Готовый перевод Его не звали, но он приперся / They never called, yet he is here: Глава 27

Chapter 27

"So you caused a commotion in the heart of Inkar, killed part of the retinue of the Sorz Crown bastard, and then kidnapped the bastard himself and gave him to the elves who are extremely angry at Sorz, offering to make soup out of him?" There was something in Losius' voice that made me want to clutch my daggers tighter at once. "I understand you correct, don't I?"

Some wild mixture of mirth, disbelief, and fierce, under-hearted hatred, in the performance of the usually calm and good-natured aristocrat, burned no worse than a gust of red-hot desert wind, and the curses previously used by the impeccably polite duelist only added color to the palette of experienced emotions.

"Well... Yes?" I answer cautiously, just not knowing how to respond to something like that.

"Awesome!" Suddenly my interlocutor almost jumps up and then turns to an even more shocked Hans. "This calls for a drink. And not wine, but something much stronger... What?"

After appreciating the strange glances cast at him by everyone around him, and even by Hestia hovering overhead, Losius calmed down a little, trying to pull himself together. It wasn't going well, for an angry cheerfulness still slipped from under his usual detached demeanor. After playing a little peek-a-boo, but clearly not finding our eyes understanding the reasons for this amusement, the young Asterium said with mild bewilderment:

"But, my friends, these are Sorzs!" And all this with such aplomb, as if it were some perfectly understandable truth, which any reasonable creature would be ashamed not to know. "Why are you surprised?"

"Well, Sorzs, okay," Taria speaks the way a nurse in an asylum should communicate with a particularly dangerous patient who is prone to fits of violent rage. "But so what?"

"I hate fucking Sorzs!" The guy blurted out faster than I could think, without the slightest hint of aristocracy, but with as much temperament as he could muster in his words.

"You are such a sensitive man, Asterium!" Taria, realizing that her companion had not gone cuckoo, regained her carefree look and went about her favorite business: pestering others with her jokes, even remembering the generic name Losius for the sake of it.

"That's not what surprised me, to be honest." Hans intervenes in the starting skirmish. "Here's what I think. Tin just made a commotion, if not the same as in that fortress, then pretty close to it. He made fun of the big-eared buggers, he ripped the Sorzs' asses off, he made another bunch of enemies, and if I understand the boasts that our leader was waving, he did it all at the highest level, almost at random."

"Well... Yes?" I answer, experiencing a sense of deja vu.

"Ah, forgive me sinfully, tell me, Tin." An expressive pause, followed by a gut-wrenching, incredibly soulful question. "Why for?"

I am silent.

All around is silent.

Ygra, secretly chewing on some clawed bird resembling a pterodactyl, foolishly tried to pluck ogre eyes out either from hunger or to protect the nest, is silent too

"Look, Tin." Taria can hardly contain her laughter now, keeping an incredibly comical expression on her face. "If you ever want to make a big joke, just give us a heads-up, okay? I'm afraid after one of your jokes we'd got to redraw the maps of the continent. If there's anything left of it."

The funny thing about this situation is that they should have all started asking different questions. They should be questioning my adequacy, hinting that such pranks are fraught with many consequences, and other things that I am thinking about myself right now. Except that they think no such thoughts, considering what happened almost the norm. Losius seems to be shining like a polished plaque, ready to embrace the world at large. If he were at home, there would be a feast of epic proportions, for the Asteriems really dislike Sorz and all its inhabitants.

Taria simply does not know the normal life of an adventurer, subconsciously perceiving all our adventures as the norm of the new life, although her track record already surpasses that of the vast majority of the hardened thugs. A standard adventurer, upon learning where and for what purpose this girl had been, would surely have gone gray before her time, and then would have gone bald.

Hans, strange as it may seem, understands the depths of the asshole we are in but doesn't give a shit about the consequences. He's been around long enough without being at the top of the food chain. An ordinary tracker, serving almost as a lubricant for the blades of more talented and powerful opponents. He's also a bit tired of his weakness and the snobbery of those around him, holding him at best as a tool of average usefulness. His few friends had long been either in the ground or gone from his life, while he, for some reason, remained.

