Author's Note: Not much to say today, Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 61: The Other World's Power Up Methods
"The Legendary Hunting Tool transformations get's a cut of the experience points whenever you kill a monster with one, levelling up and growing in power as it goes along." Goll stated though the only Hero of the world here who didn't have that power up method was Sadeena.
Roderick tapped Myne on her shoulder who looked down at him and then at the assembled group.
"The Legendary Jewel works on Professions. By using up specific items you're able to grant people professions to increase their stats as they relate to their professions for instance." Myne had Roderick pick up a decorative shield from the wall and Myne held it to Maple who took it in her hand too, the shield disappeared and Maple's defensive power doubled with the 'Tanker' profession.
"Huh. Neat." Maple stated as she now looked to Sakura.
"The Legendary Card power up has it that the longer a weapon is out and active the more powerful it gets. Mastery can be reset to increase the quality of a weapon from C for Common to L for Legendary." Sakura explained leading to Maple to note that it was a method that seemed similar to both Kuro's and Tanya's methods.
"Then I will speak for the absent Blunt Instrument Hero." Naofumi stated as he wiped down his face.
"Why do you know the power up method for the blunt instrument weapon?" Goll asked looking at Naofumi suspiciously.
"Because my intelligence network is bigger than yours." Naofumi stated bluntly as he continued anyway. "It's called the War God System. You can learn the techniques other people have learned by picking up the weapons that they used them with and spending 'Soul points' earned by killing to do the learning."
Blunt Instruments are the most diverse and wide spread of any kind of weapon in the entire world. At any give moment in time, you have access to something that you can use to Bludgeon someone else to death with.
"I'll also mention a little something that doesn't just apply to Heroes while I'm at it. You can Sink Ki into a skill or magic to increase it's effective power output." Naofumi stated though Maple and the others were just confused.
"'Ki?'" Maple asked about the vaguely familiar term.
"It's the base energy from which Magic and Spirit originates. When your mana and Spirit recharges it draws from Ki." A third meter appeared in everyone's vision, with the exception of the Spirit Glass, KP. "It recharges from drawing energy in by breathing or fuelling it by eating." Naofumi stated bluntly as he continued cleaning up. "All living things produces and uses Ki as part of their day to day lives, trees and other plants included. But because their output exceeds what they use it also fills up our surroundings."
"So Ki is Oxygen?" Maple asked vaguely recalling this lecture from science class.
"That isn't remotely what I was saying." Naofumi retorted bluntly. "Ki is energy and Oxygen is matter."
"If you say so." Raccoon stated as she put the dishes away. "The Katanna's method is refinement, by feeding a weapon more of the same material that unlocked it it will accelerate it's rate of unlocking and increase their power."
"My turn then." L'Arc was finishing washing his hands after the meal. "The Scythe can Reap the souls of those that I kill which can then be slotted into a weapon transformation to give a weapon the power of the creature that you killed."
"The vassal fan transformations have their own mana meter which can be used to cast spells." Glass stated bluntly while she was leaning against the wall.
"The Boat grants you various boons depending on what items that you have inside of your inventory." Ethanobolt stated as a example pulling a book out of his inventory. "How did this get here?" Myne promptly took the book.
"The Mirror has the power to grant various stat increases based on what you or you're party is eating, the higher quality the food the greater the stat boons." Naofumi stated indicating the still very messy table.
"""So that explains it!""" Everyone stated at the same time wondering where all of these stat bonuses were coming from, and why Naofumi was shoving food down their throats.
"The Harpoon increases the power of magic and skills based on how much that you use them." Sadeena stated lounging about still very full from the six main meal dishes and three course desert she just ate.
"The Vassal Musical instrument can consume a fixed amount of gold and in exchange you can buy one of three randomly chosen bonuses." Raccoon stated bluntly.
"And last but not least The Book has the power to increase the power of it's copied transformations by picking more of the same weapon that you copied in the first place. For instance something mass produced like say a soldiers blade would be easy to get the full power of and something rare like the meteor shield would be extremely hard." Naofumi stated prompting a suspicious glare from everyone present.
"How do you know the Book Reinforcement method?" Goll asked making her suspicions known.
"Like I said, My intelligence network is better than yours." Naofumi stated bluntly.
