What do you want?
Ben’s thoughts raced. He had the feeling that he did not have infinite amounts of time in this space.
He desperately wanted to evolve [Frenzy]—top of the list—but it was out of scope this time.
The same went for a new, combined fighting style, which he felt would require far more insight first.
So what did he want? So far, he had mostly gone with the flow and hadn’t thought too much about potential perks.
He felt his resilience on the physical side was pretty good. Between [Resilient Body] and his Constitution, plus the increased recovery rates from [Meditation], he did not feel the need to add more perks right now.
His damage output, on the other hand, was so-so. He hoped that with a fix to his fighting style and a potential upgrade to his axe at some point his single-target damage was acceptable. When it came to many weaker enemies, such as the rats in the Rat Attack dungeon or the bats in the Mine, he was pretty inefficient.
Of course, he also wasn’t able to project damage at range, but he did not feel like that was part of his Path necessarily.
He was fast, and with his new Body attribute value of 22 he would be even faster, but there was still something in his mind about increasing his mobility. He hadn’t seen a perk like it yet, but he imagined a scenario where the settlement was under attack from various sides—how could he be everywhere at once—or at least reach places much faster?
He felt those would be the right things to focus on.
Wait.
He was always too focused on the Body side of things.
His high Mind attribute helped him to overcome that.
It reminded him of the interaction with the man from the Church of Energy. Being controlled was unacceptable for an Unyielding Protector. That was certainly something that he needed to address.
For completeness’s sake, he briefly considered Magic but discarded the idea right away.
So it came down to three things he wanted: large-scale damage, increased mobility, and defense against mind control.
What do you need?
Now that he thought about it some more, the answer seemed surprisingly simple. He didn’t want to drag it out any further and chose the protection against mind control. His logic was simple: he wasn’t alone, and his mother’s [Growth Caller] spell already provided area-of-effect damage. He still wanted to work on that, too, but it wasn’t needed. Mobility, definitely something to look into, but right now the Protectorate was small, and with his speed he could be in any corner within seconds. But if he, as the [Knight Protector], got mind controlled, the risk for everyone and everything that was dear to him was huge. The choice was clear for him.
How will it work?
Ben felt immediately that everything up to this point had been child’s play and that all the Energy that had been pumped into him was for this moment. He needed to visualize the perk and hold the image until it was crystallized into a usable perk that was aligned with his Path.
He got to work.
He saw himself standing between hostile forces and his friends.
The enemy was led by a Mind mage.
He imagined being attacked even more viciously than by the Church representative. An onslaught of insidious penetrating attacks against his mind.
But against those attacks, a palisade rose around his mind—just like on the first day of the Protectorate, when one had risen around their cabins.
The onslaught continued, but the palisade held.
He tapped into the feeling of breaking the mind-based attack in the city and infused it into the palisade around his mind.
This was the visualization he locked on.
He felt Energy flowing into the image—and with it came enormous pressure, threatening to break his concentration and the image.
Without a doubt, sweat was pouring out of his body, even if he couldn’t feel it directly.
There was no pain, only the feeling of trying to juggle seven balls while being sprayed by a firehose.
Slowly, the image was being filled. 50%, 60%, …
He found motivation in his vision of protecting his friends—and in the self-righteous visage of the would-be preacher that had made him question his Path.
80%, 90%, ...
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
On the final stretch, another problem arose: the Energy streaming into the image slowed to a trickle. Thankfully the pressure decreased as well, but how good would that be if the perk would not complete?
Thinking quickly, he activated [Meditation]. He felt a small but steady stream of Energy flowing into his body and mind. He didn’t know whether it would work or was even possible at all, but he tried to imagine the Energy flowing into the image of the palisade as well.
95%, 97%, …
Just a little bit more. The trickle turned into drops.
99%, … 100%. He had made it.
He felt his perspective shift, and he stood on the path. His Path.
A golden sphere erupted from him. He felt that it was called [Palisade of the Mind]. It shot into the Path… and strengthened it.
Back on his bed, he opened his eyes and smiled.
Congratulations, you have created your first perk. [Palisade of the Mind] — Defends against attacks on the Mind as if the attribute were +5. Uncommon — Path Alignment: Positive
You are now Tier 2. Walk your Path and grow.
Good luck!
Ben stretched as he got off the bed.
He felt drained, tired, and hungry. But maybe for the first time since Arrival Day, he felt… accomplished.
Of course, he knew that in the grand scheme of things, reaching Tier 2 wasn’t that big of a deal—but it felt like something he had truly worked for, and it had turned out better than he’d hoped.
Just this morning he had gotten [Meditation], which he was very keen on trying out in a more normal set-up. He had defined his Path—or rather made something explicit that he had just felt before. His new perk made him feel a lot safer and better prepared in case they had more interactions with the wider world.
He opened his Status page and focused on the key changes.
