Chapter 124: Six Piece Set Bonus

William Oh walks on frozen lightning, drinks the tears of the gods, breathes defiance, and stares giants in the eye.

-          Jason Salazar

“I did it,” Jason panted breathlessly.

You have reached level 10!

Now that you have reached level 10, experience gain in the Hunting Grounds through the 2nd Floor have been nerfed.

If you wish to continue to accumulate power, you must Climb to the 3rd Floor.

Jason Salazar

Prophet of the End Level 10

20 Strength

10 Kinesthetics

40 Resistance

40 Focus

30 Acuity

Charges: 3/40

Free Points: 10

Primary upgrade Available. (2)

Secondary Ability Available.

Wow. I am a complete badass. Jason thought, staring at his outlandishly high stats. I could probably take three Heaths at once now. At least, before he got his Class.

“Did what?” Will’s voice came from behind as he climbed down the hillside to stand beside Jason.

“I got to level ten!” Jason cried, pumping a fist.

“Nice. Say, since you’re done on this floor, can I get the axe and the mask back for a minute?”

“Why?”

A shadow blotted out the evening sun, prompting Jason to look up, and wish he hadn’t.

“No reason.”

**William Oh**

Will would’ve laughed at how comically fast Jason tore off the mask and handed it over if he hadn’t been paying more attention to the roc and counting down its ETA.

15…14…13…

Will slipped on the mask and looped a snake around Jason before he flew the two of them a couple hundred feet back from the pile of dissolving kaith corpses, watching and waiting.

The roc did not see them as a meal. Or even a threat. The bird landed right beside the largest pile of undissolved kaith and began gorging itself, it’s back squarely to them.

From here, Will could make out the roiling thunderclouds that clung to the bird’s shoulder down past it’s tail. Crackling noises accompanied tiny bursts of light as miniature lightning bolts arced from one man-sized feather to another.

Will measured the height from the bird’s shoulder to its pelvis, wondering how big the slab of breast meat would be. The woman at the Stronghold had carved her stall into the slab of salted meat.

What would a fresh roc sandwich taste like? Will thought, glancing at Loth.

“With cheese.” Loth whispered back, seemingly treading the same mental ground.

Will nodded. He would add tomatoes and onions too, but Loth didn’t subscribe to veggies.

“We’re gonna leave, right? Jason asked. “It’s not interested in us, so we can just leave. Right?”

Will pursed his lips in thought. He was itching to try out the 6-piece set bonus. To an unusual degree, actually. And the 2nd Floor Raid Boss seemed like an excellent target to see what it could do.

But…he was supposed to be the wise leader here. He was supposed to give Jason a good example of what proper Climbing looked like, and proper Climbers did not pick fights they weren’t sure they could win for a chance at a particularly tasty sandwich.

And what if the fight with the Roc spills over on Jason?

Will blinked as he realized what was going on in his head.

The roc was a stand in for the paladin’s Party.

Will had made the right decision to run away….but it ate at him. In the back of his mind, Will was wondering if, with his full set, he could’ve beat them, and prevented them from becoming a problem later. Maybe he could’ve but the fight could’ve easily spilled over to harm Jason or Loth.

And that Nuker would’ve turned you to ash…probably. I’ll never know for sure, will I?

Once he’d realized what was going on in his mind, Will was able to make a rational decision.

“You’re right,” Will said, ignoring Loth’s horrified expression. “Let’s get back to the inn and rest up. We’re heading up to the Third Floor in the morning.”

“Foo.” Loth pouted as Jason heaved a sigh of relief.

Will took that opportunity to duck down and whisper beside Loth: “Mark it.”

Loth’s eyes widened a fraction before she nodded, tossing a handful of scent-laying bugs out, which flew up to the Roc and nestled anywhere they could find that wasn’t brimming with electricity. Mosly on the bird’s face and scalp.

They were so small that the roc didn’t seem to notice.

They headed back to the inn they were bunking in, paid the ‘we were never here’ fee and set Jason up with a big stew dinner and a roc wrap from the nice lady’s stall carved into the side of a breast.

They waited until Jason fell asleep to sneak out and attend to the roc business.

“Now, how is this going to work?” Will asked. “I’m not sure even you could handle the logistics of butchering and brining a Kaijuu-sized bird.”

“I did some research while Jason was eating,” Loth said, opening a narrow booklet with only a few dozen pages. Her notes on the second Floor.

“There is only one Stronghold on the Floor with the capacity to process and brine a roc. It is centered around a caldera with a lake in the center, and a salt mine on the slopes directly above. They call it ‘The Salt Bowl’”

“mmm.”

“They grow a special blend of seasonings on the lower slopes.” Loth said, her black claw tracing the tiny squiggles of her own handwriting. “Which they then process and toss into the highly salinated lake, giving anything brined in it it’s unique flavor.”

