"What are you doing?" Ashton raised a brow as he looked at the pixie. He was just taking a short break and waiting for the stamina- and mental-recovery potions to fully kick in, and Poppy suddenly started acting like this.
She started talking, and as the high-pitched bell sounds started ringing out, Poppy pointed over at Rory who was currently standing there with some teachers, discussing with them what to do next.
"You're not also worried about how he'll do, are you?"
Poppy immediately shook her head. So, she wasn't questioning Rory's leadership ability. Good.
"Then what is it?" Ashton asked. Poppy seemed frustrated that she couldn't get Ashton to understand. He felt pretty bad about that, too. He understood her well enough that he could get certain concepts from her, but not anything too precise. Things like 'danger' or 'curiosity' or 'fear' were easy. As were details about Poppy herself, like her name and pronouns, things like that were just immediately understood with the level of familiarity they were at.
But this was too complicated. Poppy thought about it for a moment longer, and then smiled brightly as if she had an idea.
She dropped to her knees and started... praying. Really, she pushed her hands together and prayed. They had seen plenty of people doing that so far, but Ashton was surprised she understood what they were doing enough to mimic it like this. He didn't expect fairies to have the concept of religion.
But it certainly helped get the picture across. Ashton figured out what she was trying to say.
"Are you asking what Rory meant about me being a 'miracle kid'?"
Immediately, Poppy started nodding her head with a curious expression. The Backpacker, who was sitting next to Ashton while playing on their phone, stopped what they were doing and glanced over at him as well.
With a sigh, he just shook his head. "It's really not anything special. My parents were just pretty old when I was born. It was a big enough story for a small town's newspaper, but I don't think it's anything grand. But the 'Miracle Kid' thing stuck around with some people, I guess. My parents were pretty well-known around here."
Though Poppy was satisfied, the Backpacker seemed pretty disappointed, clearly hoping for something more exciting than that. Ashton didn't really know what to say about that. He wasn't conceived immaculately, he wasn't some genius that could talk a few weeks after birth, and he didn't have some weird, miraculous powers. He was just a normal kid born to old parents.
Poppy tilted her head slightly, smiling. She asked something else, some kind of question, and Ashton didn't have to guess what she meant this time.
"... We can't visit them, no. They're not around anymore." Ashton explained, just a soft smile on his face. He didn't really feel like getting into it any more than this, so he pushed himself up. The potions had properly kicked in by now, and he felt properly refreshed.
Poppy jumped up and flapped her wings, quickly landing on top of Ashton's head. He was about to leave when the Backpacker tried to get his attention, holding the phone toward him.
"Hm?" he let out, looking at the screen. It was a post from the community.
Specifically, it was a post in the 'Emergency' thread that was put up for the massive lizardman tribe that bunked down in the Costco.
'The Lizardmen have kidnapped people from our group, please help!'
That was the title.
"Fuck," Ashton let out, together with an extended groan. There were a few exceptions to the rules of the system, even in regard to the monsters' aggression.
A good example were the scavenger monsters. While they would still attack people if disturbed, their main role was to clean up and break down the massive amount of corpses that were strewn around all over the place. There were other times when the monsters' murderous aggression subsided because there was something more important.
For one, if a group of monsters with a certain level of intelligence was starving, they might capture people alive to keep them for food later on. But that didn't seem to be the case with the Lizardmen. Unless they somehow didn't realise that all the plastic-wrapped and canned stuff in the store was food, they should have no reason to kidnap people instead of killing them right away.
Another reason, one more common with lizardmen, was that they might be preparing for a ritual that they needed sacrifices for. Lizardmen were a religious folk in their own sense, having a number of gods that could bestow power upon them through different rituals. Of course, Ashton didn't know if those gods were actually real, or if these were just regular ritual-spells and the lizardmen ended up assuming that the rituals' effects were bestowed upon them by some sort of divine beings.
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Well, whichever of those was the case didn't really matter. All that mattered was that this was the most likely reason why they would be collecting people there.
Sacrificing people meant that they were probably hoping for some kind of powerful dark magics. Ashton would need some more details to figure out exactly what kind of ritual they were preparing. He doubted that he knew all of them, but he could probably narrow things down a fair bit.
Ashton cracked his knuckles with a slight grin. He really couldn't avoid taking that place down anymore, especially if there were people there that he could still save.
"Thanks for showing me," he said to the Backpacker, who quickly nodded and pulled the phone away again.
