B.F.HUUPS
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Chapter 30
🕑 Added 2025-07-12 21:29:41 +0000 UTCTaking a seat on one of the sofas in the viewing room, Sooty bounced eagerly beside Aaron.
“So, what about your next skill?”
“Wait, you can’t just leave me hanging like that. You mentioned other races back in the crafting station. Are there really going to be other races on Superearth? Like aliens?”
“I'm not sure why you insist on calling it Superearth,” Douglas chimed in, having accompanied them to the viewing room. “The planet you end up on will hardly be Earth. More like a combination of three worlds along with a cosmic slurry mixed up by the System to create something else entirely.”
“Oh, so we got a delectable little crowd, do we?” the viewing room assistant eagerly rubbed his stumpy hands. “It’s always more fun with the boys around.”
“What, why, how did you make that sound creepy?” Aaron shook his head.
“What? Nothing creepy about enjoying some delectable little treats with your boys.”
“Why… why did this guy have to be the assistant? And more importantly, don’t change the subject! We were talking about freaking aliens!”
“Ergh, I’m done here,” Douglas groaned. “It’s his room, let him explain. Bye!”
“Skills, skills, skill!” Sooty demanded. “Don’t blueball me again! Let me help, bossman. I’m good at this. I’ll help ye select the perfect Skills for your path, that’s a Sooty guarantee.”
“Just hold on one freaking minute, Sooty. I’m getting to it, but I seriously need a little more information about aliens. You did say we were going to be living together after all this, remember?”
“Oh, I can show you aliens,” the assistant bounced his brows. “Every little, delicious bit of them, if you so desire.”
“No! For the last time, I don’t want to see anybody’s little bits. I just want to know what I’m dealing with.”
“Fine, shall I turn the screens on? You can ask questions while we watch.”
“Ye–”
“Hey! Skills.”
“Right, sorry, Sooty. Let me get my Skills sorted first, then we’ll take a look.”
“Take your time,” the elephant-like alien seedily flashed its gummy teeth.
Somehow this works [ Uncommon ] You throw random ingredients together, and for some unknown reason—probably multiverse bullshit—the food you make doesn’t taste entirely horrible. Passively improves the taste of all food made by the user.
A little bit of that, and a little bit of this [ Uncommon ]. Look, you call it experimenting. Nobody believes that bullshit, but they go along with it, mostly because you’re the only one who puts their hand up to cook. Passively improves the user’s chance to discover or invent new dishes.
Everything in the Pot [ Uncommon ] Just throw it all in, who cares. Not you, obviously. When activated, Everything in the Pot defies reason and allows the user to create dishes similar to whatever they were trying to make. It requires the same ingredients as the recipes in question used, but the recipes will not spoil if incorrect ingredients are added alongside correct ones.
Oozagh’s Breath [ Rare - Legacy ] Luckily, this Skill is on activate; otherwise, nobody would want to get close to you anymore. When activated, Oozagh’s Breath can stoke a mighty fire worthy of the great ogre. A unique Skill available only to those blessed by the formidable ogre, it can fuse the user’s breath with whatever they consume, or it can be handy when needing to clear a kitchen of too many cooks.
“I’m getting the feeling this System really doesn’t care much for my cooking skills,” Aaron muttered as he read the Skill options, groaning internally at the relatively low rarities and only four options. It seemed he hadn’t pushed himself enough for his level.
“Hmm,” Sooty hummed as he went over the options read out to him. “Well, Oozagh’s Breath is the obvious choice, but we gotta look at the other options first, so–”
Half-listening to the talking sootball, Aaron thought about the options. Taste didn’t matter to him, so obviously the first Skill option was out. The second Skill was another passive recipe Skill, and Aaron wasn’t particularly excited by that either, so it was out too. Everything in the Pot was better since it sounded like it would give him the ability to create recipes more easily, since it wouldn’t matter if he added an extra, unnecessary ingredient by accident, especially since the description described exactly how he currently went about his cooking. Still, something that just helped prevent him from ruining the dishes he made really wasn’t that enticing.
On the other hand, Oozagh’s Breath, as disturbing as it sounded, was the most appealing. Not only was it a Rare Skill, and whatever Legacy meant, but he figured it was provided because of his blessing, which he figured must make it pretty special. However, that wasn’t the main reason it interested him.
He still kind of saw cooking as a side hustle. He was about martial arts and combat, first and foremost. That’s what he needed to survive, and putting on a grand feast seemed a whole lot less important in the multiverse than being able to keep himself alive, so any Skills provided by his Profession that might assist him in battle were obvious standouts. And being able to stoke flames or blow someone away sounded pretty helpful in that regard, even if it wasn’t the Skill’s primary purpose, although he wasn’t even sure what that was supposed to be.