My appearance, like my adventures, became an outlet for this dog of war, where he really meant something. Where his path, his decisions, and his road would not be just another trail that would overgrow the grass the year after he died, but something meaningful. Lots of ringing gold, high levels, and epic classes were more of a bonus than the real reason he's still with us. Even if he doesn't realize it.

It became very uncomfortable for some reason, and I wanted to shut my clairvoyance deep down, so it wouldn't work all of a sudden. For there are some things it's better not to be interested in. In any case, I now knew another secret that I would never confess - if he wanted to, he would tell me, and if he didn't want to, nothing would change.

Hestia was just used to her commanders doing stupid things, and my improvisation with the elves and Sorz was the most ambitious, but not the stupidest. At least I'd covered my bases and not put my subordinates in harm's way, which is phenomenal for a self-styled commander. Besides, my jokes are directed at people she would gladly kill in a particularly painful way. It's just that Losius is too emotional in his dislike of his neighbors, and Raimel dislikes them a great deal, too.

And Ygra?

She doesn't give a shit about anything but eating and sleeping, and no amount of intelligence enhancement will help her - it's not her nature to care about anything that her eyes can't see in front of her. I think if she had known that the world was going to end tomorrow, she would have shrugged her shoulders and gone back to her business. Provided she managed to explain what the end of the world is and whether it can be eaten, or at least knocked on the head.

In some kind of crazy team, I'm on.

So am I, for that matter.

So am I.

The question of pumping was quite acute because I had once again fallen into the old System trap: there are many options for investing, but not enough for everything, no matter how you spin it. And I had to invest in order not to accumulate a whole pile of new toys that would bury me beneath it. I also remember how I got the Price of Humanity and the consequences of investing too many class points too abruptly.

The first thing I did, however, was to open another message that offered me the choice of an epic perk for one hundred and fifty endurance points. I didn't feel like it before, and it's not a major stat for me. On the other hand, to refuse an epic is not stupidity, but a bloody clinic, after which Alurei can put me in a house of mourning so that I do not confuse the minds of others with my delirium.

The Endurance characteristic has reached 150! Choose a perk!

- Metabolic boost (epic, active);

- Iron Body (epic);

The first allows you to make yourself practically invulnerable to intoxication by alchemy for a short period, or to urgently remove even a very tricky poison from your body. It's useful if it weren't for the fact that I can do the same thing with an Inward Sight, only a little better. If this perk was passive I would have taken it, because passive perks overlap very well. The active skill isn't completely useless, but against the things I can't get out of myself, they won't help.

For example, if we remember my suffering after Taria's intoxication, it wouldn't have helped me if all my insides had already begun to decompose into mush. The bun would have been useful, no doubt, but not as much as it could have been.

The second skill wasn't very useful, either. Yes, I would become very strong and it would be much harder to cut through my flesh, especially for conventional weapons. A noticeable increase in body weight while maintaining the same volume, it's an iron body, after all, can also be useful, especially in active combat. In peacetime, this effect is safely offset by a Leaf in the Wind, which allows me to play with my own mass as much as I wish. And I have enough dexterity and perception to control my mass without any distractions at all.

Everything is just fine... But it's even less useful than the Boost. Well, I don't fight in the way this perk would fit. I don't fight! Some knights would be extremely happy with this perk, as well as a simple fighter or even a monk, but not me. I strike quickly and directly with shadows, not giving a chance for a second strike. No, in theory, I know how and in what situation to use this perk, but it requires very specific conditions.

I chose an Iron Body, but I didn't feel as much joy as I did from the Moment of Eternity. Apparently, the boy named Kostya got a little greedy, if even epic buns began to seem shallow, bland, and stale to him. That is stale, that is, appeared too late, when their appearance is not too necessary. But this is my problem, not the System, so this time I have no complaints to the Admins, limiting myself to the usual wish of anguish and diarrhea.

Okay, now for the tastiest part - the distribution of free points and stats. With the stats it's simple: I still have only three stats that serve as the basis of my fighting style, but I increase dexterity more by secondary pumping, while concentration and energy remain invariably useful. Especially since I boosted dexterity with Momentum, so it's not really needed anymore. It is all in one hit, as I said before, the kind of hit after which you don't need a second one.

