Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 107: One more step

For the most part, Isaac had all the Aspects he needed. Defense from the Hydra, Mobility and more defense from the Specters, extra mobility and environmental resistance from the fishes, blade-based telekinesis from the blade monsters and sensory fuckery from the illusionists, though he rarely used the latter.

However, his second Evolution had opened up a new slot and it practically begged to be filled. If nothing else, having more Aspects could help bump the rarity of his next Evolution to the next tier if all he needed was one push.

At the same time, randomly choosing Aspects just because you could had a decent chance of biting you in the ass further down the line, wasting the XP used to slot them, as well as the extra 1,000 XP fee needed to remove each Aspect.

Still, two factors played in his favor right now. First off, Isaac simply knew there were certain Aspects he’d need in the future, even if they’d be useless at the moment.

Also, even if it turned out that the specific [Skills] he wanted to get down the line were less useful than he expected them to be, he knew that the higher Tier the Aspect in question was, the easier it would grow to pick upgrades that differed from the original.

The first upgrade needed to be a straight, well, upgrade. The second only needed to be of roughly the same type while the third could be anything even remotely related.

For example, [Gills] had been upgraded into [Shark’s Body], which kept the original power of surviving underwater, then tacked on some proper underwater maneuvering capability. The next upgrade could be something as different as wholesale resistance against environments without air or focused into gaining an alternative form.

Then, the final upgrade, one that would be conducted with the Aspect of a Tier 10 monster could even be an overall environmental resistance [Skill] or even a regeneration [Skill] because that would help you survive in hostile environments.

In the same vein, he’d grab the initial Aspect right now, then upgrade it once finally got the chance to fight a Lindwyrm [Raid Boss], then slap on an Aspect of the Dragon, which was also a kind of [Raid Boss], then cap off the whole thing with an Aspect of the Void Dragon.

That one wasn’t a [Raid Boss], but it was a Tier 10 monster and didn’t really need the extra boost.

All in all, that was a part of the ‘space travel Aspect package’ Hermes had given humanity in the other timeline. It had likely been meant to help, to give people a chance to escape, but it had gone exceedingly poorly. A bunch of people had decided that they just had to have to escape, gone after the powerful monsters that held the needed Aspects … and failed miserably, making the situation even worse, as was par for the course for the whole [System] clusterfuck.

That entire Aspect combo held a multitude of uses, but he didn’t need many of them, so he’d waited to get any until he’d grabbed his important [Class] [Skills].

So now, he’d grab just one Aspect to gain a small boon and fill that slot.

For this purpose, he proceeded to summon monsters, Acid Drakes, to be exact, drawing multiple circles and tossing out ingredients for efficiency’s sake.

Isaac had taken care to move away from his normal summoning area and was doing this in the open forest, simply because these things were hell on the environment. If he did this in the regular place, he’d have to spend days fixing the mess.

This way, though, he could just summon a few Rock Golems and dump their bodies here to cover up the mess.

And with a chorus of sibilant hisses, the monsters erupted from the ground. Each Drake stood about as high as a pony, though their overall body mass exceeded that of a horse. They resembled nothing so much as a Komodo Dragon that had been exclusively fed steroids from birth, then gained glowing contact lenses and had a bunch of ‘edgy’ spines and spikes glued all over them.

Jaws opened wide, glowing yellow acid bubbling up from the depths of their bodies … and then they fell apart, neatly split in twain, while the ground began to smoke as their caustic blood burned it.

Sadly, he hadn’t gotten any Aspects, so he had to summon another batch.

… but first, he needed to summon a fuckton of Rock Golems to cover up this mess. It would become an acidic swamp either way, but at least this way, it’d be buried as the acid was slowly diluted into uselessness.

Once the last golem had toppled over with a loud grinding of stone, Isaac headed over to another area, drew more circles into the ground, and repeated the summoning. That didn’t work either, nor did the one after that. It also pushed him all the way to the XP limit for the Drakes, which made this entire exercise even more frustrating.

The next mass-summoning ended up netting him his prize, though.

Aspect of the Acid Drake:

This is the distilled essence of what makes a Drake a Drake. Wield elemental breath weapons of any kind, armor yourself with the scales of some of the greatest creatures of myth and legend or have their ancient and powerful heart beat within your breast.

Requirements for Activation:

1,000 XP

Open Aspect Slot

Grants:

+5 Agility

One of the following Skills:

Acid Breath

Drake’s Heart

Drake’s Hide

Once again, the choice was damn easy. [Acid Breath], like almost all breath weapons, were mostly there for showing off. If you had the money to buy an Aspect, the XP to slot it and weren’t someone who needed to munchkin their build, it was a cool thing to grab.

[Drake’s Hide], meanwhile, provided you with the ability to grow a set of scales that acted as armor, as well enhancing magic of the same element as the creature that had provided the Aspect. It wasn’t a massive boost, mind you, but it was still nothing to sneeze at.

One would have assumed that it would be the heart that provided the magical boost, but there was a correlation between how magic was projected out of a caster and passed through the scales on the outside which tied that property to them. That had been one of Professor Bailey’s discoveries in the original timeline.

And that only left one real choice.

Drake’s Heart (uncommon)

Within your breast now beats the heart of the most legendary of beasts. A dragon (technically, a Drake does qualify as a type dragon, but has nowhere near the same level of power).

This confers a few benefits. First off, it provides a certain degree of resistance to the element wielded by the Drake that provided the Aspect. In addition, it grants a sliver of draconic vitality, increasing resistance to diseases, as well as the user’s longevity.

As this Aspect had come from an Acid Drake, it provided Isaac a good deal of protection from the one thing that would still fuck with his regeneration. The resistance wasn’t nowhere near as great as his near-immunity from fire, but it was still very useful. Besides, it would reach the same heights once he upgraded it with an Aspect of the Lindwyrm.

The longevity ability of [Drake’s Heart] would stack with the general health boost and slowed aging provided by a high Fortitude, then grow even stronger when it turned into [Lindwyrm’s Heart] and finally hit insane heights once it became [Dragon’s Heart].

But that was something for later, soloing [Raid Bosses] was beyond him at the moment. He’d fuck one up if he had to fight one, but actually killing something so thoroughly built for survival would be impossible.

With that done, Isaac ran around to grab all the stuff he wanted to gift everyone else. They already had a bunch of Aspects, given that he’d handed those out like candy in the beginning, but there were some other things they could use which he wouldn’t have been able to give out without bringing up some serious problems.

Therefore, he packed a few Dungeon-made weapons he’d brought from Korea, a few high-strength potions that could save them in case of an emergency, a prototype, basic magitech generator for Karl and a list of easy to beat Hunting Grounds that held stuff they could all use.

Also, he brought a bunch of rare animal bits for Bailey to copy, just in case it would be useful, as well as some tissue samples from the Greater Hydra.

As the sun rose above the trees, Isaac jogged over to the university with a big grin on his face. Finally, he could deal honestly with his coworkers.