STATUS
Name: Ben Jackson
Tier: 2
Path: Path of the Unyielding Protector
ATTRIBUTES
Body: 22 — Constitution: Stage 1, Step 0/3
Mind: 17
Magic: 6
PERKS
[General]
- [Analyze]
- [Multi-Lingual]
- [Knight Protector] — Unique — Path Alignment: Foundational
[Body]
- [Resilient Body] — Rare — Path Alignment: Positive
- [Axe Handling] — Uncommon — Path Alignment: Neutral
- [Frenzy] — Uncommon — Path Alignment: Negative
- [Strengthened Body] — Uncommon — Path Alignment: Positive
- [Self?Defense] — Common — Path Alignment: Neutral
[Mind]
- [Meditation] — Uncommon — Path Alignment: Positive
- [Palisade of the Mind] — Uncommon — Path Alignment: Positive
- [Party Coordination] — Common — Path Alignment: Neutral
- [Public Speaking] — Common — Path Alignment: Positive
- [Administration] — Common — Path Alignment: Neutral
[Magic]
- None
His Path was added to the page, and to see the Path Alignment spelled out like this was helpful. It made his priorities even more obvious.
Four extra attribute points were nothing to sneeze at. He carefully worked through one of Barry’s katas to understand the changes in his body, and was excited about the smoothness of his motions. It needed some more training to get used to, but that was just a bonus.
Before he did anything else, he thought he deserved some food.
As he left his own rooms and stepped into the living area he shared with his family he found his mother, Adam, and Julia lounging.
“There he is!” Adam exclaimed.
“Hello there, have you been waiting for me?”
“Why does everything have to be about you? Can’t we just hang out?” Julia faked outrage.
His mother rose and gave him a hug. “How was it?”
“Intense… I am happy to explain, but I am starving, I haven’t eaten since this morning. Do you want to join me or wait?”
His mother started laughing. “Since this morning? You have been in there for the last one and a half days.”
“What? Wow. Time flies when you are having fun, I guess…”
As it had already been dark when he briefly woke up between the Path creation and the perk, he assumed that the latter had been relatively quick, but the former must have taken the better part of 36 hours. That was something to keep in mind for the future, since vanishing for days could be dangerous for the Protectorate.
“Anyway, even more reason to go and eat!” he grinned at his family.
That’s what they did. It turned out that the rest of his team as well as Barry had all waited for his return, so they all ended up sitting in the inn, watching him eat and listen to his description of the tiering-up process.
He was just describing how he formed his first perk, when he got interrupted by the energetic, warm voice of Mesa.
Hello and congratulations, your first tier up is a cause for celebration! Very well done. And you made it – narrowly – as the first Earthling.
I must say, you are an interesting kind of people. We have rarely seen a population develop so far, yet spend so much time fighting among themselves. You have been quite sheltered…
But I digress, a reward is in order. We thought that the most valuable thing for you would be information, so we have added a map to your office. It shows the surrounding area of the Protectorate. It will automatically add relevant landmarks or threats, once they have been identified by you or other citizens.
As an additional gift, we marked two points of interest.
The first is around the peaks of the surrounding mountains where there are four Tier 2 dungeons. They have all long since broken, so going there before your team is also Tier 2 would be… ill advised. On the plus side, the creatures are unlikely to leave the higher Energy areas and come close to you.
The second is a grove of trees that you might want to explore if you got the ‘Constitution’ for it, if you catch my drift…
The system was clearly amused by its own insinuation.
I will leave you to it, but please keep pushing. Getting the Protectorate to level 3 is critical, it will unlock infrastructure that will be needed by you and humanity as a whole.
Good luck!
Ben also recapped Mesa’s information. Having the new map feature was very cool and Ben had wanted to go on more of a foraging expedition for a while, now. Maybe even bringing Luz or one of the people getting into alchemy along. However, the idea of four tier 2 dungeons having broken was frightening. Terrifying, really.
Hopefully it was more of a mid-term threat than something to address right away.
“Well, all of this is a lot of great information, but can we talk for a second about how broken [Knight Protector] is?!? You got four attribute points for reaching tier 2, but getting the settlement up to level 2 got you three as well! And it will do so again! I mean it’s not like it’s a competition but, boy…” Adam exclaimed.
The group laughed, and Ben could swear he saw Michael’s lip twitch.
“It is true, I got incredibly lucky. But there’s lots to do as well. A lot of my perks need changing, or upgrading, and I am not even talking about getting them up to rare or anything, there’s the training and martial arts style work with Barry, constant missions, an upcoming visit from that weird councilor, more to build for the settlement—and, of course, getting us to level 3…
“But first, I think it is time for a little foraging trip to see what Meta and Mesa have hidden away in our forest. Exciting times ahead!”
MESSIAH OF STEEL
When faith meets firepower… sparks will fly.
Derek Steele was once a man of science, a brilliant engineer who built his own power armor from scavenged alien tech. He believed in data, not destiny. Then a relic from a forgotten civilization ripped him from Earth… and dropped him into a realm where magic spheres grant power, and gods rule through their chosen champions.
Messiah of Steel.
“Iron Man crashes into epic fantasy and nothing will be the same.”
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