"I told him." Myne stated looking up from her book. "I found the diary of one of the book Heroes in the library."
"In any case we should probably deal with our unruly visitor." Naofumi stated as he stood up and faced the wall behind him.
"What unruly visitor?" Goll asked sounding suspicious.
With a loud boom the wall behind Naofumi was demolished and a figure emerged from the smoke and dust swinging.
"Iwatani!" Naofumi pushed the blade out of his way with a single swing of his mirror that he at some point in time transformed into a 'Tiger Claw Mirror' in order to parry the attack.
The fact that the woman attacked a house with four legendary Heroes inside, five vassals and two of their companions inside of it and didn't die in the next five minutes probably spoke volumes of just how tough she really is. Raccoon charged at her pointy end of her weapon first and the wall crasher responded with a decapitating swing, which was rather unfortunate as all that she cut through was Raccoon's illusion. Raccoon on the other hand quickly cut one of the woman's tendons before she jumped back over the ocean.
"People really need to stop demolishing my house!" Goll followed up her indignity by chucking a dart that came out of her weapon at the attacker, Naofumi followed up with a dart of his own which then split into a series of pink blossoms and mobbed the would be assassin with them.
"That dart'll double the damage of the next attack to land on her by two!" Kizuna shouted as she swapped out her weapon.
"So'll mine. So whoever gets the next swing in against her better pull their punches so that we can interrogate her after we take her down!" Naofumi stated as he switched out his mirror for the third time.
The assassin cut down all of the petals as she summoned several familiar green glowing blades as platforms to run on.
"SP? A Spirit?" Glass questioned as she prepared Turtle Shell Cracker.
"A skill." Naofumi corrected as it came to light what precisely Kyo had been up to.
"Thunder Slash!" The Assassin swung her blade and produced a slash of lightning at the group.
"Mirror, Shield! Defend and reflect that blow!" Two Spirits, a woman holding a mirror and a winged shield, appeared next to Sakura and worked together to create a barrier around the house and bounced the attack back at the assassin who was forced to dodge in response.
"Miss." Roderick intoned.
"I know. Laser Circus!" She did however end up dodging directly into the path of Myne's skill.
"Crystal Spike!" As the assassin hit the ground she created a barrier of crystal spikes which blocked the multiple lightning bursts shattering her makeshift barrier. Which also meant that she could see the massive tidal wave that Sadeena created in order to drown her and followed up by cutting through that as well.
"Bejewelled Blaze!"
"Scything Pin Wheel!" The Therese and L'Arc combo created a fire storm across the lake to surround the assassin. She wasn't injured by the attack but she was suddenly finding herself short on oxygen and soon passed out. Which would really be all well and good and all except for the explosion that happened down at the castle grounds implied that this wasn't the only attack like it going on.
"The explosion is a distraction, the real goal is the dragon's hour glass." Naofumi stated bluntly.
"That doesn't mean we can just let people do whatever they want in my neighbourhood." L'Arc snapped in reply.
"I'm aware. Sakura will take you, Glass, Therese and Goll with you to deal with the distraction, while I take the rest of our forces and go defend the Hourglass."
"Fly, Shield, Sprint. Take us to the battlefield." Three of Sakura's Spirits appeared a bird, the winged shield, and a blue bejewelled cat which formed a winged bubble around them that flew them over to the sight of the explosion.
"Now than, to wrap this up before we go any further." Naofumi said as he turned around to the sight of a screaming assassin covered in a mysterious aura.
"That looks like Ost's energy..." Maple stated as she looked at the assassin whose weapon seemed to come alive and was growing rapidly wrapping around and assimilating her body.
"That weapon should've been made using the flesh of your world's spirit turtle, it makes sense if it's also powered by it, you got the shield from the Spirit Tortoise's core?" Maple swapped out her shield a familiar piece of crystal decoratively carved into a shield took it's place. "Raphtalia and Raccoon, get that thing away from her, cut her arm off if you have to. Maple, double prison skills you and me, change shield yours into the spirit tortoise core and suck the damned thing dry." Maple nodded her head in acknowledgement.
"I'll go first, after I cut through it follow up properly." Raccoon performed another rhino charge and slashed through the mass of turtle flesh that had been wrapping around the assassins arm, which was then followed up by Raphtalia zooming in and cutting off the weapon like a festering tumour before it could regrow itself.
