Chapter 124 – Hidden Benefits

AG. I've been slowly focusing on doing more writing. It went twenty minutes on tuesday, than half an hour, then half a day and almost a full day today. I'm still impacted because my words per hour is down but hopefully I'll get production back to normal levels soon.

There was a competition to win, but analysing everything was part of that process. It wasn’t something to put on the back-burner. Absently, he glanced around the well-lit isolation room. The aftereffects from pushing fate too far and upsetting the GODs was very visible. Blood was splattered around the pedestal that contained the ritual status screen and even more pooled on the wooden floorboards.

With a sigh, he grabbed a face cloth and wetted it down as his mind raced. With a frown, he knelt down and began the process of sponging up the mess. The familiar actions were comforting as he tried to understand the implications of the message and the likelihood of deeper clues which had been hidden in the title.

Logically, the blood removal was probably not required, as powerful cleaning spells would be triggered when he went to leave the room. This was, after all one of the special isolation rooms and so everything was stronger, especially the functions that were there to support anonymity.

It still wasn’t worth taking a risk, and he figured the more he did manually the less chance of something going wrong and he wasn’t arrogant enough to assume he knew everything that those terribly powerful assassins could do. Magic worked, at least usually, but a bit of manual labour also wasn’t going to hurt him.

As his hands methodically wiped the floor and then rinsed the red cloth in the sink, he pondered everything he had just read.

“How screwed are you, Tom?” he asked the empty room. A permanent punishment from the GODs was a problem and it would impact him. The restrictions had teeth and would hurt. This was not the case of them taking functionality that he didn’t use or even something that was utilised rarely.  . This was a core piece of his build kind of stuff. He could recall numerous examples where he had used fate in a manner that was now barred to him.

Yet, he felt a feeling of Zen.

He licked his lips and tried to understand why he wasn’t upset, and it was more than just the ideas the notes attached to the title had provided.  

Any community prayers given how nebulous they were by definition would be as good as throwing fate away. He would never have to support that kind of effort again.

He realised that he was grinning. That, he thought to himself with more than a small amount of glee, was not a bad outcome. While he had always understood the benefit, community prayers and the unspoken obligation to contribute that went with them had always chafed. He was too used to isolation because of those forty years in the tutorial. That meant it was difficult for him to be happy with joint fate creation, especially as he had always known how inefficient the process was. With multiple people focusing on an outcome, even if their overall aims were aligned there would be differences in their images which would cause part of the fate to fight against itself. The updated human trait reduced the wastage slightly, but it was still there.

Now, because of this title, he could ignore the peer pressure and preserve his fate for more personal endeavours without the guilt associated with being selfish. The simple fact was that the title meant there was no point in him participating in any of those collective efforts as any fate he invested would be wasted.

The second significant restriction to his utility was slightly more problematic. After a moment’s thought, he corrected himself. No, that was not accurate. It would handicap him, but not fatally so. His capability to use fate for environmental and trial shaping purposes had been nerfed. While it wasn’t the most important thing he ever did with the resource, it was a function that he had extensively abused in the past. It had allowed him to make risk-free gains in the tutorial by tailoring both lairs and trials into optimal formats for his skill set.

Then in Existentia it had helped multiple times. It had almost certainly shifted their starting area into the wasp fields, which, while creating a difficult ordeal it had been better than the alternatives.  Without those changes, Tom shuddered when he thought about how many of their eighty lives would have been lost. Instead of less than ten it could have easily been over half of them or possibly all of them. Then fate had aided them against the dragon, turning what should have been an impossible fight into a win. And then finally and more pertinently, the darkhole trial. His investment there had likewise turned the impossible task into victory. Under the new restrictions, all of those creative uses of fate would have failed, or at least the method he had used would have only wasted his fate.

Carefully, he considered each situation.

Were there workarounds?

After a few moments of thought, he guessed there were, especially in hindsight.

For the wasps field, what he had done had been a lazy image as he had let fate decide the final imprint and that had relied significantly on future sight. But that was not something he had needed to do. Instead, he could have achieved a similar outcome by focusing his need on the grass plains to be home to an enemy he could fight immediately. Or if he was very clever, he could have imagined the wasps they had fought and duplicated that outcome directly. But that path was only available with the benefit of hindsight. He doubted he possessed the imagination to come up with that solution in a vacuum. 