“Well, at least it is on activate,” he sighed.
Hopefully, picking this Skill wouldn’t mean that he would offend everyone with his terrible breath for the rest of his life.
“Hopefully, I don’t regret this.”
“Regret what?” Sooty exclaimed. “I’m thinkin’ here! Don’t tell me… ye didn’t, did ye?”
“Oh,” Aaron grimaced. “Sorry, Sooty. I picked Oozagh's Breath.”
“What?! I thought we’s were a team? What happened to me advice?”
“I said I’m sorry, okay? I just got caught up. I’m used to going at this alone.”
“Ahh, what’d me expect from a humy. Yeah, whatever,” Sooty muttered, his voice trailing off.
“So, viewing room time?”
“Ye the bossman, do whatever you like.”
Has my ‘totally not a slave’ assistant really got the shits with me? Oh, whatever. I don’t have time for this.
Four green, waist-tall monstrous humanoids with long, pointy ears and sharp noses fended off a giant bear-like monster with a scaled rear end. Behind the melee combatants, another green humanoid swirled a staff adorned with bones and other trinkets.
“Wow,” Aaron swallowed. “You weren’t joking. Real life aliens.”
“Me not sure that’s the correct term, bossman,” Sooty said at his side. “Technically, these goblins will be as indigenous to ye new world as ye humies are.”
“Yeah, I got it the first time. But I’m still—wait, goblins? Like in fantasy fiction?”
“Correct!” The assistant interjected. “It’s a side effect of cosmic memories imprinted deep within your DNA. You’ll find that the races of the multiverse have a habit of sharing qualities with fictional races from your own world. It’s a common phenomenon across the entire multiverse.”
“I see,” Aaron nodded as he watched, eyes fastened to the screen. “Fascinating.”
The spellcasting goblin shown on the screen was none other than Erdek Foulbreath, the top-ranking goblin and the quickly appointed leader of the goblins within her Tutorial.
Transparent, black skulls circled and then shot out from Erdek’s staff, swirling through the air toward the beast. When they collided with it, the beast both slowed, and within seconds, its fur and skin began to decay away.
The moment the beast was weakened, the warrior goblins rushed forward with a combination of spears, axes, and swords to finish the job.
“Goblins are a craven species,” the assistant said as they watched. “However, one benefit of their lack of courage is that they are often quick to seek leadership and are happy to subjugate themselves to those more powerful than themselves. This here is Erdek Foulbreath, a level 38 Deathwhispering Witchdoctor. The other goblins of her trial almost immediately bowed to her when she proved herself during a fight on the first day. Since then, there’s been essentially no conflict. Just complete, unchallenged leadership.”
“Okay, cowards, but cowards that are good at working together. Got it,” Aaron said, munching on an oversized drumstick he had cooked earlier.
“I’m not joking. Be wary of goblins. They may look weak, but the System endows them with power all the same as it does humans, though they do hit a minor bottleneck at E grade that humans don’t. Still, most warriors should be able to pass through it. What makes them dangerous, though, is that if one goblin proves itself as the undisputed most powerful goblin in your new world, all other goblins are likely to bow to it. This can happen surprisingly quickly, and you might find that the goblins of your world have a super state while the rest of you are bickering amongst yourselves.
“Also, they make for submissive breeders if you’re into that.”
“Again, no, I’m not into that. Let’s stay focused, shall we? So, this Erdek is the strongest goblin? Are there any other noteworthy goblins or other figures to show me?”
“Goblins? Well, if you’re not into breeding, then not really. Not compared to Erdek, at least. But there are other noteworthy participants of other races.”
“Good. I want to see the most dangerous people, regardless of race. I need to know what I’m up against.”
“Fine. Let’s take a look at the top ranker from the race with whom you’ll be sharing your world. The Thal’kesh.”
The screen flickered, changing to tranquil waters around a desert island. There was nothing for a moment, and then Aaron spotted several shapes moving through the water at remarkable speed. Within seconds, they had reached the beach from some distance away. Climbing ashore, Aaron got a glimpse of their otherworldly nature.
They bore the features of humanoid, eldritch horrors: flat, bald heads and slimy gray skin. Tentacles whipping out from the sides of their bladed maws, clawed, reptilian hands, and some with additional tentacles protruding from their backs as thick as limbs.
“We couldn’t have had beautiful elves on our world, could we?”
“Oh, so that’s where your fancy takes you?” the assistant deviously strummed their stumpy fingers. “Upgrade this delectable little room, and my purview will extend beyond just your little world, and we can take a sneaky peeky into others. Elves, catgirls, succubi, you name it. Whatever your scrying eye fancies.”
