Book 6: Chapter 48 |
Beginning List Generation, Please Stand By.
One of the horrid moving outgrowths raining from the eldritch abomination looming over Kay's blood sea and trying to dig into to get to Kay landed directly above where Kay was floating beneath the surface and thrashed through the blood in an attempt to reach him. It died like all the rest as the eldritch essence that made it up was burned away by Kay's blood, but each horrible monstrosity that landed was getting closer to Kay's location when the broke the surface and they were surviving a few seconds longer than the ones before them with each wave.
Interference Detected, Stimulating Advanced Cognition.
It was like a headrush and a burst of energy from a lot of caffeine hitting all at the same time. The world around him seemed to slow down as his thoughts started racing faster than they ever had before. It was like going from someone without a tier to tier three all at once.
"Wooooaaah thaaaat's soooomeeeethhiiiiiiing eeeeelssseeee."
Speaking Aloud Will Be Inefficient During Advanced Cognition. You Can Think Your Responses During This Process And I Will Respond.
"Like this?"
Yes, Exactly. Please Continue Standing By While Potential Legends List is Generated.
"Can you explain while that happens? Tier six is based around 'Legends'?"
Kay did his best to place that into his preexisting framework of assumptions and guesses about how the System's system worked on Torotia. There were all kinds of theories and ideas floating around, and that wasn't one of the ones he'd run into before. The most popular theory about how to advance to tier six involved getting a series of tier five Classes and combining them into a tier six, just like how tier five worked but with even more complexity. Kay hadn't ever really bought into that one because of that increase in complexity. It worked with the limited number of tier sixes out there, something as difficult as combining multiple large scale combinations of Classes into an even more complex yet connected Class was a heavy limiter to how many people were going to get it right, but it seemed too difficult and burdensome for Kay to really agree with the idea. The other big one was that every tier five had to prove their mastery of their tier five Class to the System, similar to how people could advance a tier four into a tier five without combining any Classes by proving they were masters at that Class and the associated Skills, but if that was the case then there wasn't any real point to having mastery Classes.
"I'm guessing the Legend I create of subsume has to be related to the tier five Class I want to tier up to work?" Kay asked.
Correct Under Normal Circumstances. In This Instance The Requirements Will Be Broadened But Normally The Legend And The Class Must Have A Base Level Of Overlap.
That was a significantly simpler idea than combining a bunch of tier fives into a tier six and didn't contradict anything like the mastery idea did. It also worked with what Kay knew of the world. There were only a handful of publicly known tier sixes in the world and while none of them were willing to share how they'd tiered up, each of them were famous, even legendary figures in their own right. The Rune Master was an enigmatic dwarf that constantly went around completely covered and was the Class Line Progenitor of an entire way of magic and enchanting. The Founders of the Adventurer's Guild were famous all over the world, with stories and legends of their adventures of founding a nation, founding the nation-spanning Adventurer's Guild, and more serving as bedtime stories and rousing tales for generation after generation. Even the tier sixes Kay knew little about himself were massively influential public figures in their homes in the west of the continent. He assumed, based on what he knew, that the Founders of the Adventurer's Guild and the Rune Master had made their own Legends. He wondered if the others had created new ones for themselves of "subsumed" preexisting ones from the people they lived among, however that worked.
List Successfully Generated.
All the previous text vanished and was replaced with an extensive list of entries, each one taking up a single line. Many of them were struck through and grayed out, obviously marking them as unavailable for one reason or another, sometimes with the explanation as to why. There was a scroll bar at the right edge of the screen that had a tiny scroll box inside of it, revealing the already long list was even longer than what he could see on screen right now.
"Why is this so big?"
All Entires That Can Feasibly Be Connected To One Or More Of You Fifth Tier Classes Are Shown, However Many Are Hard Locked To Requirements You Do Not Meet.
"Can you filter those out?"
Acknowledged. Filtering List Based On Usability, Accessibility, and Desirability.
Hundreds of visible options vanished as the list shrunk in on itself and tabs appeared separating the various options into related groups. All the tabs but the first one closed, hiding their contents until Kay opened them, leaving only the first entries visible. The tab read "Current Potential Legends."
Current Potential Legends:
- Founding King of Avalon
- The First Vampire
- End of The Vampyr
- Legendary Outworlder (Contested)
- Consort of the Fist
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These Are The Legends That You Could One Day Assume As You Advance To The Sixth Tier As Events Currently Stand. Depending On What Legend You Chose For This Temporary Ascension You Will Have To Sacrifice One Or More Potential Legends Permanently As Fuel To Achieve The Temporary Sixth Tier. As Previously Stated, You Will Still Be Able To Unlock New Legends To Use Should You Survive This, Though The Legend You Chose For The Temporary Tier Up Will Also Be Unavailable In The Future. It Is Advised That You Not Choose One Of These For You Temporary Tier Up To Retain As Many Potential Options For The Future As Possible.
"Got it. If I need to give some of these up permanently, then I need to understand them. The first two are easy, although, is it really enough to just be a king to get a Legend for tier six? I mean, it does have 'Founding' in the name but still."
No. One Must Be a legendary king. You currently do not qualify but are close enough to for it to be considered incredibly likely that you will reach that point.
It was actually somewhat of a relief to hear that even with all the shit that had happened to him so far he wasn't considered a legendary king here on Torotia. Then he realized that meant that legendary kings apparently went through even more than Kay had and he got worried about it. "Okay, not the time for this. Legendary Outworlder not being available because it's contested means that there are other outworlders out there that are influential or well known enough to make it so I'm not the only person that Legend applies to, right? So all Legends have to be singular to that one person?"