It was the same story with the darkhole trial. If he had used his imagination, he could have shaped the floors to contain creatures with specific weaknesses and strengths. It was only against the dragon, that his ability to influence his future battlefield would have failed. That hadn’t been about changing the environment but stacking luck so a series of unlikely events could occur like dominos and create a singular opportunity to defeat it.

Things were far more positive than he had initially thought.

The two most significant issues, both community prayers and shaping trials were not detrimental. The first he was happy to do away with and the second with preparation, imagination and clear thinking could be almost fully mitigated.

Absently, he rinsed the cloth, and the water ran red while he pondered that insight.

Things were not as troublesome as he first feared.

“What about building fate for a future perfect cast?” he asked himself quietly. It was an angle he hadn’t considered yet and how he had been exploiting fate for the last year was now clearly blocked, but the wording that DEUS had included in the notes was clearly suggestive and something he could test.

He manually triggered Fateful Repositioning and did a double backward flip twist that shouldn’t have been possible with his child’s body. As always, a single point of free fate was generated and, before it could be randomly allocated, he focused it into a single image.

He wanted it to help him learn the Earth Jolt spell that he was practicing and give guidance that could lead toward a sideways evolution. The idea was this would let it be used completely with in the four-minute window.

Under his quick administrations, the spell formed. The rough lines of energy came together in a manner that was close to the wire frames he had memorised, but he made a point of rushing it in order to give fate more chance to act. The lines of energy weren’t precise or tied nicely and it was a long way from perfect. As he wove it, a single line of mana randomly peeled away and linked one of the octahedral corners to another right across the otherwise hollow centre.

These random failures were not unusual and were often a prelude to the spell forms collapse, but given his fate use Tom didn’t correct it. That unusual line was hopefully what he had invested fate into finding. Instead, he noted the exact geometry of the strange connection and that everything else he had constructed matched the wireframes he had memorised.

Satisfied, he infused mana into the spell, wondering whether the dirt in his pocket would react more vigorously than usual.

The spell took, and he could feel the energy building. There seemed to be some sort of standing wave within the structure which was amplifying the power.

He started to grin in anticipation. It had been a single point of fate, and it looked like it had worked.

The wave crested and then one of the corners broke apart and the spell form collapsed without moving the dirt in his pocket.

In moments, the one mana invested had dissipated into nothing, but that did not concern him. That extra energy made him hopeful that the random line, against all odds of probability, was beneficial and the technique he was applying could be useful. Yes, the spell had failed, but he didn’t think it was because of the addition. After all, it had been failing seventy percent of the time, so it falling apart was not a surprise.

Was this what the specific wording in his title had been alluding too.

Was this a better way of striving for the best possible outcome from the spells he was learning?

He focused on the same image as before, which was a desire for the spell to be constructed in such a way to create a sideways evolution.

The next spell formed and even before he invested mana, he knew it was going to work, as it felt more stable than his earlier effort. There was no line through the centre, but two edges were double reinforced. One of them aligned to the previous failure point and given the line bisecting the centre had increased the power of the spell Tom couldn’t help but feel that the two changes were related.

The spell once cast made the dirt in his pocket twist in one of the more violent responses he had achieved so far. That was a good sign.

Grinning, he continued the experiment and burnt through twenty fate as he repeatedly cast it.

Every single time, that single point of fate and his rushed construction caused something unexpected to happen. Mentally, he took careful note of all of them. After the additional lines of reinforcements had appeared three times, he incorporated the change into each new build of the spell.

The other alterations began to reappear. An extra whirl added at the nominal front of the spell form, a detailed and elaborate pattern that he suspected was a fractal that was inserted into one of the octahedral panes instead of empty space. The line through the middle appeared for a third time, and he attached it to the primary spell.

Tom tested the two additions.

Without fate interfering, every fourth cast was successful, so the change was valid even if it was creating more instability. But a drop from thirty percent success to twenty-five could just be a sample size issue. Tom wasn’t concerned about those details. The testing because of the slight power boost proved he was on the right track.