"Mirror Prison!" The familiar cage of mirrors appeared around the assassins body.
"Shield Prison!" As did the ball of shields appear around the weapon, which was then followed up by... "Change Shield: Spirit Tortoise core Shield!" The ball of shields turned into a ball of decorative crystal which then proceeded to turn the explosion that was about to sound into a dull thud and absorb the released spirit Tortoise Energy.
"Now than, lets wrap this up." First Naofumi turned his mirror into one with the pattern of a length of coiled rope. "Reflect Mirror: Rope Mirror." By 'Wrap this up' he appeared to have been speaking literally, as the Rope on the mirror proceeded to come alive and wrap around the assassins body tying her up. "Miss Maple was it? If you wouldn't mind."
Tsugumi and her two companions were all that was left of their friends, their lover was dead and they didn't know what happened to the jewels or spirits that they had been travelling with. Didn't matter now, would any of them still accept them with their bodies like this? No better not to think about that now they were almost at the dragon's hourglass right as they thought that, Suddenly a massive scaly fist smashed through the wall of the hourglass chamber and released a still bound Yomogi, Naofumi and Raccoon from it's grasp.
"Ladies, might I comment that whatever beauty treatment that you are on..." The ladies in question had pieces of a crimson red phoenix, a white Tiger, and a green/black turtle grafted onto their bodies in seemingly random places taking up limbs, parts of the face, and stretching across their torso's. "You should get a refund!"
"Iwatani!" The tiger woman formerly known as Tsugumi growled as she readied a spear made out of turtle flesh to attack.
"As fun as this situation is unfolding to be I'm afraid that I really must insist that you all Chill Out!" A second fist through the building deposited Syrup, who in turn proceeded to unleash his turtle wrath. Vines soon covered the ground of the Hourglass chamber which then rapidly blossomed into purple, yellow and red flowers releasing multi coloured smoke into the room simultaneously paralysing, poisoning and burning the trio with acid. "Pull those pieces of crap off of them!" The vines wrapped the weapons and parasitically grafted themselves onto the weapons and proceeded to attempt to drain them dry.
"You continue to be a never ending pain in the ass Iwatani!" The familiar tone of voice of a certain self proclaimed genius snapped from the weapons the half monster girls, filled with spite and bile.
"Ah Kyo? Tell me read any good books lately?" Naofumi began pacing in front of the trio as their bodies began to convulse. "Pick up any rare additions to add to that portable library strapped to you side?"
"How about you? Kill any Heroes lately?" Kyo snapped in response.
"Oh plenty, I imagine you would know all about that though, remind me how many of your fellow reborn trusted you with the task of keeping their spares on hand hmm? Poor old Albert, that self proclaimed Katanna Hero, that wannabe who tried to steal L'Arc's scythe, the most recent should be that glorified fisherman. And all of that is just assuming you didn't nab some more during your little genocidal attack on the world on the other side. I imagine that they're regretting their life choices by now." Naofumi continued to taunt Kyo even as the three weapons, and their wielders continued to inflate.
"Are you kidding? You're worst than I am! I might've enslaved them and bound them to me but you? You didn't even leave their souls behind you rotten git!" Kyo sounded like he was laughing as he spoke.
"I'm not quite as sure, you've gotten rather annoyingly good at making remote controlled bodies you understand, I can never be sure if there's going to be a toy for me to play with after I crack you little kinder eggs open." Naofumi stated smirk across his features.
"Four weapons you two are flirting." Raccoon on the other hand seemed to have had enough.
"Ah Mr. Iwatani! I don't think Syrup can keep this up for ever!" Maple stated noting that the enemy weapons, and their wielders, were expanding and transforming at an alarming rate.
"Right you are. Sorry to have to cut your interrogation short Kyo but you seem to be conspiring to kill us and that is severely counter productive." Saying that Naofumi made a arm motion as if tossing a baseball to Maple.
"Understood." Understanding the Hint Maple picked up the three and took them out of the chamber. "Where should I take them?"
"To Goll. She should've figured out the correct skill to use in this situation by now. Oh and when you're done stuff those pieces of crap into your shield for me before they blow will you?"
