NOVEL NEXT Chapter 95: Create Pride
Without taking his eyes off the enraged hippo, Dominic sent an image to each of the lionesses, of them touching the bodies and them turning into golden smoke which then healed the wounds on the lionesses’ bodies. The hippo was still ignoring them in favour of attacking Dominic and the ladies were too injured not to take advantage of that.
He started with Hathor – since she’d already done it once before, she would be more likely to understand what he wanted them to do. After that, he sent the message to Jenkins, then the other lioness – still, as yet, unnamed. Although he’d managed to somehow communicate with all of them at the same time before, he didn’t seem able to do it when he wasn't desperate.
Jumping to the side abruptly, he avoided the open-mouthed charge of the hippo. It was fortunate that he was significantly quicker than the semi-aquatic herbivore – on land – but his stamina was already down a chunk, and only reducing further with each evasive manoeuvre.
This wasn’t sustainable. Dominic’s mind raced as he tried to figure out the next steps.
The lionesses were fine – the hyenas were dead and if the flashes of golden smoke he caught out of the corner of his eyes were anything to judge by, healing already. Did that change the situation with the hippo?
Perhaps they could face it as a pride: with four lions doing damage, they should have a much better chance at getting through that thick skin than with just him. That said, the lionesses were still very low level – a single wrong move could see them killed.
A hippo wasn’t something to take lightly even before the System; it certainly wouldn’t be any easier to deal with afterwards unless there was a significant level disparity.
Perhaps they should just run. They would be able to outpace the hippo easily enough; surely it would give up the chase? After all, the aim of this excursion was to get the lionesses enough Prey Points to level up at least once. Based on what he’d seen of herbivores so far, the risk they posed was often much higher than the benefits they offered.
‘I agree,’ Leo responded to his thoughts. ‘This wasn’t a good fight to enter in the first place; we have a chance to leave it, so we should.’
‘Alright,’ Dominic accepted. So that was one and a half votes to leave, half a vote to stay. It was clear what the most popular outcome was.
Making a couple of large leaps with Quick Strike, Dominic gained himself a bit of breathing room so he could communicate the idea to the lionesses. They didn’t seem to be against turning tail and running, so that was a relief.
However, there was one thing he wanted before he left.
Once the lionesses had cleared the area, Dominic darted back to where the hyenas had died, brushing against each of the Cores and popping them into his spatial storage. Which, incidentally, was getting pretty full by this point.
The hippo’s jaws almost caught his tail again, but Leo growled a warning just in time and he leapt forwards to avoid the steel-trap of its mouth.
With all the Cores gathered, it was time to hoof it. Or would that be ‘paw’ it?
Dominic put on some speed, running at his maximum until he caught up with lionesses. He slowed down then, their top speed not nearly as high as his. A quick glance behind proved that it was still significantly faster than the hippo’s, though.
Although none of them were endurance runners, their stamina managed to hold out until they managed to get out of eyesight of the hippo. Hopefully that would be enough to deter it from chasing them further. Anyway, they needed to stop – they were all rather spent.
Dominic might have enhanced his stamina multiple times, but avoiding the hippo’s attacks had consumed his reserves quite quickly and he’d already been down by almost two thirds when he started the run. As for the lionesses, they probably hadn’t increased that aspect of themselves much, if at all.
On the subject of enhancement, Dominic was surprised when, once they’d caught their breaths a bit, Jenkins, the youngest lioness, stood up and shimmered. When the shimmer cleared, she was a little bigger. She levelled?
‘She was a lower level to begin with,’ Leo pointed out.
‘True,’ Dominic admitted. ‘She wouldn’t have needed as many points to advance, and she might have been closer to levelling than the others anyway.’
Actually, on that note, it would be very useful if he could see more information about the lionesses. Like their levels, their Abilities, their health, and so on. After all, they were part of a pride, right? Surely that would be like a ‘party’ in many games?
Come on, System, he thought at it. Isn’t there some way of officially connecting us together? Create party? Join party? Create Pride?
[We have detected that you have created a party-]
[Error: requester isn’t an acknowledged sapient race.]
[Request deni-]
[Error: requester meets the requirements to be recognised as sapient.]
[Solution: permit request for party Pride creation]
[Congratulations! You have formed your first party Pride. You are the designated leader of the party Pride and currently hold the sole control over adding or kicking members. This control can be given to another, however, in the case of conflict, your decision will take precedence. See party Pride status?]
‘Why do we keep running into these errors?’ Dominic complained to Leo. ‘We can’t be that unique: surely the System has encountered this kind of thing before?’
The lion just sent across his equivalent of a shrug, illustrating that he was as uncertain as Dominic. Oh well, at least it’s worked. Kind of.
