NOVEL NEXT Chapter 9: Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Card
Author's note:
Today, I'm launching this story on Royal Road. You can find it here if you'd prefer to read there. I'm going to release 12 chapters in quick succession there, so I'm going to release chapters daily here for the next few days to bring both sites to the same point. In the long-term, though, I will stop posting this story on ScribbleHub - I learnt from my last story that it was more stressful than necessary trying to keep two sites up to date. However, that point is not now, and right now I'm going to be updating more frequently. I'm planning on a 3x weekly update, and also plan to join Writeathon on RR this November, so that will be 6x weekly chapters for the 5 week duration. Yay ;)
Enjoy the chapter!
*****
Level up, Dominic thought and a System message appeared before his eyes.
<Congratulations! You have earned enough PP to level up. You can choose 1 aspect of yourself to enhance via Evolution. See options?>
Only one? Dominic thought with dismay. Last time I chose two! Unfortunately, however reactive the System might be, his complaints weren’t reacted to and the difference wasn’t explained. At least I might be able to level up twice if the requirements for the next level haven’t jumped too much, Dominic sighed to himself.
As he accepted the prompt to see his options, the same list as before came up in front of him.
<Heart – improve your stamina>
<Muscles – improve your speed>
<Eyes – improve your sight>
<Touch – lengthen your whiskers or improve your sensitivity to touch>
<Sinuses – improve your sense of smell>
<Mouth – improve your bite power or sense of taste>
<Teeth – sharpen, lengthen, or strengthen your teeth>
<Digestive system – widen your diet or improve your constitution>
<Claws – sharpen, lengthen, or strengthen your claws>
<Coat – thicken, lengthen, or harden your coat>
<Mane – thicken or darken your mane>
<Vocal cords – enhance your roar>
<Feet – harden or soften your pads>
<Bones – strengthen or grow your bones>
<Skin – render your skin harder or more flexible>
Interestingly, Coat and Heart were still on the list, despite him having chosen them previously. Clearly, he didn’t have to enhance his whole body equally. I suppose that makes sense, Dominic mused. If I wanted to become a defence specialist, I wouldn’t necessarily want to enhance my speed. Or vice versa.
Last time he had been happy with the amount of SP he had gained from enhancing his heart, but he had been a bit disappointed with the gains from enhancing his coat. His resistance to piercing damage had been left untouched, his resistance to crushing damage had doubled, and his resistance to tearing damage had been increased by a single point each.
If he’d had two options to enhance here, he might have considered doubling up on his coat, just to see what sort of increase he’d get a second time around, but as it was, he suspected there were better options.
I think my stamina is OK for now, he mused. Although it had been getting rather low in the fight with the hyenas, that had been a long and drawn-out matter which hopefully he wouldn’t encounter again in the short term.
Once more he considered improving his constitution: his HP had been getting pretty low in that fight. Then again, perhaps it would be better to harden his skin, offer more defence in that way…. Except if he did that, it was clear that he’d give up some flexibility which had also proven to be useful in the fight….
Maybe I should look at it a different way, he mused. Instead of improving my defence, maybe I should improve my natural weaponry in order to finish fights faster…. It was an option, for sure. Though, he wasn’t entirely sure whether the power of his weapons had been the issue in the last fight.
Sighing, Dominic decided to go by a process of elimination. The options related to his senses were out for now. He hadn’t had any real difficulty when finding prey and he didn’t feel that better senses would help him in a fight.
Equally, improving his mane was out – why would he want it to be thicker or darker? Pure vanity? OK, it could offer more defensive value for his throat, but then he might as well choose to enhance his coat for the same purpose since it would help his whole body. The same with vocal cords – he couldn’t really see any application of this. Not immediate, anyway.
After a moment of hesitation, he also put Mouth entirely to the side. He’d already decided that improving his sense of taste wasn’t a useful choice; now he decided that improving his bite power wasn’t a good option either. I mean, it is, he justified to himself, just not now. I don’t get the impression that I’m struggling to cause damage when I sink my teeth into something.
Similarly, he also put Teeth aside. Maybe he would need to enhance his teeth at some point by strengthening, lengthening, or sharpening them, but for now it was all fine.
What about Claws? He hesitated over this option for a few moments. As it was, his claws were definitely the weakest of his two natural weapons. But would choosing this lead to a meaningful increase? Dominic put that option to the side for later comparison.
After a moment of thought, he eliminated both Feet and Bones as possibilities. Although there were creatures around who could damage his bones, he hadn’t yet encountered them. Probably his best defence at this moment was to avoid them entirely, if possible. As for Feet, he guessed that hardening them might improve his ability to run in some way and softening them would probably improve his stealth abilities. Both useful, but not necessarily immediately so.
Which narrowed things down to a much simpler choice. Double-down on Coat, and hope that the gains were better at level 3 than they were at level 2; improve his constitution instead to give himself more HP; enhance one aspect of his claws; or improve his speed.
Finally, Dominic chose an option, refusing to second-guess himself too much.
Energy once more rushed through him, the effect far more refreshing and relieving than before. As he opened his status screen again, he was relieved to see that both SP and HP had been refilled – he’d had a momentary niggle of doubt that it might have been a one-time only bonus like the ability to enhance two aspects of himself at once. His hunger and thirst levels hadn’t been touched, though, making it clear that he needed to kill in order to survive.