The question is different: should I throw everything into energy, trying to get it up to three hundred and get a mythic perk, or not be greedy and throw stats into concentration, bringing it up to two hundred and thus getting a new legendary? It's harder and harder to get points, and mythic will be more useful than two legends in the long run, but it's still a long time to get mythic, and concentration is extremely useful. Moreover, increasing one magic stat without increasing the second little shortsighted.

Twenty points were there, and five more came in for level thirty-seven. Taken in the course of my operation Elven Tits. Which added up to twenty-five points. Fifteen of them I put into concentration, choking on tears of greed, and the rest I threw into energy. I was now forgetting about the other stats, concentrating on the energy, bringing it up to three hundred.

Well, and the perk, of course, how without it?

The characteristic Concentration has reached 200 points! Choose a perk!

- Plastic Essence (legendary);

- Precision Control (legendary);

The next bonus will be available when you reach 300 points!

The second perk is an evolution of the Natural Control I took a long time ago, which has already proven its usefulness to me many times over. If his big brother gives the same enhancement to my abilities, only with the legendary perk, I'm not even going to think about what I choose here. This particular legendary perk is relatively "standard" as far as that term applies to legendary perks, but its utility is mind-blowing.

The first, on the contrary, is much more unique, rarer, and more unusual, but I will not take it. It's not even the danger that restrains me but my personal dislike and the strange bonuses it gives me. Plastic Essence didn't add any enhancements, but it allowed the mind to become more plastic, pardon the obviousness. Resistance to mental and other influences is noticeably lower, but it's almost guaranteed to fall off your mind after a while. It also helps a lot in creating false personalities and images, so much so that other spies would chew their hands off up to their shoulders. If before I could pretend to be a goblin Kickass very well, then with this skill I could literally become one. And then the forty percent of my concentration that went into controlling the disguise would be completely free and actionable.

I, as a dreamer and clairvoyant, could use such a trick. I won't even argue. But... I don't want to, period. This skill seems too strange and wrong to me. Not dangerous, once again, to clarify this detail, just ugly. I am Kostik, not someone else. Yes, I can pretend to be someone like Kickass. But it would still be me, even if I was pretending. To devil first perk. I'm going to be able to do it on my own without any of those weird reinforcements.

Now all that's left is the tastiest part - the nine class skill points that I can't keep any longer. If it were possible, I would wait, but every damn time I remember that story about the battle with the freaks and the desire to munch immediately disappears. So get a grip on yourself, isekai, keep pumping yourself up and strive for the top.

It seems like nine points is a great way to divide up the three classes. But is it really worth doing it that way? How about throwing more points into Dream, which also gets bonuses from closed class skill branches? Or put everything into Shadow, closing at least one ability completely? The same Aegis will be very useful if I pump it up to the top. Alchemy is too underdeveloped so far and too demanding for tools, but revealing its capabilities will make a lot of useful things.

As a result of much reflection on the nature of existence, I began with the Dreams, as they were frozen at the very edge of the third rank. It was to this third rank that I moved them, and I got my share of good news. I couldn't say I wasn't surprised, but at least I wasn't disappointed - another reminder of the dangers of realms energies was out of the question.

Soaring in Dreams: 7/7

Allows you to draw Dream energy into reality, freely accumulate it, control it, and use it for the widest list of effects; the accumulated energy has a high degree of plasticity and variability of influence on Reality; allows you to use stored energy as a bridge to interact with the Dream world while remaining in Reality; allows you to distort the metric of Reality, using stored energy as a shield, blade or tool; allows you to masterfully disguise stored energy against most sensory skills, including many unique and exotic ones; allows you to keep Dream energy in reality for long periods without parasitic losses; the stored Dream power can be embedded in surrounding Reality, giving it many special properties; Increases the Dream characteristic by +10; increases the Concentration characteristic by +10.

Edges of Reslections: 7/7

Allows you to use absolutely any reflective surface as a window to observe a specified target; target selection is determined by clairvoyance skills; allows you to penetrate almost any defense, including exotic, unique, and even legendary ones; distance to the observation target is irrelevant; allows you to exert the widest range of effects on the observer through reflection; allows you to use reflection as a passage to the Dream realm, leaving there along with the material body; allows capturing with available mirrors non-material manifestations, redirecting or manipulating them in a wide range; allows intercepting control over the reflections of the enemy, causing them wounds and injuries that will affect their bodies in Reality; allows using mirrors as a store of Dream power; processed mirrors can serve as portals for their creator and those he will take with him; increases the Dream characteristic by +10; increases the Concentration characteristic by +10; increases the Perception characteristic by +5.

