Chapter 37
Power Vacuum Cleaner!
Evolution Unlocked:
Feathered Scholar: F
You have shown that you are willing to work hard! While your intellect, magical ability, and mana capacity may not be great, you are determined to make up for this with elbow grease… or at least try to.
New Class Trait Unlocked!
New Class Trait unlocked:
Owlish Wisdom: F
In an attempt to imitate the wisdom of Owlkin, this trait allows you to, somewhat, imitate their form.
You have reached Level 1 in F?e?a?t?h?e?r?e?d? ?S?c?h?o?l?a?r?!?
+1 Intelligence
+1 Wisdom
+1 Initiative
Giant furry spires forested the area. They looked like they were made of wool, but the fibres were fifty feet or more in height.
The canopy was made of frayed, branching, wispy thread. Everything, as far as the eye could see, was a 70s green, reminding the teen of his mother’s hospital.
Beneath his feet was a tighter woven fabric, coarser than the fluffy trees, but the same shade of puke. It was almost as if he had been shrunk to the size of a pea, looking up at a woodland of carpet.
Oh shit! Elijah internally exclaimed when a shadow covered the blue radiance of the mana stone sun, far above.
Wind began to whip up all around him as the woollen loops swayed towards the shadow. A sound assailed his senses, the sound of a thunderous Vroooooooom!!!
The Trial of Evolution 1: Power Vacuum Cleaner
You have reached Lv 25 as a Power Vacuum Cleaner! Welcome to The Trial of Evolution: Survive the suck of the almighty Power Vacuum to prove your right to undergo the first Evolution. A better performance in this trial will lead to a more powerful Evolution with stronger monster Skills and Traits.
His legs pumped as he tried to run, but the Slime that always covered him caused his feet to slip out of his sandals and into the air; he fell flat on his arse. Bits of fluff stuck to his Slimy skin as he flailed like a turtle, trying to erect himself.
This was bad! The dark shadow which hoovered up all in its way was heading right for him, and he couldn’t get up. For some reason, it felt like his pockets had been filled with leaded sand.
Eventually, the teen managed to roll over onto all fours, but it took a great effort to push himself back to his feet. His System-enhanced muscles strained, and his mouth opened wide as he panted, trying to get enough air.
Unfortunately, that activated The Taste of Treasure, as the Trait thought he was tasting the air. Elijah’s senses were overwhelmed by the taste of dust bunnies, steel wires, and wool, all of it somehow treasure.
The sixteen-year-old spat repeatedly, but the taste didn’t go away. The giant hoover grew ever closer, and his Slimy black hair started to float up, the suction causing it to stand on end. He needed to get moving right now!
Ignoring the unpleasant mix of tastes, Elijah pushed himself forward. It was like trying to wade through mercury, each step dragging like J Dilla. His legs rubbed together, and it felt as if hairs were being ripped out with each step. Ouch!
The teen looked down to find a small brown feather on the ground. Where did that come from?
His question was answered when he spared a look at his hands. They, and presumably the rest of his body, were covered in sporadic, owl-like feathers that broke up his porcelain skin like the spots of a nineteen-year-old McDonald’s worker.
“What the hell is going on!” he tried to shout, but his words were chirped and clipped. Reaching up to his mouth, he found it had been replaced by a beak that was not moulded smoothly to his human face.
He had thought that Professor Tawny was a great teacher, but as it turned out, he was secretly evil. Elijah would have to find a way to get back at him… once he escaped.
First, the owl man had essentially failed him in the Trial without ever giving a hint that he was dissatisfied with the teen’s magical ability, knowledge, or capacity for mana. Then, because of that, he had been saddled with perhaps the worst Trait yet!
He looked like he’d been see-through tarred and feathered, for Lady Luck’s sake!
Owlish Wisdom, however, did not explain why he felt like a man who had eaten a million cheeseburgers every day. The great sucking void drew ever closer; why couldn’t he run?!
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Encumbered:
The mass in your Inventory has exceeded 70% of max capacity: 155.5/220. Movements are slower, and you cannot run while encumbered.
Fuck! Those books must have weighed a tonne. Elijah debated just tossing them away, but discarding knowledge like that seemed foolish. He quickly checked over his Inventory, looking for something he could throw out.
Truth be told, there was nothing his sentimental hearts could bear parting with; even the ruined Goblin weapons were precious to him. But, as he began to feel his feet lose contact with the woollen earth, he realised: if he was going to do something, he'd have to do it now!
Fortunately, there was more than one way to solve this problem. Elijah dumped 1000 Xp into Earth Buffalow, a Strength Class.
You have reached Level 2 in E???a????r?????t???h???? ???B?????u????f????f?????a????l????o???w???!????
+2 Strength
His encumbrance changed from 155.5/220 (71%) to 155.5/240 (65%), and it was like a five-tonne weight had been lifted from his shoulders. His legs, which had been straining to move, exploded into motion, as if someone had switched the playback speed from 0.2 to 2.0.
Unfortunately, it was too little, too late. His bare feet scrambled against the coarsely woven ground like a roadrunner cartoon but failed to find purchase; the sucking had become too strong.
