Tom woke before dawn and got to work.
After demolishing eight hives, he returned to the group and sat down next to Everlyn. There was a tray in front of her with a cloth covering two bowls. She handed him one and then took another.
He looked at it doubtfully. “Wasp stew. I’m so sick of the flavour.”
“I think of it as licorice crab. And crab’s a delicacy.” She chuckled at that.
Tom poked at it. This version had lumps of an orange vegetable. He tasted it cautiously. “Potato.”
“It’s a tuber from the spider thorns.”
“The poisonous spider thorns.”
“Yep, those. But the roots are edible.”
With a sigh, he scarfed down the meal. With the herbs they had purchased and the potato to dilute the flavour, it was actually quite good or would have been if he hadn’t been eating it every single day.
He put the plate down and went to get up.
“Not so fast, bubs.” Everlyn held a wooden box.
“Really!”
“From there.” She pointed to a spot between his broken hive and the next one across. That was where she hunted in the no man’s land that often had wasps flying through from a long way away.
He held out his hand, and she clicked the box open. Three silvery wasps flashed out and started stinging him. He let them land before releasing the fire elements that fried their brain stems, and they fell to the ground.
The venom triggered his title, and he felt it sweep through his body, changing it at a fundamental level. “Auto immunity.”
“Yay!” Her face lit up with happiness. She grabbed his biceps. “Well, tough guy, time to keep smashing things.”
Protected against the next lot of mutated venom. Tom went back to work. The sun rose in the sky. Sweat dripped down his face, but he didn’t mind too much. Experience and steady accruing of ranking points made this worthwhile. His growth was exceeding the peak fighters in most of the information sheets he had seen.
The hive in front of him collapsed. Shards of resin went flying, and he covered his eyes to stop splinters getting into them.
Cha-Ching.
He lowered his hammer and sighed in relief the queen was dead.
The sounds of trumpets exploded around him.
He froze in surprise.
The noise meant a significant notification.
Why?
He was not expecting anything. It wasn’t his class becoming available because that was a different series of sound. What then? A competition announcement? A title for killing a million wasps? Or a set number of queens?
Tom’s eyes searched the surrounding area. It was the same as always. A flat landscape died yellow and orange by the strange vegetation with mounds pocking up regularly to break the line of sights. While they kept the same distance between themselves, there was sufficient variance that they did not form a grid and if you weren’t as intimate with them as Tom was you would think that they were placed almost randomly.
He spun around again, paying closer attention.
No humans either.
He could risk it.
Tom shut his eyes and opened them to his plain system room.
He faced the main wall.
“Display notification.”
Competition Shaker (I) - Grants +1 to highest attribute per level before class points are assigned Awarded for. Being in the top five humans to generate 1024 ranking points. Epic Title: Competition Rank: NA, Experience: NA.
Tom was stumped into silence.
Competition specific titles!
He almost hit himself for not realising their existence earlier. The moment he had seen titles linked to the competition he should have figured what this meant.
What did it mean for him?
Extra snowballing, but it was more than that. This was the first title that actively took away from the rest of humanity. Only five humans would get this and given it was one that increased with class levels he almost had a duty to survive as long as possible. This title was perfect for someone who was going to live for the full ninety years, but it was not being awarded to the cautious type. Instead, it was being bestowed upon those who would throw themselves repeatedly into conflict.
Tom thought about his own path. He could take things slowly and make the most of this and his other titles. It would let him gain strength and accumulate a vast number of ranking points because of his abnormal strengths without ever risking himself. He knew how broken he was already. When he was level one hundred, at least on raw attributes he would be closer to a level two hundred than someone of his own level. At that point, he imagined just existing would present him with sufficient opportunities to mine ranking points. Or he could keep on his current path. If that was successful, that would remove the need for pretty much anyone to take ridiculous risks for humanity.
Mentally, he threw his concerns away.
He should treat this as what it was.
This was a buff to help him achieve his aims and his aims did not look past the current decade.
His resolve didn’t change the reality of the world. With this type of title, the strong would keep getting stronger. He had not realised how important titles were going to be. On a superficial level, not knowing about this had been an oversight. But practically his build had been determined off his questions to Dux and she definitely would have known about these.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Ranking points would lead to extra titles and there was probably another similar title at two thousand and forty-eight.
Competition firsts drove ranking points and if he wanted the next Competition Shaker title, then he should focus on hitting milestone achievements faster.
He left his system room and looked around while he thought.
What milestones were available that he could reach faster than others?
Classes were obvious.
Having begun his life in Existentia with an extra class slot he had a tremendous advantage on most people. Everyone else would be restricted to one class till level thirty two. That was close to three hundred and sixty thousand experience before they could buy their second class. He had so far been showered with free experience and had only acquired maybe fifty thousand. While he had got more experience than everyone else here, wasps were weak, so he could see other adventurers getting more than him. But six times more? Twelve times if he excluded one off title gains, it was unlikely someone would gain it that fast.
His next class was definitely something to focus on.
“Show Strength Attributes details.”
Strength: 56 - (+37 Starting Attributes, +2 Title: Strength Spring, +17 Natural Strength)
That was unexpected; he had got another point of natural strength during his morning activities. He still needed three more natural strength to get his targeted class.
Tom dropped out of his system room and walked back to his support team. The sun beat down upon him. He looked expectantly at them.
“No change,” Everlyn called out immediately. “You can keep going.”
“Next, lucky me.” he told her cheerfully and moved on to crush another of the ever present hives.
Wasps attacked him, and his summoned wisps took care of them easily. Then he started hitting the hive while considering classes and titles. If he got a basic class now, he would probably get a title and most likely a significant one. If he was lucky, it would give him another attribute point per level, or even better, a percentage discount on the cost of class purchases.