Kyo sent Goll quite a gift, an enemy that she can defeat easily, one of her skills allow her to dismantle the bodies of still living monsters, and to be more accurate only monsters. As a direct consequence she's able to, for lack of better term, dismantle the chunks of monster flesh that Kyo grafted onto his victims. And cut off the monsters that were parasitically latched onto their bodies in the form of weapons. Maple once again deployed the shield prison and Spirit Tortoise Core weapon to drain the damnable things and neuter their explosions. Thus the heroes were able to regroup, with their prisoners in tow.
"Killer!"
"Murderer!"
"Go Hang yourself you bastard!"
"Why does this feel so familiar?" Maple asked watching the captive girls hurl abuse towards Naofumi whom only shrugged his shoulders in response.
"This one can be pretty... abrasive." Raphtalia stated watching the scene unfolding with Maple at her side.
"Why don't you girls tell each other how you came to be in this situation in the first place." Naofumi dropped his prisoner, still tied up with his Mirror, with the rest of the tied up prisoners as he went to meet with the others.
"What have you been up to?" Maple asked looking at the man with the same name as her father.
"Disposing of garbage." Naofumi stated bluntly as he rejoined the rest of the group.
"Literal Garbage. He usually just calls them Trash and gives them a number." Raccoon commented throwing shade at her partner with her eyes.
"Why?" Maple asked looking confused.
"Most of the time they're too much of an arse to introduce themselves, or whatever mess I'm mopping up is too loud to hear what they're saying. But mostly they're too gods damned unimportant to warrant wasting precious time or memory remembering what they call themselves."
"""You miserable bastard!""" The various women snapped growling at Naofumi who retaliated with his middle finger.
"So what am I doing?" Raccoon asked looking annoyed.
"You are cursed with the misfortune of a edict memory, which is convenient if there's a large amount of important information in front of you that you have to absorb quickly, but highly inconvenient if people insist on spewing out useless information day and night, or worst if they say or do things that can't be un-heard or unseen in front of you." Naofumi explained waving his hand around as he gestured to the area.
"Kyo would never do that!" The assassin woman that Naofumi had captured and was dragging around suddenly snapped at her fellow would be murderers.
"Ah that would be the sound of the penny dropping." Naofumi stated as he turned his attention to face the band of murderers in question.
"And the three days I spent with bits of a tiger stapled onto my body was what?" The leader of the band of murderous harem girls snapped back in reply. "A figment of my imagination?"
"A interesting question ladies but here's a question for you Yomogi-"
"How do you know what my name is?" Naofumi's prisoner asked watching him pace around the lot of them.
"Do you recognise this weapon?" Naofumi was holding up the spear that Tsugumi had tried to stab him with, however Yomogi recognised it anyway.
"Where did you get that?" Yomogi asked looking at Naofumi concerned.
"A good question, but not one for me." Naofumi indicated the actual owner of the weapon to give a follow up explanation. "Ladies. Would you care to explain to your new friend here where you got this weapon from?"
"Kyo the book Hero, so what?" Tsugumi replied as if the answer had been obvious.
"Thief!" Yomogi snapped in reply.
"Hardly, he gave them to us!" Tsugumi and Yomogi reached the point of expressing their displeasure by slamming their foreheads against each other.
"If I can draw your attention ladies." Naofumi turned to face Goll.
"Batter up." And with only that as a warning he threw the remains of the spear at Goll who defended with her tuna knife leading to the weapon to be dismantled like it was a monster corpse.
The resulting burst sprayed goo all over Goll's face and left the remains of the weapon itself spread over the ground.
"Ew." Was Goll's response to the current situation, though if the way her eyes went wide in terror Glass had a different opinion on what she was looking at. "What is it?"
"Goll do you know what you're covered in?" Glass asked pointing a single finger and Goll.
"The technical term I believe is Ectoplasm. Also commonly known as spirit remains." To Naofumi's statement Goll had a horrified realisation of what she had been covered in. "See when a Spirit runs out of Spirit energy and can no longer maintain their physical form they sort of just break down and turn into goo."
"EWW!" Goll promptly made a beeline to the shore to wash off.