Weave the Dream: 7/7

Allows you to create incredibly complex and multidimensional structures in the dream world; allows you to generate animated Dreams within your woven dreams; allows you to give a Dream Spawn a will; allows you to bend the vast majority of Dream Spawn to your will by giving them a varied list of orders; allows you to change the essence and basis of your Dream Dwellers as you see fit, reshaping them as you wish; It allows you to work with Dream matter, creating protective and attacking structures; allows you to weave bridges between Dream and Reality, creating stable links between reality and Dream; allows you to transfer your consciousness into an avatar woven from Dream and matter, capable of fully using the class techniques of the Masters of Dream and Reflection; allows you to inhabit woven or subdued Dream spawn in avatars you create, thus producing a servant, warrior, and assassin; Increases the Dreaming characteristic by +10; increases the Energy characteristic by +10; increases the Concentration characteristic by +5.

Broken Edge: 1/9

Allows you to break the edges of reflected reality, reversing extremely basic events that have already happened, making them unhappened; allows you, at the limit of concentration, to break the simplest aspects of reality reflection that belong to the being of other beings.

Reflected Image: 0/9

Mirror Cloak: 0/9

Web of Souls: 0/9

[undisclosed]

Bonuses:

Dreamer: The social and magical skills associated with the class grow five times faster; no one has power over your dreams but yourself.

Undeterred: the concentration grows faster.

In dreams and in reality: allows you to work with the matter of Dreams while in the real world; allows you to enhance the manifestation of Dreams in certain parts of reality, but only if the necessary conditions are met.

Reflected: reflections in mirrors have a certain chance of showing you more than reality itself, revealing to you the past, the present, and even the future.

Authority over Mirrors: your reflection in the mirror cannot become a weapon against you; the inhabitants of the looking-glass feel fear and awe before your image; increasing the Dreaming characteristic by +5.

Come in dreams: your influence on other people's dreams is almost impossible to notice and incredibly difficult to reflect on, even if you know about it; the changes you make in the minds, souls, and dreams of your victims are very difficult to notice and identify; increases the characteristic of Dreams by +5.

Undistortability: Dream matter has notable difficulty in distorting and changing your body and your essence without your will; makes it easier to stay in a Dream with your material body; increases the Dream characteristic by +5.

[undisclosed]

So much for four invested points that I don't even know how to react. I was especially smiling at the fact that, given the bonuses I received for closing, I might not have raised my concentration at all, but it would have raised it to two hundred and even a little higher. It didn't take long to get mad at myself: it is better to have extra points where you might not have put them in than to have them missing where you definitely should have put them in!

I'm much quicker to think about new skills and class perks. The first thing I do is run my eyes over the closed second rank, assessing the ultimatum abilities I got. I remember that in Shadows, every skill of the second rank, when fully closed, gave not only characteristics but also one very useful enhancement, coming from all the things I had mastered from the points I had previously invested in the said branch.

Stealing a shadow made it possible to create seven "extra saves" at once, redirecting my wounds to others with incredible ease. Summoning allowed me to make long-term contracts with no preparation or lengthy contracts with the summoned creature at all. The Steps gave me a teleport-evacuator, which allowed me to escape from certain death on several occasions or to go where I needed to go in time. Dream, too, gave me similar bonuses, though they were much less of a combat advantage.

Most of all, I liked the reward for the closed Edges because this is what I dreamed about from the first days of my stay in reality: portals. Even if the restrictions were brutal, even if the security of such portals was still questionable, they were there now. I now understood exactly how I needed to process two (or more) mirrors, one of which to leave somewhere in hiding, and the other to drag with me and, if necessary, to evacuate sharply. The mirrors themselves, thanks to the pumped Soaring have almost no background, but they are massive and huge stuff, which can easily be found, lost, or just stolen, not to mention such trivial things as the occasional rock and a bunch of shards. Massive and big as the mirror will need to be squeezed in before I can leave in trails of dreams.

Useful?

It is!

