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Limitless Path Chapter Three Hundred Two
🕑 Added 2024-10-01 17:00:09 +0000 UTCOnce the room was locked and they were ready, they hopped up on the training field and activated its barrier before pulling all the items out of storage. They got everything arranged before getting ready to begin, Beth flicking Blood some mithril coins to even their reserves out a little while they were fidgeting with items and storage space. Once they were ready, they both had a seat across from each other and got ready for the rebirth, dropping into meditation and preparing. Beth wasn't expecting anything different from rebirth one, so she was ready in just a moment, beginning at the same time as Blood.
Once again, a powerful swirl of magic formed around each of the girls as the items they required for the True Rebirth lifted into the air. The items hovered into the air, forming a complex array around each of the girls as their rebirth process started. Beth felt the power flowing into her, her body feeling like she was submerged in a hot bath while a warm current flowed through her muscles. The items started to dissolve into motes of mana as the process continued, the feeling of power increasing for both of the girls as the rebirth continued. The feeling was much stronger than the last time, which Beth felt was a little strange, as the second rebirth, even as a True Rebirth, shouldn't really be a big deal. That wonder was answered in another few moments as a prompt popped up in Beth's vision, despite her eyes being closed, rather surprising her.
You have met the conditions. Evolve class?
Beth was a bit startled, but this wasn't exactly something unheard of, though it should really have taken her a couple more rebirths to ensure it. A class change or evolution at the second rebirth was pretty rare, but she didn't think too much about it. She selected to confirm her class evolution, after which she was presented with a list of possible evolutions. This time she was truly shocked, having done just a bit of research on the subject, through which she had a rough idea of what to expect. What she saw now was not what she had expected, however, and she took her time analyzing the options.
Sword Dancer
{A being that has achieved prominence with the blade. You live with the sword, train with it, become one with it. Dance across the battlefield, the edge of your blade cutting a pageant of death. +6 STR, +4 DEX, +4 END, +1 INT, +1 WIS, +2 Free Points per level.}
Martial Warrior
{Trained with your body and various weapons, you control any fight you participate in. Walk the path of a warrior as you see fit, no matter the weapon. +8 STR, +6 DEX, +4 END, +4 Free Points per level.}
Crushing Hierophant
{Rule the battlefield with an iron fist and just sword. Evil falls before you, the wicked flee. Obliterate all who oppose you, dominant in mind and body. +8 STR, +4 DEX, +6 END, +2 INT, +2 WIS, +4 Free Points per level.}
She was initially drawn to the Martial Warrior, as the description of it fit very nicely with her current vision of her Path, but the Crushing Hierophant was just too tempting. Not only did the description talk about ruling the battlefield and slaying evil, it had the best stat spread of her three options, with a whopping twenty-six total points per level. She was a little shocked that secondary classes could be quite so powerful, and even very rough math pointed to a power spike just by her third rebirth of truly insane proportions. Then again, Elana had mentioned at one point that her STR stat was well into the thousands and she hadn't even done her tenth rebirth yet, which made more sense now that Beth saw the options available to her.
After dithering another moment, she mentally selected Crushing Hierophant, feeling a massive surge of energy flow into her body. It was uncomfortable, but not truly painful, as her body and mana channels were transformed and strengthened, a benefit of evolving her class to something rather powerful. The rebirth continued after that, with the energy settling deep in her bones, Beth feeling her mana reservoir expand yet again before the process started the final phase. She felt herself slow and weaken as her stats dropped, but it was something she expected, and with the new class, she'd have those points back before she even hit level one hundred. She checked her stat page after it was clear the process was done.
It was pretty crazy to see she still had more than two hundred fifty STR at level one, about half as much as she had at when she was prepping for her first rebirth and sitting at level two hundred. Her skills were also coming along nicely, with plenty of skills at the high-end of Silver if not at the peak of Silver, plus Expert in Swords and that crazy Platinum in Beastly Tyrant. Even more wonderful, her wealth line had quite a few number in it now, even after she had given Blood eighteen mithril coins a moment ago.
"You alright?" Beth asked Blood as they both stood.
The lupine woman stretched and responded, "Feeling fine. Little stiff with the stats reduced."
"Did you get any notifications?" Beth asked.
"Oh, yeah. Said something about my humanization and increased stats," Blood said with a shrug.
"Uh, can you be a little more specific?" Beth asked.
"Well, apparently my humanization advanced far enough I'll get more stats per level now," Blood said with a shrug.
"Oh, so that's how sapient beasts keep up with other species getting evolved classes," Beth said with an ah-ha look on her face.
"Anything for you?" Blood ask as she meandered towards the door.
"New class," Beth said. "Lot stronger than Brawler."
"You want to grind levels now, right?" Blood asked with a sigh as they headed back to their room.
"We gotta," Beth said with a firm nod.
"Fine, let's go," Blood grunted as they shut the door of the suite's living room behind themselves.
"Gotta contact Rell first. Need to know if we're doing a short session or we can spend a couple weeks' worth in there," Beth said as they sat on the couch.
"Lassie," Rell said when she had dialed him.
"Rell," she replied. "How's it going?"
"Fine, lassie," he said. "We're helping Cass's people with the follow-up investigation. I have to say, having somebody like that Elder come in and shake things up really gets things movin'. We're finding quite a bit of fraud, and I've been goin' back and forth with the Silver Hammers to get them up to speed and get them back on track."
"So, you need us to step in? Or are we at loose ends for a bit?" Beth asked.
