorial or something. The weakness from my last battle makes itself known as I pace around. Sitting down, I take a breath. Once again, there's nothing I can do but wait for the next phase of the tutorial to learn more. A thought comes to me.

"Hey, Brax."

"Hm?" He looks at me, chewing slowly through a bag of jerky.

"You said you got here through a teleportation circle, right?"

"Teleportation array, but yes." I adopt a worried expression.

"And you can't build another one?"

"No, that's still years ahead of me. Master Str-." He pauses for a moment.

"My master was tier five, and he had just built his first." Was? He said they finished it just recently… Oh. I see. His downtrodden expression, close to crying, makes more sense now. I cough, making him look at me.

"The system says it will transport me to the next phase of the tutorial in about four cycles. What do you think will happen to you?" He looks back at his lap.

"Yeah, I've been thinking about that. I haven't seen any messages from the system, so I assume I'm not magically considered a participant in the tutorial." The implication is clear. If this really is a disconnected dimension as the system says it is, the system is the only way out. He might be trapped here.

"I can only hope that the system takes me with you." He says sadly. My head hangs, unable to find any way to help him.

"Maybe if we're touching while the transportation is taking place?" I say with hope.

"Maybe…" he says, fiddling sadly with one of his rocks. Silence permeates the air. Damn, is there really nothing I can do? Minutes pass, but nothing comes up. With nothing else to do, I lie on the floor and close my eye. Can't waste too much time. The mana faithfully swirls in a circle, collecting in the center of my body and spreading out as healing. It only takes a few seconds before the drain widens, and a chime graces my ears. [Heal Companion(lv. 9) > (lv. MAX)] [Skill evolution available]