But it's also risky, cumbersome, and hard to use. It's not going to stop me from practicing creating mirror portals and then creating a few, just in case. Who knows from whom and in what way our company will have to run away in an unknown direction?

In fact, the second most useful thing was Soaring, which allowed me not only to accumulate Dream but also to create an analog of Ygra's swamp hideout, only much more dangerous for myself and for those who would put me out of there. It is also a cause for experimentation, but not so joyful. I'm much happier with the increased masking of losses than I am with the "final" enhancement.

I also have a very reasonable suspicion that this "Dream to Reality influence" opens the way to very specific subtypes of artifacting that can interact well with essentialism. Wouldn't Dream be the key to changing essence without changing matter? Another reason to start experimenting - at this rate, I'll soon grow a lab coat and go bald!

The reward for closed Weaving is one of those I wouldn't risk touching unless I absolutely had to or I drank rivers of alcohol. I'm fine with summoning Shadows. I don't need to summon any more nightmares, thanks. Especially not the kind that can stay real for an almost unlimited amount of time. I remember it was something like that that tried to eat me and Ferrer during that battle when I dragged a bunch of dream freaks right into our party.

With a closed grade, that's it. Now let's see what I was given at the third rank of Dreamwalker class. I wanted, of course, to get one more into the zero skills, but I can't because I still need to pump Shadow and Alchemy. I'll limit myself to trying to see what the class can do through clairvoyance. I'll probably be wrong anyway, but at least I'll be able to grasp the basics, and that'll be enough for the initial analysis.

Broken Edge is clearly about a direct effect on reality through clairvoyance, as strange as that sounds. My mind immediately reeled with the memory of the time I'd almost died, missing Ferer's attack by a measly margin. I'd really seen my death then, seen my body crumble to the marble floor in weightless glass dust, seen my end, my nothingness. And somehow, I had managed to dive into the reflection a moment before what I was seeing had happened. At the time, I thought it was a particularly fortunate foresight, but was it something else? Had my power over the Dreams worked to separate the two separate scenarios by a sharp edge, letting me choose the one that led to salvation?

Make what didn't happen happen. And to make what happened not happen.

I think, at maximum development, this skill will be so obscenely cool that killing me will be a contest that they will have to win more than once. Will I be able to undo my wounds, make my death fake, and turn my mistakes into unrealities? If so, that changes a lot... Especially since, in this intertwining of illusion and reality, it's very easy to lose your true self, and no Price of Humanity will save your soul.

The Reflected Image showed nothing in the clairvoyance. A big, fat nothing in which my queries drowned like a viscous void. I had a vague sense that the skill had to do with illusions and reflections, but that could be inferred from the name. It was a little bit of a stretch to speculate, but it was a lot of nonsense to speculate. I would live to see the days when I could understand the purpose of the skill through my actions and not through guesswork.

The Mirrorcloak is supposed to be similar to the Shadow Aegis, but something tells me that this assumption is wrong, and the Cloak will become something that will only be protection in a small way. But by what, when, and in what way? This is not a question for me - there are not many seers capable of seeing through the System itself, and I am only very conventionally included in that number for the time being. If such exists anywhere at all, apart from my guesses.

As for the Web of Souls, to my surprise, I can say quite accurately - it's a skill designed to work with other people's minds and souls. I suppose the phrase "rewrite brains" will become even more literal, simple, and comprehensive as it develops. If they don't kill me sooner, just to be on the safe side.

The class perks were quite similar to those given for the third rank of Shadow Class, but at the same time, quite different. I really liked the power of the Mirrors. Protection against those tricks, which I use, is an important and good buttress of impending survival. I well remember how easily my actions had killed a high-level slavemancer, so I did not wish to repeat his fate at all. In the same vein, we send Undistinguishable, which not only simplifies my travels in the Dreams but also protects me from their influence. Of course, I wouldn't rely on this perk completely, but I'm a little safer now.

By the way!

And doesn't this undistortedness increase one's resistance to all kinds of abominations, like the mist of Hestia, or the black sludge that was used by the creature from the Kraj? It's not for nothing that such creature-turned-people are often called deformed. Or was it just a coincidence that I was making it up again?

