Questline

Contaminated Zone

Stop The Spread (1/2)

Radiation is spreading from the Contaminated Zone, seeking to envelop all things living. It is only a matter of time before life becomes nigh-impossible. You have defeated your first Radioactive Portal, stalling the spread temporarily. Defend your territory from the spread. City rewards will be based on combined performance. Individual rewards will be calculated separately. Exceptional rewards will be given to those who stop the source.

Radioactive Portals defeated (city): 1 [50 points]

Radioactive Portals defeated (individual): 1 [50 points]

"We didn't even destroy the Portal, how did we get the points for it?" Preston asked as the party all gathered around to discuss.

"Maybe the Spinosaurus finished it off." Teresa replied optimistically. "We all played a part in it, so perhaps that's what counts."

"That seems possible, but I guess it's a bigger problem than we initially thought." Jake said. "If the System is giving us a quest for it, then it's gotta be a huge deal."

"How do the quests even work? What dictates something being quest-worthy and something being just an everyday problem?" Teresa asked. "It would be nice if the System had some documentation to read, there was practically a textbook on the mechanics of city administration. It was really, really boring to read, but at least it was something."

"Even we got quests, though we don't have any individual points." Mathew said while sharing his screen.

"How do the points work? I get that we took out one Portal but why 50 points? Are all Portals worth 50 points?" Sarah asked.

"That Portal was level 50, so maybe that's it." Teresa guessed. "It makes sense that a level 50 Portal would be worth a lot more points than a level 10 or 20 Portal."

"It still doesn't seem very fair, you could probably clear two level 25 Portals on your own with no problem, but not a level 50. They'd still be worth the same amount of points though." Sarah said.

"Yeah, but I'm way higher than level 25. Somebody with the same level gap might be able to clear the level 50 Portals on their own too if their build is any good." Teresa explained. "That does remind me, I have a massive issue with my build."

"What do you mean, you don't like the Jack Of All Trades class?" Jake asked.

"No, that's definitely my thing, but I'm going to start running low on resources all the time as I get new skills. I tend to use multiple skills simultaneously and that's normally my go-to strategy. If I just keep on increasing how many skills I can use at once, I'll wind up running out of Mana or Stamina way too fast."

"That's a problem with every RPG, you've always got to manage your resources." Preston said. "That or just spam potions, but we don't have any of those. Shit, are potions a thing? Still, even with potions some games have a cooldown on how often you can have one, so resource management is still a factor."

"Well what do I do about it?" Teresa asked.

"Maybe just use the skills you need? If you're using too many all the time, then of course you're going to run out of resources."

"I get what you're saying but that's the best way to level my skills up, I've based my entire combat style around throwing everything at my opponents in my arsenal. I'll admit I haven't been using any form of archery for a while now, but the last time I tried to shoot something like that the arrow just bounced off."

"Just get a skill to increase your firing power or something." Sarah said. "Shit, that would still increase your resource consumption huh? I see your issue."

"You had that <Retaliate> skill as an option, right?" Preston continued. "It wouldn't fix your resource consumption exactly, but it would give you another pool to draw from. It would be really risky though, but it's worth considering. That, or maybe you're just built for hit and run attacks? There's nothing wrong with that, just finish a battle quickly or retreat and recover until you can fight again. Still takes proper judgement, but it's an alternative."

"I won't always have the option to retreat. I can hope for some vertical movement skills like your <Second Step>, but then there are situations where that won't work either. I can jump several stories, <Second Step> would let me double that, but put me indoors and it won't matter how high I can jump. Sometimes fighting is the only way out, and I want to be prepared for that." Teresa countered. "Though you are right about <Retaliate>, I'm definitely considering it."

She opened up her skill selection menu and found the skill in question. Teresa couldn't learn the skill since she hadn't leveled up her class yet, but she could still look at the description again.

<Retaliate: lv 0>

Type: Retribution Magic

Drain your HP in exchange for dealing more damage with your attacks. The lower your HP, the greater the effect.

It wasn't exactly a replacement for Mana or Stamina, but it would definitely have its uses. If she could improve the damage her attacks did, then she would be sacrificing HP to make each point of Mana or Stamina do more. Teresa could probably tone down her spells while sacrificing HP, and they would still have the same efficacy. That would be useful in drawn out fights, but Preston was right. It was really risky.

"I say we go get our tents and call it a night." Sarah said. Shit, that's right, they had kind of left their tents out in the middle of nowhere. Thankfully, it was only a short jog away, maybe a few miles.

"You know what? That's a great plan, I approve." Preston said, stretching. "Am I gonna be the one to go get them then?"

"I got it, I have <Inventory> after all." Teresa rebutted.

"I don't know man, I feel like you've already had a reasonably shit day. I can take care of it."

"Nah, don't worry about it. It's just another Tuesday for me."

"Is it Tuesday?"

"I have no idea."

"I'm pretty sure it's Wednesday actually." Thomas said. "It was Monday when the Tutorial started, and this is day 8 or 9? Shoot, maybe it is Tuesday. It's been a long week."