"Next question." Naofumi next picked up more of the weapon's remnants, this time a somewhat familiar jewel albeit cracked and damaged. "Do any of you lovely ladies recognise this?"
"That's-! That's!" Tsugumi had gone pale with horror at what she was looking at.
"What is it?" Maple asked as she came over to look at the jewel.
"You're familiar with Therese's people by now aren't you? Sentient jewellery with the bodies of other creatures formed around them yes?" Naofumi stated looking at Maple knowingly.
"Yeah." Maple picked up the jewel from Naofumi's palm as a pregnant pause echoed in the air. "Oh..."
"There we go." Naofumi turned back to face the assembled women. "You ladies use to have a bunch of Spirits and Jewel's travelling with you didn't you?" Naofumi himself knew as much, considering he was the one who probably beat them up. "Haven't seen them lately have you?" Naofumi took the, for lack of better term, long dried up heart of the girl's former comrade and dropped it into their midst. "I'm just going to let you process that as you girls think about if you want to help us kill Kyo or not." Naofumi patted Tsugumi on her head as he went back to the group of Heroes to discuss their next move.
"Well that was graphic." Raccoon stated as she picked up a chunk of Spirit Turtle meat. "Are you trying to squick them into submission or us?"
"Um. Does anyone have any idea why Kyo is trying to do these pointlessly cruel things?" Raphtalia asked looking mildly horrified.
"I believe he is trying to take the most powerful things in the world, that being the legendary weapons, and mass produce them. Toward's that end the weapons he's manufacturing require both the calculating power equivalent to a super computer, a not too uncommon ability among the Jewels..." Therese nodded her head in acknowledgement. "...the ability to manipulate Spirit energy..." Naofumi emphasised his point by wiping the ectoplasm off of his shoulder. "...and the power to shape shift." Naofumi handed Maple the piece of Spirit Tortoise flesh he had been holding onto who absorbed it into her shield.
'Conditions Met: Spirit Tortoise Mimic Familiar Shield. Equip Bonus: Fourth Shield.'
"Well that's a mouthful." Maple stated and Naofumi shrugged in acknowledgement. "So does anyone know what a mimic is?" Maple asked confused by the unlock.
"They're a type of shape shifter that poses as inanimate objects in a dungeon that attacks people who tries to use them. An ultimate tier ambush predator." Glass explained looking at the remains of the creature in question. "Clearly Kyo has found another use for them."
"Yes Kyo is a horrible wretch and he needs to die." Maple had no delusions about whom they were dealing with. Kyo was someone who possessed both the capacity and the will to hijack a demi-god and turn it against the world it was meant to protect as part of a plot to squeeze it for power like a orange. In comparison dismantling people for parts for super weapons seemed to be pretty light weight. "The question is, are they gonna be willing and able to help us do it?" They seemed to know where his base is, one of them probably even slept with him there. Yomogi looked at the pieces of what use to be people on the ground, at the other weapons that are probably the same, made by a person who she is still very much fond of in spite of all the thing's she's heard about him.
"Why did you come here to attack us?" Naofumi asked bluntly.
"Kyo came back to our base all wounded. He said that you mugged him for his prototypes." Yomogi explained remembering Kyo's battered image in her mind.
"Prototypes?" Naofumi asked brow raised suspiciously.
"He said that he wasn't finished working on it yet but it should grant us the power to fight like heroes." Yomogi stated looking at Kyo's abominations on the ground.
"You didn't bother to question how it was unfinished? It suddenly exploded you know." Naofumi stated indicating the pile of broken weapons. "I wouldn't let someone I care about run off with such a dangerous thing would you?" Yomogi shook her head in the negative. "Good. Take us to your boyfriend."
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: True. The writer seems to be overly fond of writing enemies who are blatantly two dimensional, at best. It makes it easier to see them get maimed, killed, beaten up and erased from existence but it gets pretty dull after a while. No not particularly.
ReviewerDWJ: Glad I didn't disappoint.
drmcgraw186: Thanks for pointing out my mistake from before, by way of reward I'll give you a hint: she's from a western production.
Galeon82: Fifty-Three magical natural disasters in card form and that's just what she came to that world with. Heavy weight is a understatement.
Nightshadegirl: I use to watch Card Captors Sakura with my sister all the time. Unfortunately not.