Ashton stepped over to the table near him, where the Pen of Insight was busily writing out all the information of the zombies that Ashton had taken down.
Their name, age, and a rough description of their original appearance. Surface-level information like that was easy to get your hands on through the Pen of Insight. Ashton picked up the stack of paper of finished notes, and quickly looked through them. At the top of the stack was James Crombe, the school's headmaster.
Ashton let out a frustrated grunt as he waited for the pen to finish writing the last bits and pieces, and then brought the papers over to Rory, who looked at them quietly.
"Thank you," he said hesitantly. Ashton had already told him that this was being prepared, so it didn't come as a surprise, but it must still be pretty hard to see actually in front of you.
As Ashton walked back over to the table to collect the pen, a message popped up.
***
[Contract | Pen of Insight - Level 8 -> Pen of Insight - Level 9]
***
"Congrats." Ashton wiped the message away, though as he did, he realised something else. He hadn't properly looked over his status window earlier.
***
[Ashton Garling] [Age - 23] [Coins - 3075 -> 5564]
[Stats]
-
[Power - 18 -> 21]
-
[Resilience - 18 -> 22]
-
[Speed - 22 -> 27]
-
[Spirit - 28 -> 35]
[Classes]
-
-[Summoner - Level 9 -> 10]
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-[Aether Sensitivity -> Precision Aether Sensitivity - Level 8 -> 10]
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-[Channel - Level 8]
-
-[Summoning - Level 9 -> 10]
-
-[Construct Summoning]
-
[Pen of Insight - Level 7 -> 9]
-
-
-[Demon Summoning] (New!)
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[Spawn of Akrazoth - Level 1 -> 2] (New!)
-
-
-[Elemental Summoning]
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[Lesser Gnome - Level 6 -> 8]
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[Lesser Salamander - Level 6 -> 8]
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[Lesser Sylph - Level 4 -> 7]
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[Lesser Undine - Level 7 -> 9]
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[Lesser Wisp - Level 7 -> 8]
-
-
-[Fairy Summoning]
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[Flower Pixie - Level 2 -> 3]
-
-
-[Spirit Summoning]
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[Backpacker - Level 7 -> 8]
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[Drunken Bear - Level 4 -> 5]
-
-
-
-[Veil Mastery - Level 1 -> 2] (New!)
-
***
It had been a while since Ashton checked on his entire status, though he did look at his stats after reaching level 9 so that he knew what kind of boost he would get this time around. And Ashton was not disappointed whatsoever.
Whenever you levelled up, you got stats with a weighted randomness. He didn't know the exact percentages, but he knew that it was much more likely for him to get a bigger stat boost in the Spirit stat. After that, Speed, and Power and Resilience should have relatively even likelihoods.
From level 1 to 9, it ranged from 0 to 2 points. But starting level 10, that would be upgraded, probably making the upper limit 5 or 6, though that upper level should be pretty rare. Even if it looked like Ashton got extremely lucky with his Spirit stat.
Right, it increased by a whole 7 points! And that was due to the 'incremental bonus'. Every ten levels, you got to roll on both tables, the one you were leaving behind and the one you were assigned next. That was why there was an immediate difference between people at level 9 and level 10.
The summons were all growing pretty well, too. Ashton was pretty sure that most of them would reach level 10 before the next main quest started, and some of them even before this one ended.
Though, that also reminded Ashton that there was something else he had to check out.
***
[You have completed the [Sub Quest - Path of Power]!]
***
Ashton tapped the system message. By being one of the first 100 people in the world, he managed to get a special boon, which was that his reward was upped. Though, it did surprise Ashton that he managed to get there that early. He expected there to be a lot more people in this world that managed to focus fully on their class and level up completely.
Then again, Ashton did have a head start on basically everyone else in the world. The fact that he could manipulate magic so well from the beginning definitely would have boosted his levelling speed with his class. He had no reason to complain, either way.
As the message fell apart, something was left in its stead. It was a small chest, smaller than a backpack, with a golden metal lining. There was a symbol on the front, probably representing the 'summoner' class.
This wasn't one of those random boxes, but rather a storage item for a pre-prepared selection of item rewards. From the colour and quality of the chest, it must be a pretty good selection, too.
The items from the beginner gear reward were sort of... trashy. He used the pen that he got from that sometimes, and the ink wasn't the worst in the world, but given the choice between those and any other items, he would pick the other items.
But he expected a lot from these items. With a grin, Ashton opened the small chest up and looked inside.