“You’re just teasing me now.” Will said.

“A bit.” Loth said. “Anyway, typically, a Climber can’t transport the bird themselves, nor can they process it, nor can they carry hundreds of tons of salted meat with them everywhere they go, so the processed breasts are sold at auction, and the hunter gets 35% of the profit, or some combination of cash and meat. The rest goes to pay for the facilities.”

“Do the hard part and only get a fraction of the cash,” Will groused.

“It’s good to own land,” Loth said with a shrug. “Own the right land and you’re set for life.”

Will lifted the two of them up and followed Loth’s tracking bugs to the roc.

The Raid Boss was taking a food nap less than a hundred miles from where it had glutted itself on the kaith they’d killed, beak tucked into a wing, looking like a pillar of roiling stormclouds standing atop a floating mountain.

“I want to see if I can do this by myself,” Will said, studying the roc.

“…Why?” Loth asked with a raised brow.

“…I want to get some practice with the Set before we meet that paladin again. I’ve got a few ideas I want to test out…I want to end him.” this living on the run, always wondering when the tireless, indestructible paladin would show up again with another plan to put Will’s ashes in a jar…it couldn’t stand.

“I’m sure he feels the same way,” Loth said, making a ‘go ahead’ gesture. “If things go sour, lead it to that mountain.” She pointed. “I’ll be there.”

Will nodded his thanks before reviewing the set bonuses.

Family Gathering Set Bonuses:

Aspect of the Immortal Serpent’s passive bonuses apply to eidolons created by the user. Phantom Hand can interact with the physical world at will. (2 items)

Phantom Hand loses its hand form, which is replaced by 5 autonomous phantom snakes. These snakes can be fully controlled by the user at will, and have all the effects of Phantom Hand. Each Snake has its own Dimensional Storage, but only 1 can actively provide a Relic’s effect at a time.

Each individual snake can absorb one wound at will, or a lethal wound automatically, carrying the wound until it is healed, or the eidolon is destroyed, returning the wound to the user in whatever state of repair it was when the eidolon dissipated. (4 items)

Aspect of The Immortal Serpent’s Potency is boosted by 5000% (6 Items)

5000% is fifty times, according to Loth.

Is it enough?

Aspect of the Immortal Serpent had carryover effects from when it was still Aspect of the Goat. One of which was ‘hands and feet always find safe purchase on even the most hostile terrain’.

That manifested in two different ways:

If a surface was too weak to hold him up, it could stiffen that surface within a certain radius of his foot. If the amount of that solidified material was high enough, it could support Will’s weight.

Or it could cause a piece of solid material extend outward to offer a better grip.

It was the first one that Will was interested in.

In the hours of Ability tutoring that the Lord Ghoul had given him, he had demanded that Will challenge every preconceived notion that he had about what an Ability could or couldn’t do.

Will raised his right foot, heart hammering in his chest as he worked through the trick that Ghoul had taught him, convincing himself that he needed to walk on air.

Underneath his raised foot, the air solidified over two hundred feet in every direction, stretching beyond his ability to detect the change.

YES! Moment of truth!

Will leaned forward, putting his weight on the platform of air.

…And I’m stuck.

Will’s left leg was trapped inside a cage of hardened air.

As was Loth, and a large portion of the mountainside, for that matter. The scrubby pine trees on the slope below them that usually swayed a bit in the omnipresent wind were frozen in place, along with the scraggly berry bushes and tufts of grass.

Every single thing trapped in place by the air itself.

“Hurry up, this is wildly uncomfortable.” Loth said, up to her shoulders in hardened air.

“Oops, sorry.” Will said, picking his foot up, the air returning to it’s usual thickness, or lack thereof.

“New Ability?” Loth asked.

“The same one, actually.” Will mused. “Give me a minute to work this out.”

I definitely need practice with this.

Loth got to a safe distance, and Will spent the next hour going through trial-and-error.

I definitely would’ve gotten killed if I’d tried to use this in combat, Will thought as he worked.

Finally, he landed on the concept of ‘terrain’. The spell got it’s definition from Will, and he could easily convince himself to include large swaths of material that was all the same…Like air. But since air went right up to the edge of the skin, it essentially trapping creatures inside like insects caught in amber.

But what if he didn’t want a creature to be caught in it? Like Loth…or his own leg, for example?

Following his lessons with Ghoul, Will built the mental image of a ‘Not Terrain’ aura in his mind and attached it to a little label that he could mentally place on people or things he wanted to exclude from the effect.

Like Loth…or his own leg.

Will placed the label on his leg, picturing it radiating the ‘not terrain’ aura out at least six inches in every direction.

Will pushed down with his right leg, pulling his left one easily out of the effect.

And that was it. Will was standing on air, without any kind of support. Without carrying himself with Phantom Hand or any external Ability…he was walking on air with just his Aspect Ability.

