Many Worlds Chapter 46

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Many Worlds Chapter 46

Outside of the city, past a certain distance the terrain was unrecognizable. Somehow, a portion of the trees had managed to survive, and hadn’t been uprooted or turned (entirely) upside down. However, many had also been crushed into a pulp by the rocks moving around. Many underground plants like the tubers Jules had eaten had been forced to the surface. However, Jules felt that such changes were relatively minor. At least, he could imagine a tornado or some such causing that. However, the terrain had completely changed. There was a mountain where there had been hills, and a valley where there had been a mountain. Approximately, of course, since there weren’t many reference points left besides the city. Streams and rivers had quickly found new places to flow, though nothing looked natural yet. It was still obviously the result of a violent upheaval, with clumps of dirt and rocks on top of soil, in addition to the various plants that were strewn about. There were also corpses of monsters and animals, either those who had died in the landshift or been killed by each other afterwards.

It had been a few days since the landshift, and the city had been cleared of monsters, at least living ones. There were still many bodies and rubble from some buildings destroyed by monsters, as well as those buildings that could not handle the earthquakes. Though they were very resistant to earthquakes, there was only so much that could be done, and some buildings failed. This was especially true of the walls and buildings toward the outer edge of the city. However, Jules thought everything went amazingly well, given the circumstances.

Jules got a somewhat sudden increase in power after the landshift, though he supposed a large part of the suddenness was because they had received relatively little experience in the preceding few weeks. He wasn’t sure exactly why that was, except for “interest”, but that didn’t sound like the entire truth. Jules personally had received enough experience to advance twenty levels, which seemed quite excessive, until he realized that it was a once in a generation, or more than a generation, event. It was very significant… and perhaps that meant the system could reward more experience for it. That is, Jules had the feeling that the experience wasn’t distributed the way it was just to emulate the structure of a game. At the very least, it seemed to promote whatever interests there were in coming to this place. Quests were given (unknowingly, it seems) by natives of Uesmeth. While any monetary reward was given by them, experience was given out by the game system. From what Jules had gathered, experience seemed to be related to overall usefulness. For example, working jobs was good money, but little or no experience. This might have been because others could accomplish the same. Meanwhile, the main source of experience in most games was fighting monsters, and was also worth relatively little experience. Except in the case of the landshift event, when the cities were threatened by the monsters. So, to Jules, the way to get experience seemed to be “contribute to the continued survival and prosperity of the natives of Uesmeth”. He couldn’t actually confirm this, because Herbert wouldn’t talk about the subject at all. However, he felt that it was at least partly correct.

Though Jules received many levels all at once, the actual effects took place over the course of a few days, and Jules felt they still hadn’t quite taken hold completely. This was reasonable, since the nanobots that were presumably enhancing their abilities would take time to do their work. Though Jules had somewhat wanted to continue going all in on his mental attributes, in the end he diversified, slightly. His physical stats had been increasing their base amounts steadily, but he still wanted them to be higher. After all, they were useful for running around dodging monsters and shooting a gun in combat, which he did. Jules also increased Luck, specifically because his Quantum Flux had gone up more on its own, and if he was going to have large amounts of unlikely things happening, he wanted it to lean toward good things.

It was not surprising that the large increase in his mental statistics greatly influenced his telekinesis. However, it also reminded him that he had little practiced abilities. He used his View Data ability frequently and unconsciously. At this point, he could pick up on a large number of details he would have missed before. However, he almost never used his Manipulate Data ability. That was perhaps a more useful, and definitely less understandable ability. However, he found that he could now manipulate the mass of a small object by about 20% in either direction. This only lasted as long as he kept a “grip” on the change, after which it quickly returned to normal. Still, it made his rock throwing technique more powerful, though also more mentally draining. It was likely still not as useful as a gun, in many cases.

Mass had been the only thing that Jules had really attempted to manipulate. After thinking about it, he decided to experiment with different things. He could manipulate almost anything he could think of, to some extent or another, as long he knew of a way to measure the property he was changing. However, the more significant the type of change, the harder it was. Mass, although it sounded hard to change, just required him to add or subtract resistance to force, energy, and things like that to an object. This was not so different from the manipulations of force with telekinesis, though of course before he had the knowledge of how to do that it would have been completely unexplainable. As it was, all Jules could really explain was that there was some kind of fundamental particle that could be manipulated by mental energy. Though, Jules wasn’t sure exactly how or what mental energy really was. He had only learned from a practical standpoint how to use it, not the theory behind what he was manipulating. However, Jules felt this was responsible for most or all of the abilities that players got in their secondary class. Somehow.

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