While I’d like to say it didn’t take me long to catalog my gains from the Instance, that would be a blatant and bald-faced lie. With Brenden standing on my shoulder and commenting on my pace every step of the way, the process, which I originally viewed as therapeutic, was mind-numbingly agonizing.
What should have been a simple and relaxing task that I could complete throughout the evening took me two whole days because my brother refused to leave me alone.
"About damn time; I thought you’d never finish up," Brenden chuffed while watching me place the final item, a stack of dried monster pelts, on a shelf in the storage facility.
"Brenden…tell me something…" Slowly placing the material down and double-checking the tag I had used to mark its characteristics, I turned and faced my brother with an expressionless face.
"Hm? What’s up?"
"How many fingers do you think I could cut off your hands yet still allow you to throw punches or hold a sword."
*Blink….Blink*
"What…does that mean…." Taking a step backward, I watched as Brenden shoved his hands into his pant pockets and backed away from me with slight fear in his eyes.
"Hey…listen…Taylor…I was trying to motivate you to hurry up… I’ve been stuck here for weeks, and I’m going a little stir crazy…OI put down the dagger; there’s no need for that…TAYLOR…TAYLOR CHILL!"
For several minutes after I finished taking count and stock of my wares, I chased Brenden around Gnarnia, playing out the role of a Movie Slasher as I chased him down and threatened to cut off fingers, toes, or other limbs until I eventually grew bored of the little game and headed back to the Command Center.
Not far away, near the training room, Brenden was lying on the floor, panting heavily and covered with dried blood, thanks to the hundreds of small cuts covering his arms and legs.
I hadn’t gone easy on him in the least; I will say, though, his stats are pretty decent, not far off of mine, but that’s to be expected, considering we were both ready for our Rank-Up, on top of being 6C.
Speaking of stats, I navigated through the multiple different programs that came preinstalled on the command center’s main control console and got to the one I wanted.
All it required a person to do was to place their hand on a specific part of the control console and send some particles through; then, since it already had your signature, it would analyze the content of the particles, and with some unknown technology sponsored by Arkadia, give a readout of all your statistics.
I know I’m downplaying how marvelous the tech was, but let’s be honest if I sat there and explained the overly complicated method by which the program breaks down particles, it would get boring…even for me.
"Get over here and show me your stats; I need to make sure that you didn’t bullshit me about your point placement and build," Looking over my shoulder, I saw Brenden slowly rising to his feet, and I diverted my eyes from him toward my Status, which hadn’t gone through a drastic change during my second adventure into the Caverns.
The reason is that apart from using my Circulation Skill, I had saved up every single stat point I acquired; thus, only my physical stats had increased, albeit not by much since I didn’t have much time to burn to go through hundreds of circulations.
{Level:10}
{Level Progress: 0.0%}
{Talent Growth Rate: 85%} *+4 x Modifier*
{Sub-Talent Growth Rate: 22%} *-5 x Modifier*
{Alpha Particle Count: 75/75} +50 *
{Physical Offense: 31.25} +12.5*
{Physical Defense: 31.25} +12.5*
{Intellect: 37.5}
This chapt𝓮r is updat𝒆d by ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom.
{Meta Physical Offense: 19} +0.25*
{Meta Physical Defense: 19} +0.25*
{Stat Points: 51.5}
Having only been able to get a hundred Cycles in, my Physical Stats had increased by 12.5 points, and I got lucky enough to get the bonus points to improve both my Meta Physical Stats by 1/4th of a point.
And apart from the Massive 50 points I had gathered by Leveling up along with the increased points after reaching the cap, I was sitting well…and then there was my PC.
"Holy shit, how did you raise your Particle Count by 50 points?" Brenden asked, having finally collected himself and joined me at the command console.
"By eating half of this, I saved you the other half, or else I would have potentially gained 100 points or more in my PC." Reaching into my inventory, I pulled out an object that looked like a cross between a giant peach and a slab of meat.
"Dragon’s Particle Heart, eat up, little brother, and don’t spit it out," I said while turning and giving my brother a twisted smile that made him cringe away because he was getting a bad feeling.
"Woah woah, hold up, let me cook it at least; AHH NO, I DON’T WANNA EAT IT YET, STOP!" From anxiety to fright, Brenden tried getting away, but I was faster; kicking his legs out, he fell onto his back with me pinning him down as I not so gently shoved the remaining half of valuable Dragon Flesh into his mouth and forced him to chew.
"Om nom nom, Brenden, you need your protein; it’s good for you! HAHAHA!" Cackling like a madman, I force-fed my brother the Particle Heart as a means to exact my revenge for him, wasting two whole days of the calming organization until the last speck of flesh was safely in his belly.
"Huup, I ima blow chunks….ugh, fucking disgusting," once I was sure he had eaten it all, I released him so that he could roll around clutching his stomach and try his best not to hurl.
"Quit your bitching. It’s not that bad; I ate my half just fine; plus, you’ll get at the minimum +30 points of PC, so get over it." Rolling my eyes, I opened up my System Panel and thought about how I wanted to distribute my points.
Generally speaking, if I was still in the Origin Timeline and I had 50 Stat points lying around, I would have dumped 40 points into my PC and 10 points into Intellect; however, things were a tad different now.