Chapter 600 (1/2)

Randidly moved his hand through the floating stone. It was a floating heptadecagon, Dinesh informed them, but to Randidly it just looked like a cloudy light-refracting crystal. It was a soft grey color, and it was clearly the Fate Stone.

Randidly turned towards Tatiana. “Well, it seemed that the person who struck the final blow is the only person who could take it. Too bad we have no way of finding out what happens if you die.”

Tatiana gave him a sharp look. He chuckled and gestured for her to go towards it.

Even with their group, the fight against the three-headed Ogre had been more difficult than Randidly had expected. It truly seemed that not only had it grown stronger, but his act of striking it with all of those Skills the prior time had given it a resistance against fire based damage. It was growing to respond to threats. It was… a disturbing fact, but one Randidly would consider more directly later.

Still, with himself, Neveah, and Tykes asking as physical wrecking balls, to distract it, the others had not had much difficulty whittling its massive health down. Three vicious fighters, one for each spellcasting head, was exactly what the doctor ordered.

Although it was a little touch and go at the end as the thing regenerated, they had even managed to give Tatiana the final hit, which pushed her up to Level 46. And now, it was time to see what the fate stone did.

Tatiana reached out and touched it. Her eyes went black, as ink seemed to flood up and cover her eyeballs. “Oh… oh!”

“What is it?” Randidly asked, doing his best to keep his voice casual. There was something in her tone that seemed to set off alarms in his head. Although it would have put him over the Level 25 limit if he had killed the Ogre, perhaps being the one exposed to this was for the best. If it did something like making someone a Champion or-

“I have options. I can choose from three options… Oh, wow. The first option is to triple all of my stats and double the rate at which I collect experience.”

“Triple-” Randidly almost choked on his tongue. Even if he was outlawed from gaining more experience, killing another Danger Zone Boss would be worth it for that benefit. Everyone else had a similarly slack-jawed look. “...and what are the other options?”

“The second one is that everyone in my party gains 75 in every stat. And also everyone from my Village will gain 50% more experience. The third… jesus, all of my race will gain 5 in every stat, and everyone will gain 25% increased experience. And it also specifies at the bottom, that an individual can only have their total experience gained to 200%.”

Randidly’s expression turned extremely grim. But before he could say anything about his suspicions, Tatiana said, “Oh, and there is a strange line in gold at the bottom. ‘Only by a hero with a greater fate may the Second Calamity be overcome.’ What does that mean? Do you think-”

“Later,” Randidly said, pressing his eyes closed. He looked around in the group. “Are we in agreement… the third option should be used?”

“That’s a lot of stats to toss aside,” Tykes grunted.

Hank spat. “This is about total experience though, ain’t it? And points? We get 525 concentrated stat points, or we give out 3 million or so.”

“The benefits stack, too, up to the 200%.” Dinesh said quietly. “But it might be very hard for most people to resist the temptation of having your own stats triple. Randidly, what would that make your Agility?”

“...Like 1200,” Randidly admitted.

“Looks like this is just another temptation the Unity Church and the Chivalric Orders will save us from, praise God.” Tykes said with a scowl, but Randidly chuckled. He knew the other man would also choose to give the benefit to more people.

And then Tatiana must have selected that third option because a notification popped up.

Congratulations, denizens of New Earth. The Ogre Ravine has been cleared! The party has elected to share the reward with the World. Everyone receives +5 to all stats. All children of your race are born with this benefit. All experience gained is increased by an addition 25%. The total bonus experience gained is now: 25%.