“No! No perving! I just want to see what threats I’m up against. It was just a figure of speech, okay?”
“You sure? There’s an entire multiverse of monster girls-”
“Yes, I’m sure!”
“Fine,” the assistant moaned disappointedly. “So, this guy. The one in the middle is Ikran Teshk Ungari. He’s Level 48, making him the highest level individual of your future world, currently, at least.”
Hulking boar chimeras crept out from the island’s forest, approaching the six Thal’kesh warriors, who had just landed on their beach. The monsters looked impressive, but Aaron couldn’t glean much, as his Inspect Skill didn’t work through the screens. Either way, between their oversized figures, deathly stares, and surprisingly fancy armor, he doubted the chimeras would be pushovers, which made what happened next all the more impressive.
An inky barrier was erected around everything with a flick of Ikran Teshk Ungari’s wrist, encapsulating the entire island, including the sky above. What’s more, columns of thick, liquid ink shot down all around, leaving only a few meters between each column. And with a splash of black, Ikran Teshk Ungari disappeared and then appeared, his tentacles shooting out from the columns of impenetrable ink from several directions.
It was an impressive attack, dozens of lightning-fast tentacles flashing out from many different directions all at once, killing the boars in seconds. But Aaron couldn't help but wonder how he’d go dodging such an attack.
It was fast, and there were a lot of simultaneous attacks all coming at once. Not only that, but the attacks appeared to be able to come from anywhere that there was ink. That said, he was fast and had honed his abilities to a great degree. Not to mention his Fate Bender trait.
Is it wrong to want to test myself against that thing? Or have I just gone insane?
Being a bit of a daredevil wasn’t new to Aaron, but he realized there must have been something seriously wrong with his head if he was actually excited by the thought of fighting the creature that was supposed to be the strongest intelligent being on the future Superearth. But that didn’t stop him from feeling just that. It didn’t help that the thal’kesh’s attack was just the kind of attack he needed to test himself against; unfortunately, he would probably have to wait until after the trials.
Oh, well. I’m sure we’ll get a chance to duke it out at some point. The thal’kesh didn’t look like nice guys, and Aaron doubted they’d be singing Kumbaya after the Tutorial.
“So, what do you want to see next? I have a juicy, tender little succulent that might pique your interest.”
“No, no succulents, whatever you’re suggesting by that. If this guy is the strongest, who’s second?”
“Oh, boring. It’s actually another Thal’kesh from a different Tutorial.”
The assistant flicked the screen, and a bulbous form whose bottom half was that of an octopus, and the top half was very human-looking, appeared. The creature had huge breasts that were barely kept modest by some thin strings. However, she was definitely not what Aaron would describe as attractive. She had the same bald, moist flat head, with grayish-blue skin. And was quite fat.
“You like ‘em big, do you?” The assistant winked.
“What? No! I asked to see the most powerful people! So, she’s second, or are you fucking with me?”
“No, I wouldn’t do that. Not unless you tied me up first,” the assistant winked. “Anyway, she is the second strongest. That’s Raksha Tiksus Vakmal, Thal’kesh queen of the depths, or at least that’s what she makes her followers call her. She’s only trailing just behind Ikran Teshk at level 47.”
Toxic purple filled the water around the octowoman as she swam toward her prey. They were giant, elephant-sized crabs scuttling across the ocean’s floor. However, their mammoth size provided little issue for the octowoman. Before she even reached them, they were clearly weakened and sickly from her poison, and when she pierced them with poison barbs that shot out from beneath her tentacles, they died shortly thereafter.
“Her underwater Tutorial had quite the early battle, leading to hundreds of her kind dead. But now she reigns supreme, and none dare challenge her rule. Boss bitch, huh?”
“She’s gonna be great fun to deal with,” Aaron said, feigning a groan.
Had he not been able to survive the toxic miasma trial with Oozagh’s help, he might have been worried about someone with the thal’kesh’s Skills, but he was feeling more comfortable now, even if she was a level above that. Ultimately, as deadly as her Skills appeared, they didn’t bother Aaron too much.
Next up was the necromancer, Darius Nessar, who had climbed to level 45 since he had last seen the man. But that wasn’t what had Aaron on the edge of his seat. No, that was the two to three hundred zombified people trailing behind him. And it only got worse as he caught up to his victims, who were four other people.
They appeared to be a pretty well-balanced party: one a mage of some kind, an archer, a swordsman, and a healer. But that mattered little against the necromancer. His risen warriors were clearly slower than they had been in life, but scarily, they appeared to have kept some of the Skills of their former selves, and a vicious barrage of spells and Skills rained down upon the party. They stood no chance, and once they were dead, Darius added them to his growing army.