Mentally choosing to see the ‘Pride status’, Dominic examined it with interest.
Pride status
Level 1 Pride
Current information shared:
None
Current members:
Dominic/Leo (T2, L18) – leader.
Pride enhancements:
None
‘So I need to add the different lionesses,’ Dominic guessed. ‘A bit annoying, but I suppose possibly necessary – I wouldn’t have ‘control’ if members were just automatically added.’
‘You’ll add all the females, though, right?’ Leo checked.
‘Of course,’ Dominic replied – what did Leo think he wanted to do? Have a pride of one?
Though he wanted to test that, he did something else first: mentally selected ‘Pride enhancements’.
[Pride enhancements
(Points available: 3)
Share Prey Points – all points will be equally shared regardless of who caused the most damage. (4)
Lion’s Share – the leader will take 90% of the points of all kills made by pride members. (4)
Increase the number of Prey Points gained by 1% (repeatable) (1)
Increase the damage done by the members of the Pride when working together ((number of enemies/number of pride members in the fight)*level of enhancement)% (repeatable) (2)
Increase the chance of Pride members gaining a higher tier Ability on their next Tier or Half-Tier by 5% (repeatable) (4)
Increase the chance of being able to determine the type of Ability a Pride member will gain on their next Tier or Half-Tier by 5% (repeatable) (5)
Note: more options may be added later depending on your actions with the Pride.]
It was all very interesting and Dominic wanted all of the enhancements. Well, he was a little more uncertain about the first one – was it a good idea to have all the Prey points equally shared? He’d have to think about that. He was slightly tempted by the option to direct almost all of the points to him, but dismissed the idea within a beat – while he would benefit a lot from that, his goal right now was to bring the lionesses up to a better level. Anyway, he didn’t have the points for either of those options.
As it was, he could take two enhancements: increasing the damage done by the members of the Pride and increasing the number of Prey Points gained by 1%. Frankly, he thought that both of them would be very useful. More Prey Points? Yes please – though 1% might not be that much, it would add up. He didn’t miss the fact that it said ‘repeatable’, so presumably that meant he could choose it again when he had more points.
Equally, increasing the amount of damage done would be very useful. If he understood the calculation there, it would work best when his Pride members were outnumbered: if they were facing 2:1 odds, they would gain a 2% increase to their damage. If, however, they outnumbered their opponents twice over, they would only gain 0.5% increase to their damage.
A mechanism to encourage groups to clash? Or the reverse? An encouragement to do exactly what Dominic and the lionesses were doing at that very moment – splitting into smaller groups to maximise gains.
Deciding to take both enhancements, he tried to ask for more information about ‘Points available’.
[Pride Points: These are determined by the level of your Pride and by the level of your Pride members. You gain one point for each level to level 5, then two points for each level up to level 10. Levels 10 to 20 offer three points per level and then levels 20 to 100 offer four points per level. You also gain one point per Tier or half-Tier increase.]
OK, useful to know. So, his Pride was at level 1, which meant that he got one point to spend. At the same time, he personally had passed both the Half-Step Evolved and Evolved thresholds, netting him two more points to spend.
He next tried to ask for more information about ‘level’.
[Pride level: this is determined by the number of members in your pride and the level of your members. A single Tier 2 member will count as two Tier 1 members, where a Tier 3 member will count as two Tier 2 members. To gain level 1, you must have at least three Tier 1 members. At times, certain actions may also need to be completed to allow a Pride to advance a level. In this case, no new members will be able to be added until the Pride level has increased.
Indicate progress toward the next level on Pride status screen?]
Yes, Dominic thought at it.
Pride status
Level 1 Pride (progress to next level 2/5)
Current information shared:
None
Current members:
Dominic/Leo (T2, L18) – leader.
Pride enhancements:
1% increase in Prey Points for all Pride members – level 1
Increased damage for Pride members fighting together by ((number of enemies/number of pride members in the fight)*level of enhancement)% – level 1
Pleased with the changes, Dominic finally tried to do what he had wanted the party for in the first place – sharing health and abilities.
It took a bit of concentration, but finally he managed to get it to come up.
Current information shared:
Health, Abilities
Current members:
Dominic/Leo (T2, L18) – leader. (Health: 524/600, Abilities: Quick Strike, Second Wind, Group Attack, Crushing Bite, Pounce, Powerful Swipe, Sharp Nip, Rapid Attack)
‘Looking good, don’t you think?’ he asked Leo happily.
‘It would look better if some of my females were on there,’ the lion grumped at him. Dominic sent him the mental equivalent of a raspberry.
‘Alright, alright, I’m doing it,’ he grumbled good-naturedly, closing the screen. Now, how to invite a lioness to join a Pride?