What then?
He would be stuck with a shitty tanking class because that was the only type that played nicely with his trait Fate Agility.
A chunk of hive exploded under his crushing blow. Next to it one of the first of the major defenders emerged. This was a king, but it was struggling out of a hole that had narrowed too far for its bulk because of the shifting foundations.
Thump.
His hammer squished it.
Was a shitty tanking class plus a title worth sacrificing the Lightning Tank class?
Crunch.
The wisps were spinning around him. Proactively, he killed the larger wasps as they emerged. He had two flame wisps courtesy of a lucky summons available. One was in his skin, but the other was perfect for sending out to eliminate specific enemies.
Crunch.
The hive was half destroyed.
This was not challenging. He turned off his pain receptors and then used Burn Health. His blows came down faster and harder. Healing Tranquillity engaged, and he was intimately aware of the micro-damage that had been done to his circulatory system, muscles and hell even some of his bones had hairline fractures.
Thirty mana vanished as the damage was healed up.
The hive crumbled in on itself as gravity went to work.
Cha-ching.
He stepped back and turned off the Burn Health skill and healed the final moments of damage. Another four mana vanished. The Cha-Ching had been his system, telling him that another queen was dead.
The shitty class would cost him useful skills and an attribute point per level at least till level thirty when he could evolve it. The title would offset those initial costs, but it was possible it would be a less lucrative outcome and he would permanently lose attributes. While he could rush for the title, it was not worth sacrificing the purity of his build.
Lightning Tank remained his target. Three natural strengths should only take four to six days to get.
He shrugged.
If it cost him the title, it cost him a title. There was nothing he could do about it. Not that there were shortcuts available to him. The GODs would not let him gain natural attribute points by doing push-ups or a gym session. You could only receive them in the course of real activities. The hammer he used on the first day being extra heavy might not have helped him at all. He may have only received credit equivalent to the use of a more sensible tool or not.
There was no way to tell.
Wasps started buzzing him as he got closer to another hive. Time to keep hitting things. He fell into a routine.
Destroy hives, occasionally pause to build up resistances to a new venom in a controlled position well away from any wasps. Summon wisps to hard counter the changing vulnerabilities. Sleep, eat and then restart in the morning. They steadily marched onwards, getting closer and closer to exiting the plains.
He returned to the camp and grimaced. The sun was already setting, so everyone was settling into their sleeping spots, but the mood was grim. Five separate groups had formed out of the ruins of Tiny’s unfortunate death. Each with their own cooks, shelter and guard rosters.
And they were barely civil to each other, with the guards watching the opposing camps with eagle eyes.
Tom, thanks to his role could mostly ignore it, but the entire camp was on tenderhooks.
Professionally, only the crafters were happy. They were progressing and getting experience while the warriors were almost helpless against wasps. Not fully anymore. Most had bitten the bullet and had purchased items to let them kill the wasps. But there was only so much experience you could get spinning nets around unless wasps were concentrated because of enmity, so they were not getting a huge amount of experience per day despite their efforts. Naturally, he resisted any of them mooching off him. That easy experience was for his friends and not for others. That basically meant that more and more people joined the slow advance toward the hives, baiting out the enemies. The elemental magic users rotated in and out of these assault groups. When the vulnerabilities were in their favour, they were a menace and destroyed tens of thousands of wasps quickly. The rest of the time, they stayed with the crafters.
Despite all the time that had passed, the community still relied on Tom. His ability to take wasp stings and survive allowed him to tank and then destroy large numbers, while all the other groups had to take things more carefully. “Hey Eves,” Tom asked suddenly. “How much experience do you get with that fly catcher?”
“About a thousand a day from personal kills and then five hundred from helping you out. Plus, I’ve earned four natural points in agility.”
“So those complaining about stagnating only have themselves to blame.”
She smiled. “Yep. Though even a thousand is not less than the other groups.”
The next day was the same, then just before lunchtime with a hive half demolished he heard orchestral music going off again.
Tom wanted to abandon the destruction of the hive immediately. He almost stepped away and then saw a soldier emerging. He smacked it with the hammer. If he retreated now there were too many chances that the full forces of the hive would be disgorged and then instead of getting him there was a chance of them going after the others who might not be prepared. He did not want a vengeful soldier or king avoiding him and attacking one of his friends.
Infused with extra energy, he moved around the hive, hitting as hard as he could. Health burn activated. Thousands of blood vessels burst and Healing Tranquillity engaged to offset it. The damage vanished.
Over six larger wasps emerged simultaneously. He employed health burn once more and used the extra speed to crush them with short, efficient movement. Then, even as he released the skill, his hammer chipped away at the base. Knocking some more out.
The hive imploded.
There was no noise, so he went around, slamming his hammer down into the rubble.
Cha Ching.
He stopped his blows.
It was time!
That had been orchestral music.
Which meant that his alarm on natural points of strength must have gone off.
He was getting a new class.
Everlyn clapped her hands in excitement when she saw his expression. “You got it.”
He nodded. “Can you stand guard?” Tom hated that it was needed, but he would not put his head into the sand and ignore the issue. While the killer remained free, he had to take precautions. While he was confident that he and his friends were not at risk because of Dux’s answer a small part of him wondered if that absolute oracle power that worked in DEUS’s trial still applied here.
Things changed.
Humans had free will. How much did those factors reduce the predictive accuracy? Precautions was all he could do and hopefully the killer was finished or if he was not that they would catch him or her when their next move was made.
He entered his system space.
“Show me the details of the class Lightning Tank?”