“It looks like this Darius guy is about to run out of fellow Tutorial takers,” the assistant said. “Says here there’s only fourteen left. Though that being said, he hasn’t actually done many quests, and hasn’t even begun the main questline for the Tutorial.”
Aaron had taken a rather impersonal approach to what he had seen on the screens so far. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about seeing people get killed, but rather because he had his own problems to worry about. But seeing and hearing Darius had almost finished off his entire Tutorial reminded him that he wouldn’t be stuck in this Trial forever.
Well, I suppose it’s good to have long-term goals, Aaron thought to himself as he decided that he would kill the necromancer if he got the chance, assuming he was strong enough to do it.
The screens flicked over, and surprisingly, the man he saw was an unfamiliar face.
Wait, I saw the top five or six top rankers last time, didn’t I? Who the hell is this guy? Aaron wondered.
If this guy was the second-highest-ranked human, that meant he had shot up past the other five since he last checked this thing.
“Johan Svensson, level 35,” the assistant said. “This one is quite interesting. Only level 35, but he possesses a gigantic number of Tutorial Points, pushing him up into the second spot.”
“Wait, you never mentioned Tutorial Points.”
“Didn’t I? Sorry, first time dealing with a trial taker who didn’t complete the Tutorial. The points are gifted for a variety of things, but since quests and killing things tend to provide the most, you mostly get warrior types at the top of the rankings.”
“So, what’s up with this guy?”
“He united his entire Tutorial, completing a special quest and receiving a nice Title to go along with it. Not only that, but he’s made a lot of progress on the main Tutorial quest. It seems he has an evolved version of the Leader Class. It’s an interesting Class, really. It can go in many directions, sometimes more peace-related leadership roles, and other times, more combat-oriented roles, or a combination of both.”
“I see.”
Johan was a rather average-looking guy with short blonde hair, but the image he provoked was anything but. He sat on a literal pegasus like some kind of fantasy general in plate metal armor. He had a sword, but it was sheathed at his side, despite the fact that the rows of warriors standing in formation before him were about to engage a stampeding horde of beasts; he showed no sign of going for his weapon.
I guess he’s not going to join the battle?.
Soon, Aaron’s suspicions were proven to be correct. A golden aura glowed across the army of over a thousand, and Johan seemed to be able to whisper commands across great distances without effort, implying some kind of communication Skill.
The clash was quite spectacular, with the frontline of troops holding back the trampling beasts and thinning their numbers with an array of attacks. It was surprisingly organized, with the ranged warriors and casters conveniently out of range and allowed to sprinkle their attacks from afar, while the warriors held the front line. Furthermore, when a warrior did take an injury, they were ferried back behind the line by expert coordination and healed by the healers. The battle was one-sided, with only a handful of humans taking relatively minor wounds that were quickly healed, and with that, they swiftly ended the last of the beasts.
“Those Skills are actually pretty cool,” Aaron nodded appreciatively. He was impressed, but they absolutely weren’t the kinds of Skills he had any interest in picking up himself.
“Shall we see another?”
“Hit me with one more, then I'd better get back to work.”
A familiar face turned up on the screen. It was Talia Rhineheart, the armored girl with a giant, partially transparent avatar superimposed over her. Apparently, she had also climbed a rank or two, pushing her way into third place amongst the humans and was cutting down a hydra, one head at a time.
It was an impressive display of power. Every time she swung her scepter, the giant avatar swung its sword, easily decapitating hydra heads. But no matter how many she cut down, they kept coming. That was until she pressed her hands together and slightly bowed her head. A moment later, silvery light glowed out, and the avatar seemed to enlarge and grow brighter and fuller with color. She raised her head, and the avatar prepared to strike, all of the silver light flooding into its sword. And when the avatar brought its shining weapon down, a blinding light shot out across the hydra, blasting through it with unrelenting force.
It may have been able to regrow heads, but with its entire body torn to shreds, the hydra’s regeneration was far less effective.
“That was… that was damn cool.”
“Impressive, huh? At level 42, she’s had great progress. I bet she’s got a nice, firm pair of–”
“Quit it! I didn’t ask! That’s it. I’m done. See you when I’ve got another upgrade. And you better not be doing creepy stuff in here with Sooty while I’m doing trials!”
“Me? When’d I get roped into this?” Sooty said.
“I know you hang out with him in here.”
“Hey, we follow the rules,” the assistant raised its hands defensively with a devious smile. “Just a couple of boys hanging out, nothing creepy about that.”
“Sure, I’m watching you,” Aaron shoved a pointed finger toward the assistant. “Now, I’ve got training to do. And you’ve been warned. No creeping on people! It’s gross. Think about it, how’d you like it if someone was watching you?”
Comments
LOLZMAN
That was not what you should of said to the freak.