Then, when he started using fate once more, the fractal and the additional whirls repeated.

After he had incorporated all four of them, the spell’s success rate increased to fifty percent, and it packed notably more punch than the unaltered form. That level of success was a superior ratio than before the changes. As best as he could tell, not only did the alterations increase the power of the spell, they had also improved the stability.

Excitement coursed through him.

Those changes he was sure was the physical representation of a sideways evolution and because Dirt Jolt was an input into Earth Manipulation which was a core spell any benefit, he got would permanently boost the effectiveness of all the future earth magic abilities he was going to learn. If every single input spell gained a sideways evolution, then Earth Manipulation could end up with as many bonuses as Touch Heal even with it requiring far fewer steps to create.

That would be beyond massive.

Another ten minutes had passed, so he did a double forward flip to trigger Fateful Repositioning and as always the skill produced a single point of free fate.

Tom seized it with his mind and formed as image.

He wanted the spell to fall apart if he wasn’t on the right track to create Dirt Jolt with a sideways evolution. Given that it was only successful fifty percent of the time he figured failure was an easy condition for the small amount of fate to engineer. Nevertheless, he constructed the spell hurriedly to give fate an even greater chance to cause failure if his changes were pointless.

Then he cast it.

The dirt in his pocket just like it had a dozen times before shifted violently, almost threatening to break out of the magically reinforced uniform.

“Yes!” he fist pumped in excitement. This was it. The notes that Known Heretic had caused to be included on the spell were correct. He could use fate better than he had been.

The new title, once he had considered all the benefits was a blessing he decided and not a curse.

He paused for a moment as he remembered the contagious nature of the title.

If it was a boon and he could pass it onto someone, what then?

He shook his head. “Surely not. No, nope. They wouldn’t let it work like that would they?” He muttered to himself as he contemplated the problem.

By itself, the title was a curse, but with the notes that had come with it, that changed the equation a lot. The question was whether they were going to be transferred over as well?

For a moment, he went through everyone he had known and wondered if they would be able to gain the same insights that he had. Kang, he suspected would work it out. The girls wouldn’t. Michael, Clare and Rahmat, from his first life would definitely understand the hints. Harry and Everlyn as well he decided after a moment’s thought. The others from that group? Maybe not, but to the right person, if that text transferred, then the title became a definite boon.

He grinned.

He wasn’t going to say anything out loud, but his mind raced about the concept. At worse it was worth testing.

There were a lot of anomalies around the title. But that kernel of himself, that thing that triggered when he discovered a truth, the ability that had helped him with the idea that had created the heroes of humanity. That special part of him was certain that the notes would carry over. T It all clicked together into a nice little picture, even if bits were uncertain. He had observed GODs interacting, and he was sure that they had directly negotiated everything from the way fate worked in the trial to the specific words in the additional notes he had received. Given that complication the outcome could swing either way. But he was hopeful that the loophole was there for a single specific reason.

The special rules for the divine championship trial and this cursed title had been put in place to kill or in the title’s case negate a generic reincarnator.

If the coin trick killed the reincarnator, then as far as they were concerned that was a great outcome, but if it didn’t, then the enemy GODs had laid this title as a secondary trap.  The reincarnators that successfully completed their stint in the Divine Championship trial in real life would follow the same chain of thought that he had. It was logical to extend the short-term forecasting from the trial into a longer-term version of the oracle questions they had all had access to during the tutorial. It wasn’t even a coin flip. Everyone would do it. Even meatheads would have seen the connection and he was sure that after he had tested it on someone less important so he could discuss it with Corrine he would find that she had received the title as well. It was a foul trap and without the benefit of the notes he had been gifted because of his Known Heretic title a nasty almost crippling curse.

His case was different. The other GODs had planned for a general reincarnator and DEUS he was sure had considered Tom’s unique situation. He could easily imagine DEUS gambling on him and accepting an outcome which, while punitive for every other reincarnator was acceptable because of the massive bonus he would eventually receive. She definitely would have accepted that gamble and given that the other GODs hadn’t known about the title they wouldn’t have blocked it. That meant the notes would be transferrable and when he proved that and implemented the plan to upgrade the fate use of thousands of humans, the GODs would rage and he wondered if he could somehow use that to improve the Known Heretic title further.