"Come in dreams" was a purely dreamlike perk. After receiving it, I was reminded of the impression left in my dreams by an overconfident lady who had almost found me with her clairvoyance, almost revealing me to the Shoeless Eye. It's a risk, but with the perk bonuses it's a very acceptable risk, if not insignificant. I'll wait a few weeks, practice on the cats, and try to pick her head out for some interesting information. Or turn her into a suicide bomber, if I don't like what I see in her head.

The increased bonuses from the Dreams allowed me to reach one hundred and sixty-nine points in class characteristics, which automatically presented me with a mythical perk. Just as legitimately, both of these perks required me to sacrifice a bit of humanity in exchange for the promise of power. I was no longer surprised, only silently swearing.

The Dream characteristic has reached 150 points! Choose a perk!

- Eternal Dream (mythical);

- Reflection of the Dreamer (mythical; active-passive);

The first mythic promises you immortality - you won't die of old age - the ability to increase your characteristics at any time, as well as the ultimate enhancement of any dreamwalking skills. If I choose this perk, then it would be impossible even for truly powerful opponents to escape the grip of my dream, to get out of the personal nightmare I've created. To plunge a Hero into a dream, centuries-long, in which he would be the eternal ruler and victor, only to wake up centuries later and see the collapse of his dreams, which were never a reality? Easy, gentlemen! And that's if you let him wake up at all!

The fee for all this splendor is as simple as it is terrible: to become a living dream yourself. Now your home will not be a Reality, but a Dream, even though you will be able to stay in Reality for a long time. Stay, but not live: you will regularly have to dive deeper into the native realm to gain new energy and regain the image stability of your gradually thinning and distorting body.

For a moment, I wanted to choose that perk and see how that stuff would interact with Shadow Shape or Aegis. Luckily, my curiosity wasn't so chronic that it turned from a simple vice into a cause of painful suicide, which is what it was.

The second choice was not so much better but compared to the first piece of crap, a piece of plutonium would be a good option. Especially since, in some ways, this thing resembled the same piece of plutonium - as dangerous as it is deadly, it can also be useful if you approach its use reasonably, balanced, and without haste.

Reflection allowed me to do anything with the personalities of sleepers. To the point of repeating, or, rather, not repeating, for the methodology was different, as was the result, the trick of the creature from the Kraj, who had created minions for itself. Look, for instance, at the prince I captured and gave to the evil ears.

Suppose he is asleep and dreams that he was ransomed from captivity, or repulsed by a successful raid, or that he managed to escape from a trap, or that I did not kidnap him at all. He dreams of returning to his palace and continuing there to indulge in all manner of vices, entertaining himself and ruling with a firm hand. And at the same time, the same prince, but not him, but a reflection of him, is doing something in the real world. This reflection can either consider itself to be the same prince, or be a bloodthirsty pretending monster, or even a nightmare inhabited by the Dream - but it is there, and that is the main thing. All the habits, all the mannerisms, and all the other shit - it simulates everything, making the agent almost undetectable. The only drawback is the class skills, for the double can use them, but they will come out weakened. But nothing prevents the double from going to sleep itself, letting the real victim wake up to use the right skills. It is in my power to construct a dream so that the brief awakening does not fall out of the stream of events at all - the victim will not even realize that he was awakened at all. Or to make the double change the dream in the desired way - the reflection is capable of acting in a very variable way.

This method is complicated, dangerous, and very nasty - in many ways it is even worse than simply eating the soul with the Shadow's Grip, because the eternal sleeper will inevitably distort and lose himself, becoming in the end just a set of reactions and memories without a soul of his own. The soul, on the other hand, will be at the mercy of the dub, which will become a true sleeper, and the asleep one will be forgotten forever.

It would be foolish to underestimate this perk, but I will use it only when I really need to, and I won't feel pity for the victim at all. In other cases, the usual brainwashing through dreams would be more merciful, simpler, softer, and less dangerous for me, who risked losing touch with reality by mixing things up during my sorcery.

Anyway, that's it with Dreams.

Shadows and Alchemy I pumped at the same time, almost without thinking - I had already thought about the best way to invest and made the necessary conclusions in advance. Of course, I tried to change my mind at the very last moment, but Kostya is already experienced, Kostya is used to it, and Kostya didn't get stupid as usual.