"All of our birthdays are wrong now as well." Jake said. "If you spent a week in the Tutorial, you'll have to scoot your birthday up by a week as well. That's assuming we still have 365 days in the year, we might have to make a whole new calendar. Has anyone confirmed for sure that days are still 24 hours long?"

"I'm not sure, it might be off by a bit. I'm going to go get those tents, once we set them up back here we can take turns on guard duty. There's four of us who are qualified to do that, do we want to each take a two hour shift?" Teresa asked.

"Sure, that sounds good to me." Sarah said. Everyone nodded in agreement.

"Alright, in that case I'll be right back." First, Teresa cast an empowered <Facilitated Restoration> on everyone to make sure there wouldn't be any problems. Once that was taken care of, Teresa ran off to get those tents. She certainly wouldn't mind getting some good sleep in.

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This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Ezio's life had always been pretty interesting. He loved physics, and he loved engineering, those two passions had gotten him quite far. Ezio wound up studying at a rather prestigious school, and he had become an incredibly important person in the world.

He was one of the few people alive who knew how to make a nuclear bomb.

Not only that, but he had experience with it too. It was one thing to know how to theoretically build a nuke, it was something else entirely to be a part of France's nuclear program. He had been a part of it for years, he had even been directly involved with the last nuclear test done in 1996. Building a nuke was a team effort, but Ezio had played all of the roles at one point or another.

He had retired, now being in his 60s. Ezio had planned on relaxing and taking it easy for the rest of his life if his ambition would allow it, but the world had other plans.

Fission <Embers> melted the undead within the Monster Stronghold, the beasts standing no chance against his powerful spell. His skill produced quite a large dose of radiation, but thankfully it was only ever targeted at his enemies. He had chosen the mage class out of curiosity, what kind of physicist wouldn't be absolutely fascinated by magic? He was glad he did, because nothing was as interesting as the properties of Mana.

Everything had a smallest version of itself. The smallest amount of distance was the Planck length, the smallest amount of temperature was absolute zero, there was even a smallest unit of time. 10^-43 seconds, a Planck time. That was how long it took for a photon to cross a Planck length, making it the smallest unit of time that was meaningful in physics.

Nuclear physics didn't really get involved with things so small, that was where quantum physics came into play. Still, it was interesting to think about. Even if nuclear physics wasn't all about the Planck scale or absolute zero, it was involved with the very tiny.

Atoms were the building blocks of reality. Everything was made up of them, and their composition dictated exactly what properties matter would have. That bordered on the line of chemistry, but many fields of science had some overlap. Nuclear physics was concerned with the atomic nuclei and how it all stayed together. The way most people imagined atoms wasn't actually accurate due to how atomic orbitals behaved, but that wasn't entirely relevant either.

The reason this was so interesting was because by that logic, Mana had to have a smallest measurable unit. His status screen displayed whole numbers, and while he could make his screen show more precision on percentages his HP, Mana, and Stamina always remained whole numbers. Also interestingly, when he expended exactly 1 Mana, what left his Soul was still divisible. He could take that 1 Mana and split it in half, then split it in half again, and again, and again.

If he reabsorbed a half into his Soul his Mana wouldn't visibly increase on his status screen at all, but the laws of thermodynamics couldn't allow for the Mana to simply vanish entirely. That is, if those laws even applied to Mana in the first place.

Ezio and his party had managed to fend off the first few waves of the monsters just fine, and eventually had come up with the idea to leave one alive to stretch out the waves. He was lucky that all of the people in his party were rather exceptional. This had given Ezio enough time to tinker with his Mana, as he had questions. Just how many times could he split his Mana in half?

It became very difficult after a certain point, but it did wonders for his <Mana Control>. He couldn't move at all while splitting his Mana, he couldn't even keep his eyes open because seeing was too distracting. He needed to sense his Mana, manipulate it with his Soul.

After a short while he realized a problem with this approach. Splitting the atom released a massive amount of energy, if Mana did the same then he would need an outlet of some sort to direct that energy. Thankfully, he had just the spell for that.

Ezio split his Mana again and again in the palm of his hand with <Embers> activated, waiting for it to eventually explode. He wasn't entirely sure that was how it would function, but he eventually found the answer. After splitting a single unit of Mana in half again and again, he eventually reached the point where a large burst of energy was released, completely uncontrollable with severe drawbacks. An ocean of fire shot out from his hands despite how low level his <Embers> was, the energy being so intense he felt his Soul crack.

A quick check of his status screen revealed his maximum Mana capacity had dropped significantly, worrying him greatly. If his experimentation had such severe side effects, he wouldn't be able to pursue it any further. The worst part was he was positive he could split his Mana even more if he was powerful enough, but perhaps some things weren't meant for man.

Thankfully, his Soul recovered over time along with his Mana capacity. He had the single most powerful attack in his party, capable of completely incinerating monsters well above his level.

They were going to have no problem beating this Tutorial. Whatever came after, the world wasn't ready for them.