It had taken hours to take a single step without tripping himself, but the possibilities were mind-boggling, branching out into other questions, like ‘could this skin-tight freezing effect be used offensively?’ and ‘can I treat creatures like terrain?’.

So many possible uses…

Will looked up at the Roc snoozing high above him. Such a massive bird took equally massive naps, and hadn’t so much as stirred the entire time Will had been experimenting with his vastly empowered Ability.

I swear, I’m gonna walk straight up there and punch that Raid Boss in the face.

Will carefully lifted his left foot, dismissing the ‘not terrain’ label from it before setting it down on the air.

Another layer of air was solidified under his left foot.

Will applied the ‘not terrain’ label to his right leg an-

Will’s right leg shot straight down through the hardened air beneath it, hyperextending his left leg and nearly smashing his balls straight onto the anvil of hardened air he’d prepared for them.

“You’re doing great!” Loth said, giving him a thumbs-up from where she watched, high up in a tree, safely out of range.

Okay, still need to work out a few kinks. No biggie.

Will made some adjustments, and soon enough he was able to stride up the invisible staircase of hardened air without difficulty. Not particularly fast, but that would come with practice.

Now… Will looked up at the raid boss, so sure in its superiority that it ignored ants like Will wandering around it.

Time to make good on that promise.

**The Roc**

The roc felt something strange, like the wind around him had suddenly gone dead. Sometimes there were lulls in the ever-present wind, but it never simply stopped.

The bird untucked his head from beneath his wing, blinking blearily as he assessed the situation.

There was a…little creature standing in front of his face. At first the roc thought it was perhaps some kind of giant in the distance, but when his eyes focused, he realized the creature was directly in front of it, within swallowing distance.

The roc cocked it’s head and let out a chirp, confused as to how and why a tiny two-leg would be standing in front of it within eating distance like that. Maybe it was diseased? Best not eat it.

The roc began tucking its head back under its wing and go to sleep again when the tiny two-leg used its tiny paw to bat the roc’s beak.

It…almost hurt. More insulting than anything. Very insulting.

The roc let out a shriek of indignation and lunged forward.

**Jason Salazar**

Jason woke up to the smell of something amazing. It wasn’t in the immediate room, it seemed to suffuse the entire inn, hints of it drifting from under the door.

“Is it…breakfast?” Jason asked, noticing that Will and Loth were gone.

There was a pile of strangely burned gear by the wall next to a keg. Will’s discarded shirt looked like a black tree had grown across it.

Jason got up and got dressed, following the amazing smell downstairs, the sound of chatter growing as he did, until he could make out Will’s voice.

“So there I was, clinging to the thing’s neck-feathers for dear life, my toes getting shocked every time they slipped into the thunderclouds…”

In the center of the inn, Will was surrounded by dozens Climbers listening with rapt attention as Will told the story, standing on a stone slab as his stage.

No, that’s…meat?

“Oh, hey, Jason! You’re up!” Will called, directing the attention of everyone in the inn towards him. “You want some breakfast?”

Ordinary men would shrink back from the combined attention of dozens of superhuman Climbers, but if Jason was bad at fighting, he was damn good with an audience. This was Jason’s area of expertise.

You’ll curse the gods that you gave up the attention, Jason thought, suppressing an evil grin.

“Of course! You know, if you guys think that was crazy, let me tell you about-“

**William Oh**

Oh thank the gods, Will thought as Jason took the attention away from him, allowing him to finally slink back into the crowd and enjoy his food. Will’s Hype Man had been asleep during the System Announcement that the Raid Boss had been slain…but he was quick on the uptake, fabricating outlandish details to Will’s late-night escapade…and being unnervingly accurate about it.

“And then he stomped down on the creature’s neck, and his Ability travelled through its spine and said ‘this is mine now’, paralyzing the giant bird long enough to climb further out of the thundercloud, clothes shredded and burned by lightning!”

The audience gasped as Jason described how Will and the roc had nearly crashed into the side of a mountain at full speed, narrowly avoiding it by controlling it’s tailfeathers.

The way Jason acted out the scene brought the audience into the adventure, as if they were there, fighting alongside him. To Will, it had felt less heroic and more pant-shittingly chaotic at the time, but watching Jason from a distance…Will could almost believe the stories about himself.

So this is how the church was tracking me, Will thought, carving off a sliver of mineralized roc and adding it to his morning soup. Unfortunately, it would take two years to cure the roc they’d delivered to Salt Bowl last night, so they’d simply put part of the auction payout towards buying a pre-cured piece, roughly the size of a small wagon, and relatively fresh at twenty years old.

Should last us until we get to the 7th Floor.

Will tapped his feet as he listened to Jason’s highly exaggerated account of the things Will was going to do.

I need to master all the applications of Aspect of the Immortal Serpent before we get there.