NOVEL WEB Chapter 4: Chapter 4 - Skill Trees (1)
The Contractor was stunned. So much so that he completely focused on these few windows alone and did not look at the others that soon followed them.
He had yet to digest the fact that he was seeing, hearing and feeling all of these notifications like some kind of synesthesia that was both intrusive and non-intrusive at the same time. They seem to be a particularly prioritised stimuli that his mind processes before most other things, but at the same time, they do not occupy the entirety of his senses.
All this to say that despite them being glaringly obvious to him like alarm bell waking him up in the morning, they were not particularly disturbing if he wanted to ignore their presence. He can still process information from the world just as well as before.
And speaking of the world, he snapped out of his shock and realised how dangerous his situation was currently. He quickly wore his vest and tapped it once causing it to unfurl into a full-body suit, once more securing his safety within it. Or at least, to the extent that most external dangers would not be able to infiltrate it unless it had similar means to that strange object which he now knew to be called the Vernal Bloom.
He dismissed the windows that cluttered his vision by overlapping with his helmet's HUD as he climbed back out of the crater. He returned to his hoverbike, wore his coat and sped away. His destination was definitely not Therion.
He had failed his commission obviously. He found the object, but he failed to retrieve it. Well, not entirely. The object was within him, but he did not dare tell the client that unless he wanted to be dissected like a damned pitiful frog.
Although the Guild said he must debrief the client on what happened, he was obviously not going to tell them the whole truth. So he was currently on his way to a safe zone a few hours outside of Therion. There, he will look through this mess he found himself in.
He arrived at a small outpost after three hours of driving. This was Westpoint, something of a gateway to entering Therion. Many Contractors who take up long-term security commissions for the Free City settle here and three other similar outposts in the other cardinal directions. It was also not uncommon for Contractors who were returning from a commission to drop by and rest which meant that Contractor G413 would not look suspicious here.
He parked his hoverbike at the reserved parking space of an inn and booked a private room for the whole day. He was not going to spend the whole day here as he had a time limit to his commission. But he did not want to rush himself while trying to figure out what sort of mess he found himself in.
He quietly headed to his room and locked the door. He made sure there were no hidden cameras or microphones in the room before finally relaxing. Although it was almost impossible to find such things in the territory of Therion where the Guild kept a strict watch and discipline, one can never be too cautious.
When he finally relaxed, he folded his suit again to check his body for any changes over the last few hours. Fortunately, there was none so he could at least catch up to whatever had changed about himself. He then focused on the windows he had been looking at earlier.
[Decide the trajectory of your growth.]
[Photosensitivity: You have lived in fear of light not knowing that it is your greatest ally. You have greater affinity with the light element.]
[Branch A | Photosynthesis: You no longer need to fear the light for it is your guardian and your keeper. Heal injuries and ailments through the continuous absorption of light. Cannot recover missing body parts nor resurrect from death.]
[Branch B | Photokinesis: You no longer need to fear the light for it is yours to command and wield. Manipulate light in the surroundings. Generate light to a lesser extent.]
The more he read them, the more frustrated he grew. First of all, he realised what this was. They were basically skill trees. When he was not busy working on commissions, he mostly stayed at home, playing games or reading novels. Among the games he loved playing were Path of Exile and Last Epoch, both of which have pretty extensive character customisation in regards to skills.
Although it was not exactly the same, what he was seeing now was very similar to that. He was basically being given the opportunity to customise his abilities by having him choose from two different branches. Each branch would further split into other branches later on thus growing his power and arsenal. This was definitely a good thing worthy of celebration, but there was a problem.
"How the hell is this possible?"
Indeed, that was the question of the millennium. With the advent of Prisma, fantasy has become a normality. It was a daily routine for one to see some strange things like literal ghosts killing people or humans transforming into beasts or using supernatural abilities. Honestly, he should no longer be surprised that this skill tree opportunity was even possible.
