Free Web NovelChapter 23: Four new tasks
The camouflage path of skills and or evolutions, was in its nature, a backup plan. He felt comfortable having the Colourful Feathers skill at his disposal, and he didn’t think any more of it.
Strategically, he browsed the strategy path within the Assassin’s branch afterwards. The options had seemed boring to him before, but as of recently, they made more and more sense for him to buy.
At the collar of the Assassin’s branch, the very bottom, the separate path dedicated to strategy, prompted him to buy a single evolution first, before he could move up to the rest.
’My high IQ won’t do shit if I don’t know how to put it into use,’ he thought.
The first purchase option was called Heightened Spatial Awareness evolution. Its name was very rustic, direct to the point, and better yet, it was cheap enough. It came along with three levels in total. It could be upgraded if he wished to.
’This can help me a hell lot,’ he thought, ’I would’ve never noticed that Cockatrice charging at me if it wasn’t yelling its fucking lungs out. I’ve survived purely by luck so far.’
Jimmy bought the upgrade right away. As the purchase initiated, he felt a bit of a pinch in his noggin, and then that pinch was converted to anxiety seconds later.
[-400 system points]
[Remaining points: 5,937]
’Wow, those points are dropping fast aren’t they?’ He tightened his beak.
However, this was not what made him anxious.
After the system implemented the evolution, evidently quickly, he got hit with a wave of sensory triggers! The skill didn’t give him a lot of metric information, but it pummeled him with information.
’Our hiding spot could trap us. We could get cornered in an attack!’
’That flour looks old. I could get a yeast infection.’
’If I slip off of the ledge while I’m sleeping, the fall would break my back.’
Those were the few threats he concluded moments after the evolution.
The sudden sensory information grinded his insides like a ten-meter header of a combine harvester. He noticed almost everything about his surroundings. Nearly every detail. Even stationary threats were threats to him nonetheless.
’Great, now I can’t nap.’ His head hurt.
The anxiety was a vicious cycle. It immediately led him to buy the next option in line, at the Strategy path, or best described as the Strategy Sub-branch.
This one was also applied immediately.
[-350 system points]
[Remaining points: 5,587]
This one was categorized as a skill. It was called Think Ahead. It had twenty-four levels.
At first, that amount of levels seemed random to him, but as he read the skill’s description, he found comfort in the fact that he could think twenty-five steps ahead if he maxed out the skill. Of course, this would require him to upgrade the skill twenty-three more times, but for now, he was comfortable with what he had.
’Now I can always think at least two-steps ahead. It won’t be random, and up to fate.’ He smiled.
The skill was immediately put to the test. He thought ahead, and moved at the edge of the hiding spot that he and his friend were at. This way, he couldn’t fall, and he’d be less exposed to the yeast within the flour bag, while remaining mostly comfortable.
Both the recent evolution and the skill were subtle by nature, but in a way, he increased his defenses without actually bothering to browse the Defense Mastery Sub-branch.
’Preventing wounds is always a good defense, hehe,’ he felt a bit more comfortable now.
Alas, he still couldn’t take a nap. He bickered with himself about whether he should buy more skills and evolutions or not.
’I welded through almost half of my damn system points already,’ he thought, ’And I still feel weak... My God, I have to kill more humans to give myself a chance, don’t I? It already sounds like a bad idea to hunt humans.’
Before he could process the matter properly, the system pummeled him with a system tab, featuring flash notifications.
[You’ve reached the minimum evolutionary requirement to pursue the following tasks.]
[Task 7: Explore the wilderness for 10 hours.
Reward: 800 system points]
[Task 8: Hunt and kill a Razor Squirrel.
Reward: 500 system points.]
[Task 9: Assassinate a human without being seen, and or traced.
Reward: 3,100 system points]
[Task 10: Obtain a Beast Core.
Reward: 200 system points.]
If Jimmy had finger nails, he’d be chewing through them out of stress right now. His strategy-based purchases weren’t nearly enough to prepare him for the tasks ahead!
’Those rewards look pretty bad, system,’ he was quick to point out, ’Apart from the assassinating a human one, sure, but, I’m trying to stay away from humans right now.’
[You can choose to skip these tasks, and a new task will be presented to you in return. However, skipping the tasks will take 30% of the cited reward from your current sum of system points.]
[For example, if you skip task number nine, 930 system points will be deducted from your sum before a new task is presented to you.]
’What the hell?’ His feathers jerked upright, ’That’s very cruel, system... god damn!’
[Lost points can be replenished one way or the other. Each task is optional, with the said penalty considered, but other than that, the tasks don’t have timers. You can do them whenever you please.]
’Alright, that sounds a little bit better,’ he sat down, ’I have a bunch of unfinished business in the city anyway.’
In regards to his unfinished business, he heard a few caws somewhere within his vicinity. More than he was used to as of recently, that is.
Exploring where those caws came from sounded like a bad idea. He immediately figured that he was being hunted by the city’s crows.
’I can’t understand them...’ he panicked, ’Are they speaking gibberish on purpose?’
Jimmy initially decided to wait it out. He hoped that those crows had nothing to do with him.
However, the loud, and audibly violent caws were getting closer. No matter what they wanted, it was apparent that he couldn’t ignore them for long.
’Someone saw me kill those humans, didn’t they?’ He thought.