Correct. Unless The Previous Holder Dies Each Legend May Only Be Held By A Singular Individual.
"And the last one, Consort of the Fist. Is that about Eleniah?"
Yes. Eleniah Selthoran Is Very Close To Establishing Her Own Legend For Herself And Being A Well Known And Equally Powerful Consort To A Legend Is Often A Legend In Its Own Right.
"Not sure if that's the direction I want to go for in the future, but good to know. Alright, show me the ones I should pick from."
The five remaining categories were each sorted together based on how many potential Legends from the first list he'd have to sacrifice to use the ones in that category. All Kay had were the titles of each and the basic descriptions that the System could give him regarding what kind of Class they would become, apparently this broken fragment didn't have enough computing power to truly calculate what his temporary tier six Class would be when combined with each possible Legend, but the options from the first two tabs seemed equal to or weaker than the options he was already building toward. Things like "Warrior King", "Wandering King", and "Wise Ruler" just weren't going to cut it. With the System's help he continued to refine the list to narrow down the options into only the best of the best.
"The Legends that make me sacrifice four or five of my potential Legends don't seem that much powerful than those that need three, so let's focus there for now." Kay finished after listing out all the criteria he wanted to be used.
Very Well.
The tabs for four and five sacrifices closed while the ones for one and two vanished entirely as the System filtered based on Kay's criteria. After all of the filters he'd added and how many things he'd had removed there were significantly less options left than there had been. Legends that weren't involved enough with fighting and destroying enemies were discarded and even ones that would be fantastic in any other situation but this were set aside based on relevance.
Remaining Options:
- Protector-King
- Bloody Wavebringer
- Sanguine Monarch
- Eldritch Guardian
"... That's it!? These aren't good enough!" Even without a description Kay could tell the four, four, options that were left wouldn't cut it. Protector-King was just an upgraded Guardian King from the two sacrifices list and a downgrade from the four sacrifices list's Unyielding King. Bloody Wavebringer and Sanguine Monarch were better but one was focused on his bloody sea and the other on being a ruler that used a lot of blood, which was a direct linear upgrade to his tier five Class and not nearly powerful enough. Eldritch Guardian was the best option as a guardian who kept the eldritch back, not one that used it to guard, but even it didn't have a feeling of true power behind it. They all were strong, but none of them had the pressure behind them that he needed to overcome Hungering Void's avatar.
"You unlocked a restricted list and a forbidden list to give me these!?" Kay continued to demand. "Why would any of the things I've seen be forbidden or limited? None of them are that powerful! I mean, the plague related ones seem bad, but not that bad honestly."
Apologies. None Of These Options Are From Either The Restricted Or Controlled Sections, And I Cannot Access The Forbidden Section Without Fully Connecting To The Main System, Which Is Currently Not Possible.
"What? But you unlocked them! Why haven't you displayed any of them?"
The Unlocking Process Is Taking Longer Than The Generation Of The List Containing Non-Restricted And Non-Controlled Options. It Was Deemed More Efficient To Check Those While The Unlocking Process Continued.
"Okay, if anything like this ever happens again, or actually if anything like that is happening right now, tell me! We have to wait on those others getting unlocked, the regular options aren't good enough. Eldritch Guardian might work, but I doubt it."
Confirmed.
There was still a fight going on, so while he waited Kay added his full attention to harassing the eldritch avatar. His simulacra were still scaling it's body, gaining and losing feet as the battle lines shifted and unliving bodies fell into the blood sea. The cancerous constructs the avatar was using for soldiers were awkward and clumsy, but they were numerous and they were so strange and varied that most normal tactics didn't work on them. With Kay giving more of his attention to the climb the simulacra began gaining ground. More mana and blood was spent on more immediately useful shapes and blood dragons began rising from the sea. That distracted the tentacles that were sending shrieking sonic shockwaves at the sea's surface where Kay had submerged, and they began chasing the fully red dragons around the air.
Simulacra started unfolding themselves in the middle of battle, turning into sheets of blood that wrapped around enemies and clouds of vapor that flew around as dispersed aerial weapons. Massive constructed limbs rose from the waves and started crushing mishapped creatures and ripping at the flailing tentacles while the edges of the sea began shifting inward as the the mass of liquid blood started defying gravity in a way that would be impossible without magic. The sea rose, become a cone that ignored the shape of the lad around it and flooded upward, engulfing the lower sections of the avatar's body and beginning to burn it. The central, massive lamprey mouth in the lumpy, disgusting head that floated above the sea screamed in pain and outrage and a thick bundle raced up the spindly, spire-like body that connected the avatar to the ground. It vanished somewhere inside the head and the avatar began lashing out at the rising shape of blood that threatened to melt it away.
Protected List Unlocked.
Controlled List Unlocked.
Curating List Based on Previous Criteria.
Complete.
The updated list was dozens of entries long even after being narrowed down, and all of them radiated power and pressure just from their very names. Some of them were immediately noticeable as terrible, terrible ideas based on the evil nature immediately inherent to them, while others seemed completely innocuous and Kay was confused about why there were there. Those weren't the ones that truly stood out to him, though. No, the Legend he saw that immediately halted him in his tracks and left him metaphorically paralyzed was one he'd never expected to see on that list.
"Does that say King Arthur!?"