Chapter 776 (1/2)

Randidly snorted. Of course, it would try and pull shit like this. Well, this is fine. Randidly selected Yes.

Warning! Your evolution has been aborted halfway. Strange changes have manifested inside of your body!

You have gained the Skill “Vast Potential (Un) Lvl 1”. You have gained the Skill “Crippling Weakness Lvl 1”.

Vast Potential: You have a great ability to grow. Your ability to gain Skill Levels increases. Effect increases with Skill Level.

Crippling Weakness: Your body contains flaws that are difficult to avoid. Occasionally, Skills will fail without warning. This will cause a painful mental backlash in your soul. Don’t say we didn’t warn you. Effects increase with Skill Level.

“Don’t fuck with me,” Randidly fumed. His hands flexed. Instantly, a limb of emerald fire condensed in his Soulspace even as the two Skills were forming inside of himself. The vicious claw of brilliant lime fire ripped the Crippling Weakness Skill to pieces. With surprising alacrity it began to heal, attempting to draw Aether from him, but he cut himself off from fresh Aether. If he had to, he would starve the fucker out.

Then he smashed it with Erode Image for good measures. The construct of Aether shivered, then began to disperse like mist in front of the harsh light of the sun.

Suspiciously, Randidly stayed in his Soul Space for several minutes, making sure every last bit of that skill dissipated into motes of white light. They swirled around Randidly’s will as if making ready to try and reform. But cut off from Aether, they could manage nothing.

So, it was a punishment Skill, huh? It was nice that it was paired with increased Soulskill growth, but having Skills randomly fail would get you fucking killed. And would it become more frequent the higher the Skill Level grew? It didn’t specify, but Randidly felt sure it would. So that it would become a terrible self-fulfilling prophecy. It would be easy PP to farm, Randidly supposed, but in life or death struggles it wasn’t worth the trouble. So it was better-

Slurp.

Randidly froze. He had only been slightly distracted, but most of his attention was still fixed on the motes of light that had formed the Skill, watching for anything suspicious. Which is why he had missed the growing golden egg in the core of his Soulspace reaching out and sucking those motes of light within itself.

It hummed with pleasure, seeming to enjoy devouring the Skill

Randidly awkwardly scratched his cheek. The golden seed had been formed by freeing the fragments of Skills from the Skills lost to ash. At its core, it was Randidly’s first chosen Skill, Grasping Roots. That is where its power and vibrant lifeforce came from.

Randidly wasn’t exactly sure what it would become, but he had somewhat hoped that it would form a true seed. One from which a world could be grown.

But now that it was laced with crippling weakness…

With a deep frown, Randidly turned to regard the other Skill that he had recently summoned. Vast Potential. The balance of Crippling Weakness.

Vast Potential and Crippling Weakness… Randidly thought slowly. He glanced once more at the wiggling golden egg inside himself. It seemed to be larger than when it had formed, but maybe it was his imagination. Reminds me of being a teenager…

Randidly looked at the egg, then looked at Vast Potential. Very resigned, he summoned another claw of emerald fire. Perhaps most annoyingly, Vast Potential was so flimsy it could have been shredded to pieces by a stiff breeze. Randidly’s System Interference Skill ticked upward. With an even hand, he guided the motes of light produced by this destruction toward the egg.

It was only too happy to devour this Skill as well. It hummed again, then burped.

Randidly shook his head in disgust and left his Soul Space. But when his eyes opened, they were filled with determination. This was exactly the reason that Randidly was so motivated to stop the System. Although he could work around many of its more annoying ways it tried to fuck a user, many others couldn’t manage it.

To make sure those people possessed the freedom to choose what they would become…

Finally, Randidly dumped his PP into the Limitless Will Path. Unfortunately, it seemed the System hadn’t finished trying to spite him for jumping ship so early.

Congratulations! Do to your inherent mutations resulting from leaving the Evolution of Self, your Path Limitless Will 0/1000 has transformed! It has become Intrepid Will of a Godling 0/1750!

“This fucking…!” Randidly fumed. Did it add another 750 PP just to fuck with him? Inwardly, he recognized the tie in with Steps of the Godling could only be a good thing. But to have that high of a wall in front of him… 1750 was definitely the longest Path that he had attempted. By quite a bit. There was only one other 1000 under his belt. But Randidly supposed it wasn’t that he would never finish, just that it would take a while…

Randidly was rather pleased that he received 2 Willpower every 5 PP. It did a lot to ease his worries that it would be a waste of time. Growth was important, especially now that he was stuck in a weird waiting period.

So it turned out that Randidly had been right. It seemed like the System had arranged the Evolution of Path as an attractive trap. Unfortunately, it was possible that he was being overly suspicious. He had audibled too quickly to determine its true purpose and now found himself on a monolithically long Path. But it definitely didn’t take kindly to his quick switch.

Over Hastam, dawn was slowly rising. Randidly closed his eyes and followed the thin flows of Aether out through the air toward the camp of the Northern Region expedition. Even now, he could sense that Wights forces were massing for another attack. The Northern group had formed rather primitive palisades to give themselves more of a defensive advantage, but they were clearly still not used to fortification warfare.