But the problem was that those examples were things that came about naturally. Humans evolved because of Prisma, gaining such fantastical abilities that thoroughly blurred the line between reality and fantasy, science and magic. But unlike them, this skill tree opportunity was too sudden and unnatural.
He knew that it came from the Vernal Bloom that had apparently assimilated into him and thus bound their existences together. That alone was reason for concern. Yes, it likely did not mean that would die, but that was only in the context of the Vernal Bloom itself.
What of others who might come to learn of its existence?
For all he knew, the Valerian Emporium already knew what it was and what it was capable of giving which was why they wanted to retrieve it swiftly. Although that did beg the question of why they did not send their own people to do it instead, it did not take away the looming threat.
If they had so much as an inkling of what that object they had been searching for could be, then they would surely hound him to the ends of the world and probably even drag him out of hell if need be. And if Valerian Emporium knew of it, then who was to say that no one else knew?
He was not stupid enough to think that only one group was after this thing. This was the sort of McGuffin that he hated reading about in novels after all. They were forced onto the mc for almost no reason other than fate and then they get chased by various factions who want that thing.
He could practically see his life slipping out of his grasp already. He imagined being chased out of his home, out of his city. He would become a true wanderer, aimlessly traveling the world in search for a safe haven only to stumble into another den of vicious beasts wanting to devour him whole.
Worse yet, this damned skill tree was pretty damned useless! Since it was bringing him so much trouble already, it should at least be helpful. How the hell was he suppose to choose which upgrade to take when the information was lacking! First off, there was Photosensitivity.
[Photosensitivity: You have lived in fear of light not knowing that it is your greatest ally. You have greater affinity with the light element.]
What the hell did it mean by 'greater affinity with the light element'? Yes, there were people whose abilities were of a specific element like cloaking their body with fire, healing with water, etc. But those were innate abilities they were born with through their mutations. His supposed mutation gave him Photosensitivity that should have granted him greater affinity with light element.
How does he use that affinity? Just looking at the upgrade branches, it was simple to see that the ability to actually use light did not belong to Photosensitivity. It was practically useless. Not that he was blaming the Vernal Bloom for this one. No, this one was the fault of his mutation not giving him anything good. But the same could not be said for the upgrades.
[Branch A | Photosynthesis: You no longer need to fear the light for it is your guardian and your keeper. Heal injuries and ailments through the continuous absorption of light. Cannot recover missing body parts nor resurrect from death.]
[Branch B | Photokinesis: You no longer need to fear the light for it is yours to command and wield. Manipulate light in the surroundings. Generate light to a lesser extent.]
With these two upgrades, he would graduate from just having great affinity with light. He would actually be able to use light now. The problem was that he did not understand to what extent.
Photosynthesis apparently heals injuries and ailments, but it did not exactly clarify how effective this healing was. Although it did explicitly say it could not recover missing body parts or resurrect him from death, those were the extreme cases already. For all he knew, he could be expecting something that would patch up a deep gash in just ten minutes or so when in actuality, this healing was just the equivalent of damned bandage and ointment.
That was not even to mention the obvious question: Since he had to continuously absorb light in order to heal, how long would he last in maintaining this skill and how much would he have healed by the end of it? Although he himself never had supernatural abilities to use, he had spoken to many other Contractors who do. And they all say the same thing when it came to their powers.
The drain on their Prismana, the term that was coined to refer to the energy in mutant humans, was always too much than what was optimal. That was why they always tend to save their abilities for when they truly need them lest they end up wasting Prismana which takes some time to recover.
The problem with Photokinesis was the same. It says he could manipulate light in the surroundings, but to what extent? And how effective is this manipulation? Is it strong enough to be used as a form of attack like a laser beam or was it just enough to temporarily blind someone? As for generating light, he did not even bother expecting anything from it at all.
His deliberation on which he should choose lasted for a good few minutes before he finally made up his mind.