"Aw, naw, lassie," Rell responded. "You did more than enough breaking this loose. Itharion and I are well-used to this stuff at this point; we can handle the cleanup procedures."
"Sounds good, then," Beth said. "We're gonna train for a while, so if you need us, just send us a message."
"Understood, lassie," Rell said before disconnecting the call.
"We have something else to do?" Blood asked hopefully.
"You wish," Beth said as she stood and started forming the arch of her portal. "And if we had to do something else, it would be to help Rell and Itharion with reading through ledgers and filling out forms. Would you rather do that than fight?"
"So, what's the enemy type?" Blood responded blithely.
"Goblins," Beth said with a smirk.
"Ugh," was Blood's only comment.
They entered the gate as soon as it was formed and immediately activated their boosts, sprinting away from the gate. The gate still only started enemies near the portal at Beth's current level, which was one, and they weren't going to waste their time killing level ones and twos. They dashed for twenty or thirty minutes, getting well into the zone where enemies were in the double-digits. A single kill got them several levels here, and they systemically killed as they continued to move outwards, every level bringing both of them much greater strength. Blood wasn't quite on the same level as Beth's new class, but she was very close, now getting twenty-two free points she could assign anywhere. She would slowly fall behind at that rate, though if she increased her humanization, she would gain even more points, and the gap wouldn't be especially wide for a long time. That, and with her points all being totally free, she could assign them anywhere she wanted, giving her much greater customization.
The initial levels were quite quick, but it did eventually slow down, with them getting to level thirty by the time a day had passed. They rested for a time and continued on, moving much farther out to challenge far higher level enemies. Their ballooning stats let them easily challenge enemies forty or more levels up, even when those enemies were over the level one hundred threshold. They would only really slow down when they got to the level two hundred threshold, as that would be where their newly inflated stats still wouldn't make quite as much of a difference compared to the beasts' defenses.
Still, they would be a lot stronger approaching two hundred, let alone at it, and that would definitely cut down on their leveling time, even with having to go to two hundred and forty this time. They wouldn't be doing that quite yet, despite having some free time on their hands, as they didn't necessarily have that much free time. They spent a few weeks slaughtering goblins, including the rather more powerful versions that appeared after level one hundred wearing armor and using decent weapons. The handful of weeks, which was only a few days of objective time, passed by in a blur, the two girls stopping their grind after hitting the level one hundred threshold that they had set as their initial target.
When they got out of the gate, Beth first checked for messages before joining Blood in the bath, the two relaxing for some time before getting some sleep in their rather nice suite bed. They got up the next day and got ready rather quickly, with several tasks on the docket, including testing their brand new airship, which Beth was rather excited for. They got through breakfast quickly and headed out of the suite, Beth pulling up their stat screens to see where they were both at before they left the Hall.
It was pretty impressive that both of their main stats were over a thousand now, though Beth was already seeing the disparity in their overall stats with the differences in their INT and WIS. Beth hadn’t even pumped the stats; she just naturally now got two points in each for leveling, whereas Blood had invested some points to try to keep her stats a bit more even. A difference of four stat points wasn't massive, but when it was spread out across hundreds of levels, it started to grow fairly large.
Blood would have to work on her humanization to catch up, but in the meantime, they had a ship to inspect. They could do it in the gate, but Beth wasn't sure if her power would interfere with anything with the ship, and it wasn't the kind of money she wanted to take chances with. They left the Hall and then the city, traveling some distance out into the wilderness before Beth made the cube appear from her necklace. She hadn't gotten any kind of instruction manual with the ship, but she would just try things to see what worked. How hard could it be?
It turns out…not that hard. As soon as Beth put an unarmored hand on the side of the cube it displayed an interface. She was able to select from there an option to deploy the full ship, after which a warning popped up that stated the operation would need quite a lot of space. Beth wasn't exactly a genius, but it wasn't hard to understand what the warning was saying, and so she had Blood move back with her to a position out of the way. The ship started a moment after they cleared the area, parts twisting and sliding and expanding as the whole thing went from a cube the size of a small room to a more than seventy foot long airship. The hull was a matte black with dark silver accents around the edges and certain specific pieces. Overall, it was a rather smooth shape, like an elongated pyramid that had the corners rounded, though it didn't taper as radically as one might expect, giving the ship a fairly large volume for its overall dimensions.
"So…how do we get on?" Blood asked, staring up at the ship hovering just over them.
"Um…good question?" Beth responded in a questioning tone.
"You don't know?" Blood asked in an incredulous tone.
"This thing was found in some old ruin. It didn't exactly come with an instruction manual," Beth replied tartly.
"And you want to fly it?" Blood asked even more incredulously.
"Sure. What could go wrong?" Beth replied with a manic grin.
"You're genuinely unhinged," Blood said.
"You've been spending too much time around Val already," Beth replied with an eyeroll. "I think we get on over here."
Her theory proved correct, as she walked up to a certain point by the ship which triggered a landing sequence. When the ship was on the ground, a slim metal ramp extended from the side of the vehicle to the ground. Beth walked up the ramp to find a door at the top that slid open at her approach, allowing her access into something that took her a moment to recognize; an airlock. Just from that it was clear that from its inception this ship was intended to be usable for space-based operations.
Comments
Arkeus
I'm kinda confused at how much time grinding take in the gate, given they get several levels per kill and probably more than one kill a half hour. That really shouldn't have taken more than half a day inside, so a hour outside.
Tan
Hehe, looking forward to ship action. Thanks for the chapter!