He chuckled at that thought. What would an extra level look like? Would it be a two-tier upgrade for everything gifted to him?

If the test was successful, he definitely had to do something to ensure his title benefited from the likely fallout. The GODs would rage.

He flinched as he felt a tug on his soul. A distant, shielded memory, an echo of the terror of having a GOD want to kill him and the recollection of his soul breaking apart as a result of that fact. He concentrated on the present and focused on all the good in his life, on DEUS’ support and to his immense relief his thundering heartbeat slowed.

That game was for later. He made a mental note and then forced his mind in a different direction.

There was a path where he could still influence future events and, if he did it right, with more efficiency than everyone else. When they acted on the future, they lost a lot of fate’s power, but he could do so in a way where he didn’t suffer the same penalties.

If he got a precognition skill to let him see the future, then he could construct tangible images of what he needed and what had to change to make the specific successful future glimpse a reality.

He laughed unable to help himself. “Thank you GOD’s, for the title. It’s a boon.”

Somewhere he was sure GODs raged, and that made everything better.   

His precognition would break the back of his restrictions because of his high affinity.

With in the system room, he brought up the table that summarised the power of his 95 Affinity and potentially 96 if he could afford the divine fruit.

·        An affinity of 50 increases power by 1.1 times.

·        An affinity of 60 increases power by 1.2 times.

·        An affinity of 70 increases power by 1.3 times.

·        An affinity of 80 increases power by 1.7 times.

·        An affinity of 85 increases power by 2.4 times.

·        An affinity of 90 increases power by 3.5 times.

·        An affinity of 95 increases power by 12.8 times.

·        An affinity of 96 increases power by 20.1 times.

·        An affinity of 97 increases power by 59.6 times.

His abilities currently meant his precognition skills were 13 times that of someone with no affinity and if he consumed the entire divine fruit that would boost it to be 20 times more powerful. In the scale of how Existentia worked, it was more than significant.

Tom knew that each tier increased power by fifty percent.  

That meant if you raised an ability by two tiers you doubled the power of the spell. With a thought, the wall displayed the exact impact that compounding had on the power of each tier. Tom skimmed over the various lines, skipping the less important ones.   

·        Plus, 1 tier increase power by 1.5.

·        Plus, 2 tiers increase power by 2.3.

·        Plus, 3 tiers increase power by 3.4.

·        Plus, 4 tiers increase power by 5.1.

·        Plus, 5 tiers increase power by 7.6.

·        Plus, 6 tiers increase power by 11.4.

·        Plus, 7 tiers increase power by 17.1.

·        Plus, 8 tiers increase power by 25.6.

His affinity was already effectively boosting the power of his spells up eight tiers. Danger Sense was functioning at the level of a tier ten ability something he doubted any human would have been able to afford given it would cost millions of experience.

Levels were also a factor in power calculations and functioned under similar rules, but without as much insane scaling. At a thought because it was relevant he displayed them too.

·        Tier 0 level 32 (or tier 4 level 2) grants 2 times power.

·        Tier 0 level 96 (or tier 4 level 6) grants 3 times power.

·        Tier 0 level 288 (or tier 4 level 18) grants 4 times power.

·        Tier 0 level 864 (or tier 4 level 54) grants 5 times power.

The leveling speed his affinity granted was significant. His eight levels in Danger Sense were an example of this enhanced leveling benefit. It was already twice as powerful as it had been when he had started. That bonus would continue to accumulate and apply to new abilities in the same sphere. It was doubtful he would ever get to the point of gaining a four times multiplier outside of being gifted proficiency from a challenger trial like what had happened in his first life in Existentia. But a multiplier of three was achievable. If he got a skill that let him see optimal futures, then with the combined multipliers it was going to be powerful enough to make a real difference. He would be able to use fate to make those visions a tangible reality and basically side step the negative restrictions of the title.

Well, it was a plan. One that he could implement and would work. His ability to recognise the truth confirmed that.

Tom smiled.

He could use this to save humanity.