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"GET UP! SOMETHING'S COMING!" Teresa screamed as she shot up in her tent. Sarah nocked an arrow on her bow as Teresa got to her feet, breathing heavily with sweat running down her face.

"What's going on?" Sarah asked, concerned. This was her turn on guard duty and she hadn't sensed anything with her Perception. She knew Teresa had some pretty absurd stats, but Perception was the one thing Sarah should have her beat in. How did Teresa sense something before her?

"I don't know, but I felt it from there." Teresa responded, pointing directly into the Contaminated Zone. Everyone got to their feet, even Thomas and Mathew were up now and ready for anything. Jake stepped in front of everyone ready to draw attention, Preston drew his sword and Teresa's palms started to glow orange through her gloves. Sarah knew what that meant.

They all stood ready, looking around at their environment waiting for an attack. A minute passed, then two, then three. Nevertheless, everyone stayed ready, their attackers might just be particularly stealthy.

"Are you sure something's coming?" Sarah asked, still not sensing anything. She could hear a butterfly flapping its wings several feet away, she could see every crevice in the bark of the trees around her despite the darkness of night, but she didn't sense any signs of a monster.

"It was the same feeling I get when I use <Monster Hunt>." Teresa answered. "Something pulled on my Soul, I felt it. One of these threads, I don't know which, but one of them was definitely yanked and whatever did it was that way."

"Was it the Spinosaurus? I know you mentioned you lured it towards you with your skill, maybe the dinosaur has Karmic Magic of its own?" Preston guessed. That sounded terrifying, Sarah did not like the idea of being stalked by monsters using Karmic Magic.

"The Spinosaurus would be coming from a different direction, not from deeper within the Contaminated Zone." Jake replied. They stayed on guard for a few more minutes until they began to settle down. Preston, Jake, and Sarah all exchanged glances, something unspoken passing between them. Jake and Sarah both looked at Preston and nodded towards Mathew and Thomas, and Preston got the message.

"Alright, how about you guys go back in the tent, I'll stand guard outside so there's nothing to worry about. They're just gonna look around to make sure it's safe." Preston told them, guiding them back inside the mens' tent.

"Let's go." Jake said, walking deeper into the Contaminated Zone.

"Are you sure we should leave them? It might not be safe, last time we split up things didn't go all too well." Teresa said, but Sarah and Jake weren't worried about monsters.

"It'll be fine, we won't go too far." Sarah said as she followed Jake. Teresa shrugged and came with, still on guard.

It was better that Preston stayed back, at least for this. He was a great guy and all, but by no means was he subtle. As a matter of fact, Sarah considered him extremely blunt. There wasn't necessarily anything wrong with that, but this needed to be a gentle conversation.

The truth was, they had all been worried about Teresa for some time now. Even during the Tutorial she had displayed some… concerning… characteristics to say the least. Apparently she hadn't gotten much better after Sarah had been forced to leave the Tutorial. They had spent a week training after the fourth wave where Sarah had been fatally wounded, and from what she heard Teresa had spent every waking second focused on nothing but training. Jake and Preston said they had tried to convince her to take a break every once in a while, and while she said she would, Teresa had not so subtly continued spending all of her time practicing her magic.

That was at least safely explainable. Sarah's life had been in her hands, and truthfully Sarah felt horrible about the pressure she must have put on Teresa. She considered Teresa her ride-or-die now, she would always have her back. Teresa had said she felt fantastic after the Tutorial, but when they heard her stories of her time in the Tutorial they realized just how bad it was.

They had laughed about some of it with her, sure, and they teased her about some of her choices, but a lot of it had been blatantly horrifying. Teresa didn't even know how many times she had broken a bone, been burnt horrifically, been stabbed, shot, or just put through hell. They were glad Teresa could laugh about a lot of it, but that didn't change the fact they had become extremely worried about her ever since.

Add on top of that the incident with the bandits, the god that tried to have her kidnapped, the pressure of being responsible for the lives of over 10,000 people, and watching as a patient died in front of her. Sure the patient was a gorilla, but Teresa was far more sympathetic to others than Sarah was. Teresa was even willing to respect Thomas' wishes about not entering combat, something Sarah thought was so stupid she almost wanted to strangle the guy. Throw in the fact she got microwaved earlier and was having night terrors apparently, there was plenty of cause for concern.

That wasn't even taking into account the whole grooming thing Teresa had warned Mathew about. Sure, calling a kid mature for their age could be creepy, but Teresa had made it sound much worse than it actually was. There was definitely something going on with that, but Sarah sure as shit wasn't going to push it.

This was long overdue. They didn't really know how to approach it, they didn't want to ambush Teresa with a talk that might just make things worse, but it was clear they needed to have an uncomfortable conversation with their friend.

Teresa might be worried about Thomas, Mathew, and Preston, but they would be fine. Sarah knew that better than anyone. The one everyone should be worried about was Teresa. Preston was plenty capable, and while Thomas was a level 4 mage Mathew would catch up eventually.

After all, he had already killed his first monster.

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