Vessel of Essences: 5/7

Allows one to accumulate huge amounts of essences in own body; allows one to create compositions from stored essences; the vessel cannot be detected by scanning skills below divine rank; the vessel cannot be emptied by specialized skills below divine rank; allows one to easily sort and filter essences in the vessel; allows to encase stored essences in stasis, without allowing it to change its concepts or mix them; allows, at some cost, the creation of finished compositions from pure essence directly inside the vessel without mixing them; allows the consumption of created compositions directly through the vessel, without the necessary material component, which reduces the toxicity to negligible values.

If the increase in the Dreams caused me to feel for a second that I was too shaky, threatening to cease to be real, here it was simpler. As it had once been with The Shadow, the increase in affinity with the Dreams was painful and frightening, especially with the sudden opening of the new grade. I did not, of course, pass out as I had, but I was prepared for the unpleasant sensation, and this time I invested fewer points.

The enlargement of the vessel was not painful, nor was it frightening (no more so than Shadow and Dream), but in the bare intensity of the sensations, this procedure was just as intense as the previous ones. Just in an instant, the cavity inside me became even larger, much larger, very large. Now I could really hold a whole backpack of potions... or at least a medium-sized purse. Not just store them, but make them on the go without any tools at all!

Is it worth asking why I chose this particular skill to enhance? The two points were well spent, allowing me to access the practice of alchemy without stopping my journey or even distracting myself from it. Except for gathering the ingredients, but that's a small thing compared to my movement speed and the shadow sphere. Such are the pies.

I didn't waste any more energy because since four of the nine points went to Dream, only two should have gone somewhere because I was going to put three into Shadow at once. By the way, only one skill, too, but that was as justifiable a decision as pumping the vessel. I know what I'm talking about. Trust me, people.

Aegis of Shadow: 6/9

Allows a realm incarnation of Shadow to manifest around itself, using it to ignore the effects on body, mind, and soul; almost completely negates the effects of skills designed to counter shadow classes; catastrophically increases stealth when applied; allows you to screen out high damage values by redirecting it to the Shadow realm; if the strike force is not high enough, it will be completely ignored, without additional energy waste; when using the Shadow Form it becomes an extremely low cost to maintain Aegis; allows you to use your Aegis-covered body surface as a breach to the deeper layers of Shadow, sending dangerous attacks into oblivion; allows you, at some cost, to activate total invulnerability, making your body a complete moving spatial breach to the deeper layers of Shadow; Aegis in invulnerability mode can repel even divine attacks at the limit of its power, which depends on the power and characteristics of the user, but with each attack absorbed in boost mode, the load on the thin body increases.

Did Kostik want to?

Kostik pumped it!

Yes, I had already guessed that the Aegis wasn't covering me with armor but simply moving all the attacks on me somewhere very deep. Moreover, I'm sure that if I use the Aegis carelessly, the attacks that go nowhere can hurt someone very strong and angry. And even if my intuition tells me that such a portal is one-way, I don't want to check it out. I'll be turned inside out by some Ancient Shadow before the damage to my subtle bodies that the System promises me for excessive use of the Aegis.

So, that's how it turned out.

And now I can go to sleep, just look at my stats before I go to sleep.

Name: Konstantine
Race: ?human?
Level: 37

Titles: Hero; Silent Assassin; Night Master, Thunderstruck; The Legend Seer; The Legend Killer; Withstood; Sighted Mentor; A Persistent Guy; Those who've seen a lot; Soul of a Mocker; Marathoner; Invisible Mentor; Walking Through Enemy Formation; Gifter of Fear; Holding on to Shadows; Beyond Existence; Stepping Over the Edge (Shadow); One Against Many; Anti-Hero; In the Embrace of Shadow; The Price of Humanity; The Right to Power; Size Does Not Matter; Taking Face; Step Beyond the Edge (The Dream); Assassin of Heroes; Creator of Legend (Fall of Stone); The Great Mocker; Kidnapper of Kings.

