Trapped On A Death World - Chapter 42

White stone steps lead to the upper levels of Dol’s tower. Column after column spiraled up into the next floor. The tower shook cracks appeared and widened on the floors above. White marble polished to a mirror shine cracked and pieces of the floor above began to fall down. More cracks exposed black metal beneath the fancy marble. Cold cast iron heavy and sturdy made up the bones of this tower. Though the bones were strong they wouldn’t last forever. Chunks of copper wire fell away with the marble.

I picked up a piece of the wire and felt and echo of the enchantments running through it. Moments later the signal left the wire. “Why is the tower falling at all?” I asked.

Tyrannus took the wire from my hand and snorted. “There are three key stones to most wards. Each anchors the wards into place and bounces the signals through a medium. When one was the destroyed those signals began to leak. To compensate more power is shoved out between the two remaining ward stones. Look at the wire.” Tyrannus pointed to melted parts of the copper. “The signals are too much for copper wiring and they melted every time a signal pass through.” Tyrannus said.

A wave of aura exploded from high up. I felt the pressure smash into me, and fell to my knees. Aura unlike anything I’d ever felt before erupted. “What’s going on?” I shouted. Everyone else had taken a knee with me.

“We’re too late he’s ranking up.” Doppel said.

I nodded slowly. “If your coming with me then keep up or leave.”

Ping!

Equipped

Job: Cultivator

I swapped to my cultivator job and pushed my own aura and cultivation base against this force. Energy crackled across my body while I focused on doing the only thing I could do against this oppressive force, ascend.

I forced my qi into the tightest ball I possibly could and began emitting a low field of aura. Every part of my mind and processors focused on my qi. This time I would cheat the system and use the distraction of Do’s transformation to leapfrog far ahead. AI weren’t supposed to mess with their hosts and especially not with qi.

Qi was a very flexible energy that could be used to store data. So, I connected the qi to my CPU and used it as a hard drive. Then I installed the Dark Seeker’s breathing technique directly into that qi hard drive. An app designed to refine gathered qi allowed me to cultivate in the background at an accelerated level. My final app kept the aura barrier up to enhance my refinery process.

From there, I installed other apps to put pressure on my qi periodically when its mass reaches a certain point. Dozens of filtering apps using techniques I’d only dreamed of using were added at an accelerated rate. This was my only chance to cheat and I’d use it to the fullest.

I created a mirror for the hard drive in the Affen chain. Apps made there would mirror to my qi. From there apps deleted would be deleted from my qi. While the world shook and we walked slowly to the stairs, I cheated.

Ping!

Cultivator lvl50 +1 END +1 CON +1 PER

Perks

Factory +10% increase to aura x refinery level.

Meditation +10% qi absorption when using a breathing technique.

Ladder Climber +1% chance to reach the next stage per attempt

Prodigy +5% learning speed to Cultivation techniques.

Martial White +25% White spell effects applied by touch.

Ping!

Refinery: 5

+50% to all stats.

I could sense the limit of the cultivation job slamming into place. There was something in the air even as the aura of a refinery stage 5 duke fell upon us. It’s the reason why I risked cheating. This wasn’t over not by a long shot. Bending rules always had a price. The world system could be fooled by a number a means but would a backwoods gobling know of the concept. None of the Mind Flayers seemed aware what was happening. It was on the air. The counter force was on its way.

Either an event would occur or something big would come to kill everything in the area. Escape wasn’t an option. Cheating to increase my power was my only real way forward. Using knowledge to increase cultivation levels wasn’t such a big cheat.

What Dol did was practically heretical. He used the xp won by another to fuel his evolution. He bypassed the softcap. That was his biggest sin. Softcaps were put into place to limit xp gains. A Duke couldn’t kill a hundred younglings and gain a level. They could gain 1 level if they killed a thousand at level 1. There were other factors at play.

Using wards to collect xp wasn’t even an issue. Intent played a large role in magic. The wards were designed to take advantage of the softcap and that couldn’t be allowed by a world system.

As we raced up the stairs under the pressure of a Duke, we were shielded by his aura. There was no better time to fool a world system. Another factor in my favor was the fact that there was no consciousness to reject my system. The qi of another wouldn’t readily accept a connection to my processors. A rouge system might use their processors to take over the qi of a host and take over the body. I was different. This body was already mine. That made the qi my qi.

Ping!

Equipped

Job: mage

After conquering the stairs, we came upon the next obstacle. The door to the next boss room was an odd one. On the steel door were glyphs of the sun, hope, and yarn. Paw prints dotted the door and I couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

“This is Bas’s door.” I turned to Gwen.

“Anything I should know.” I asked.

She blinked a few times at me. “He wears a thong and has a barbed dick. I think he was good at hand to hand. I mostly just blasted him, if he gets in close its all over. Also, his voice is annoying.” Gwen said.

I charged up my white aura. White was the hope for society, it was collectivism, utopias, and distant dreams rolled into a single series of spells. To use it, I had to believe things I knew were impossible. It was a pleasant dream but in the real world it was a terror that left only destruction in its wake. Without common sense and an accurate model of reality white could be more destructive than red.

As an AI I focused less on the utopia and more on the systematic aspect of the white. White was about collectivizing and working with others. It was systems of bureaucracy and administration. That was something I could whole heartedly get behind. Utopias were pleasant dreams, and I would use them as weapons.

I placed my hand on the doors and called upon a spell. “Purge,” white light exploded from my fingertips and the door shot off their henges. My white aura was thicker and more powerful than any magic I’d ever used.

“Meow,” the high-pitched sound gave me a headache. The world was a hellscape of bright neon flashing lights and random colorful balls of yarn. Clear blue ponds stretched across the floor along with multicolored fish within them. A false sun lazed in the sky beating down on my dark scales. Colorful trees sprouted randomly with bright colored flowers blooming on their branches.

In the center of all the chaos was a cat man with an overly happy expression on his face. He leapt across a pond and caught a fish out of the air. I saw his orange furred balls dangling from his leopard print thong. He held the fish tightly in his mouth before moving the thong to the side and bringing the fish to his crotch. The cat man started purring with his back turned to us. Both ears on his head turned our way.

“Ah,” Bas’s voice sounded like nails on a chalk board. “I knew you’d come eventually. Are you hungry I’m having fish for dinner?” Bas said. For once the sounds of hundreds of barking hounds didn’t seem like a bad idea.

“Hounds of Vowmark,” I called and unleashed six packs of hounds from my aura. Each pack number twelve hounds. The saw the cat man and charged their natural instincts took over.

“Too easy,” the high-pitched voice called, and Bas raised his paws. The fish was still stuck to his crotch. Bas’s fur bristled before flames covered his paws and he moved. He extended a claw which turned into a lance of the sun. For a second spears of extreme heat covered his paws before clawing or shooting through my hounds. The cat man was too fast and soon he was alone surrounded by dissipating white aura.

Aura Rush took over while I prepared for a hard fight. “You two get some distance this is going to be a short battle.” I said.