Status of Dominic Martin Cole / Leo
Species: Lion (body) / human (mind), Two-Souled
Level: Basic Beast Level 2 (Path of Evolution)
Progress to Evolution: 181/110PP level up
Hunger level: 35%
Thirst level: 21%
Quests: A Noble Endeavour; Regain what is Lost
Acquired Abilities:
Quick Strike level 1 (29%)
Powerful Kick level 1 (44%)
Crushing Bite level 1 (30%)
Defensive abilities:
- Fur level 2 (2-4 Slicing damage reduction, 1-2 Piercing damage reduction, 3-4 Crushing damage reduction)
Offensive abilities:
- Claws level 1 (5-10 Slicing damage, 4-7 Tearing damage, 1-2 Piercing damage)
- Bite level 1 (32-50 Crushing damage, 27-50 Tearing damage, 25-35 Piercing damage)
General abilities:
- Muscular Body level 3 (max sprint speed 25mps; max sprint duration 10s) (60 SP)
- Carnivore Constitution level 1 (300 HP)
Ultimately, he’d decided that the issue he’d had with the fight was speed – being able to land an attack on the hyena before it had a chance to react. And he had to say that he was happy with the amount it had improved by – a 25% improvement wasn’t bad at all.
Though, he was a bit annoyed to see that his max sprint duration had dropped back to 10 seconds – it used to be 12. Then again, I suppose it’s understandable: running faster uses more stamina, so if I haven’t upgraded my stamina alongside it, it’s natural that my maximum run duration would reduce.
He was also happy to see that he had a second level up waiting for him. Should I save it? He wondered for a moment. With how it replenished his HP and SP pools, it was a bit of a get-out-of-jail free card… On the other hand, not levelling up reduces my combat capabilities so… It was a hard choice, but in the end Dominic decided to go through with it.
While thinking defensively might be useful, it was clear that being too conservative would hurt him in the long run. It hadn’t escaped his notice that the trodils and hyenas had been identified as level 1, where the kangaroos hadn’t. Although Dominic’s existence as a two-souled human mind in a lion body was probably unusual, it was clear that his method of gaining strength was not.
I need to keep growing otherwise other predators will surpass me and I’ll be in more trouble. So thinking, he decided to double down and quickly activated his next level up.
Choosing the aspect to enhance was a much quicker task this time as his shortlist hadn’t changed. This time, he decided to improve his claws, choosing the lengthen option. Sure, sharper claws might be good, but based on what he saw on his status screen, his slicing and tearing damage was good. It was his piercing capacity which was the weakest – because of their limited length, he had to guess.
A wave of energy later and he flexed his paws to see the results. Sharp claws slid out of his fur, their length clearly increased from about 1½ inches to almost 2 inches. Checking his status screen, he felt like the improvement was acceptable.
- Claws level 2 (6-11 Slicing damage, 6-8 Tearing damage, 3-5 Piercing damage)
Piercing damage had gained the most, as expected, but the other damage types had improved too. It still wasn’t anything like his bite but it was better than before. Plus, using his claws was often a safer option than his jaws – the very action of biting automatically put several vulnerable spots closer to the enemy, after all. His claws could be used at a much safer distance.
Taking a moment to check through his damage log now that he felt more prepared for a fight if one came, he realised just how he’d had such a windfall of PP.
<You have killed Spotted Hyena (Basic Beast level 1)>
<You have earned 36 PP>
Repeated three times, in addition to the PP he’d earned from the kangaroos, accounted for being able to level up twice. He was even more than halfway towards level 4. It proved that hunting other hunters was definitely the most lucrative approach. The riskiest, too.
Half-tempted to go out and find some more hyenas, Dominic reminded himself of the state that only a few had left him in. And that was where their numbers were prevented from being brought to bear thanks to the environmental advantage he’d had.
Though that’s a point, he said to himself. Why work hard when I can work smart? If he could get the environment working for him, he could lead other predators into a trap… Hmm. This tunnel could work out quite well for him, especially if it actually led somewhere.
Deciding to investigate, Dominic carefully stepped through the tunnel. After the entrance, it opened up a bit. It was too dark even for his good night-vision to see anything, but his whiskers were remarkably sensitive, sending data back to him about the change in air movement which indicated a bigger space. Fortunately for Dominic, his interpretation was instinctive, feeling like his sense of touch, just a little different.
Almost regretting not taking the option to lengthen his whiskers, Dominic’s steps slowed to a crawl as he strained all his senses to ensure he wasn’t about to fall into a hole, run headfirst into a wall, or be attacked by something. The dry, cold, dusty smell that met his nose indicated that it wasn’t being used by anything as a den, but that was no guarantee there wasn’t anything there.
And then something happened. It felt like he ran headfirst into a waterfall, yet there was no sound of water, nor did he actually get wet. Alarmed, Dominic tried to pull his head backwards, but it was stuck!
Even more alarmed, he had no time to do anything else before a new sensation occurred. His body...blurred. It was the only description he could think of as a shiver ran through him. And then he wasn’t in the tunnel any more.
What the hell? Dominic asked himself incredulously, looking at what lay before him.