Characteristics (standard):
Strength: 130
Dexterity: 200
Endurance: 150
Perception: 174
Concentration: 225
Energy: 269

Characteristics (class):
Shadow: 193
Dreams: 169
Inspiration: 86

Skills:
Provocation: 68 (great master)
Running: 24 (journeyman)
Stealth: 69 (great master)
Swimming: 5 (apprentice)
Alchemy: 55 (great master)
Herbalism: 37 (master)
Gathering: 35 (journeyman)
Fishing: 14 (journeyman)
Spear Mastery: 3 (apprentice)
Infiltration: 52 (great master)
Danger sense:68 (great master)
Deathstroke: 57 (great master)
Dagger Mastery: 60 (great master)
Hand-to-hand combat: 19 (journeyman)
Energy Flow Management: 68 (great master)
Two-Handed Combat: 38 (master)
Throwing Weapon: 24 (journeyman)
Clairvoyance: 70 (great master)
Disarming traps: 27 (journeyman)
Pickpocketing: 15 (journeyman)
Trap Making: 19 (journeyman)
Poisoner: 18 (apprentice)
Essentialism: 23 (journeyman)
Unexistence: 46 (master)
Riding: 10 (apprentice)
Reading footprints: 24 (journeyman)

Now I can definitely sleep, I deserve it.

Stop.

First, I had a drink offered by Hans, who, at Losius's request, had opened a bottle of gnome water, miraculously undestroyed during the battle and the subsequent escape through the swamp. It still tastes as hot as your solar plasma, and it doesn't care about my endurance. What's the trouble? I can't get drunk, but I have to wrinkle my nose for all sorts of disgusting things! You bastards there, admins, bastards as they are.

"Here, have a snack, Tin." Taria handed me some sweets from a bag stolen from the thieves.

I did not hesitate to accept the present, sniffed with my sleeve, and, referring to the withdrawal after the characteristics invested, left the close company of alcoholics. My excuse was accepted with understanding... Although, in fact, they simply did not want to interrupt the drunkenness. I chewed a candied cherry, and suddenly I had an epiphany.

No, they were not pies, of course, but the Kickass adventure itself did not bring me to the brink of death, either! And just before the story of the mirror adventure, I had a couple of sweets, too, but I don't remember if there were cherries. And, to be honest, I don't want to remember. For fuck them, such omens!

It should have gone like clockwork - we walked fast, we hid from the search, we left no trace, and we were cool and skillful. Logically, we should have been able to get out of Melaret's territory pretty quickly and into the wilderness without disturbing anyone or anything and without getting into any trouble along the way.

What could possibly go wrong, right? Especially for me, who could get caught up in a story about saving princesses and kidnapping princes? What could go wrong?

No wonder I was surprised when everything went smoothly, and we got out of Melareth's territory without too much fuss. This kind of success, a quiet success, was new to me.

I had a lot of things ahead of me, but this was hardly the first time since my arrival in Whitewater that I realized that I could breathe out and relax a little. Although actually, it is a funny irony - I could only relax my ass cheeks when I was back in the deadly wilderness, where other savage wolves would jump at every rustle.

Everything with Kostya is wrong.

Authors note:

Twelve pages, that's the norm.

Now it will be easier, but I doubt it will last. GG will still get into something, but I sincerely hope that they have time to settle in at least a little bit, practice combat coherence, generally learn new skills, and check the ropes of the classes.

In terms of work, everything is smooth - no crits at all, and only Losius rolled 97 on morale, but there are such bonuses that it is not surprising. Asteriums don't like gyp... I mean, sorz, of course, sorz.

And one more.

Plastic Essence is a perk from the very first drafts. In the original plan, it should have been given out to the MC not for stats but as a title since he would constantly have to deal with a crowd of Ring-treated women of all shapes and sizes. A kind of reassurance against the fact that the MC was not inadvertently subjugated permanently, screwing up the whole plot.

But the plot fucked up itself, so this perk came out only now. MC did not like it, for he already has a different character. The 4chaner could, over time, put up with and even love it when his beautiful girls take control. But the current one Kostik is no good.

But yes, social mimicry abilities would be legendary - he got the perk for the Kickass epic play.

Alas, Kostik would rather pretend to be someone by being himself than be someone by pretending.

The rest is either trivia or spoilers.

Proofread tomorrow because I'm tired.

Good for everyone.

Внимание! Этот перевод, возможно, ещё не готов.
Его статус: идёт перевод

Переведено на Нотабеноиде
http://notabenoid.org/book/80370/540255

Переводчики: Camrad_RIP