The hoover’s mouth was directly overhead, and Elijah was whipped off his feet and into the vacuumous depths of the great beast’s stomach, his screams sucked away with everything else.
Status Effect: You Suck
You are caught in the suck of the Great Power Vacuum Cleaner; Health, Stamina, and Mana will be reduce by 10; Attributes will be sucked off at a rate of 3; and 1 Trait will be temporarily lost, every minute.
Elijah tumbled upwards, bumping into the sides of the Great Power Vacuum’s trunk as he was pulled inexorably onwards. The walls of the metal and plastic structure were smooth and impossible to get a grip on. He could do nothing but hope he wasn’t about to be minced by some fan he couldn’t see.
Thud, Crush, Smack, Argh!!
The teen crashed into something dusty and soft that stopped his uncontrolled flight rather suddenly. It took him struggling to cough up several mouthfuls of the dusty substance for him to realise it was, in fact, dust.
He had been dragged unwillingly into the bag-like belly of the beast.
Suddenly, and without any warning, a sharp pain spiked into every inch of his body all at once, a cold chill enveloped his mind, and a wave of weariness swept through his muscles.
Unable to see anything, he flailed about, trying to strike at whatever had just attacked him. The teen only succeeded in tripping over and landing in something sticky that he was grateful he couldn’t see.
It wasn’t until he checked his Character Sheet that he realised what, exactly, had just happened.
He was still under the effects of You Suck; his green, red, and blue bars had a section cut off and greyed out, his stats had been decreased – not going any lower than 10, thankfully – and Unkillable had disappeared from his list of Traits.
Elijah had a time limit, but that didn’t make him panic. He decided to return to his roots and focus on what was in front of him. In this instance, impregnable darkness.
If he was going to escape, he needed to be able to see what he was doing. To that end, the teen activated Mana Manipulation and examined the motes that surrounded him.
There were dusty, earth-like, yellow-seeming motes that infested the area. It gave him a rough idea of where the ‘ground’ was, but mana motes liked to float around, so it wasn’t precise enough to see by.
Greenish, pale motes bobbed around, moving in time with his breath. Far above, those same wind motes rushed along in a river that filled the sky as far as the eye could see; it reminded Elijah of the northern lights. The wind mana followed the vacuum current created by the monster whose Trial this was.
Looking more closely, the sixteen-year-old was able to make out his old friend, water mana, floating about in the air, as well as small silvery motes that were barely visible but had the tang of metal, the same dark mana motes – distinct from darkness – that he had seen Professor Tawny employ to vanish the water he had created, and the occasional shimmering, sparkling, bright-white motes that seemed to zip about in ray-like lines.
It was the last that caught his attention. They were rare, moved like lightning, never stayed still, and would be a pain to study, but he appeared to just about have enough affinity with them to see them with his Skill.
Before he could begin his work, another wave of pain washed over him, and his Health dropped from 230 to 220. It took him a few seconds to steady himself, but he didn’t let the momentary shock distract him from his goal.
The next five minutes were spent pursuing these bright motes and trying to emulate them in an attempt to gain some kind of insight. After the fifth spike of white-hot agony lanced through him, he considered giving up.
He had lost The Taste of Treasure, Dishonourable, Bullock’s Brawn, Warlord’s Presence, and Symbiote Traits.
Then he remembered; the only thing he had impressed the owl professor with was his diligence. He was still slightly bitter about that. The avian man had said and done nothing to indicate he was displeased with Elijah, and yet the only criteria by which he had passed the Trial appeared to be added by the professor and not part of the normal process.
Still, if hard work was all he had to offer, then he would give as much of it as he could.
The teen jumped about, his movements jagged and energetic, as he tried to grow his understanding of light mana.
It was only after three more spikes of pain and the loss of three more Traits that it finally clicked.
Some of what he lost was useful; the loss of other Traits, on the other hand, was liberating.
All told, he was now rid of Tier I Elijah – which reduced the effectiveness of his dwindling Attributes, Owlish Wisdom – which got rid of his pesky feathers and beak, and Blood Regeneration – which wasn’t doing much since his maximum Health was decreasing.
Once he got over the freeing feeling of not being covered in owl feathers, Elijah was able to let his newfound revelation set in.
He had observed the bubbly light mana motes as they shot through tight gaps and separated out in all directions. And later he had seen them reflect off something he could not see in the darkness, but the earth mana motes were moved slightly by the impact.
This reminded the teen of something he had heard in class but that had never really sunk in. Light was both a wave and a particle!
With that revelation, the mana motes suddenly became clearer, and soon they started flocking towards him. Sadly, they existed purely in the realm of magic; otherwise, their light would have been more than enough to see by.
As it was, he thought he had enough affinity with the fickle mana type to attempt a spell.
Using what Tawny had taught him, Elijah began willing the liquid mana in his blood to imitate the sporadic, rapid movement of the light mana motes.
The resistance the sleeping blood put up against his efforts was far weaker than in the last Trial, and he was starting to grow concerned.
Once his mana was converted into light mana, he began imbuing his body with it, as he had done with the water dance spell.
Instead of allowing his body to copy light for strength in combat, as water dance did with water, his skin began to glow, and, for the first time since landing in this hoover bag, he could see.
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