I found myself feeling rather annoyed as i had been basically dropped like a sack of potatoes by the teleportation circle into what seemed to be a poorly lit cave, not only that but the teleportation circle had opened about 5 feet above the ground and i had landed on my ass, which was now rather sore because of that small annoyance, through the notifications i was getting on my status upped my mood considerably despite the current state of my ass.

  It seemed that the shifting i felt in myself was not exactly me changing yet, but apparently just the universe shifting things around to make sure that my mind and soul didn't explode into meat paste from taking such massive changes all at once, It seemed such massives changes to the self if not done properly could have rather undesirable results. I had already deliberated on whether no i was willing to change myself into a different person or not and decided the answer was a resounding yes, so in an effort to avoid stalling, I took a deep breath, steeled myself, and took the plunge.

  I felt the building blocks that made up my mind shifting and churning, the emotions that had been bouncing around in my head like a bunch of rubber bullets shooting themselves at my brain lately began receding, no less intense, but I just felt better able to carry on whether they were there or not.

  The persistent want and need to do something also seemed to be steadily rising, but not in the way of the usual ant's in my pants feeling that was normally what motivated me to do something, more like a forming of clearer purpose, A persistent goal that would keep me centered and focused.

  I felt centered and clear, more so then i had in my entire life, like a mental block that had kept me from pursuing and fully understanding my goals had been lifted, It is hard to explain but it just felt.... Right.

  I felt harder, more confident, and just generally more badass, like i could walk through a field of salted razor blades for miles and keep on going. Hell i could probably do exactly that at this point.

  Forget walking through a field of goddamn razorblades to help some random passerby in trouble, the razorblades would have to walk through me, I was what razorblades FEARED.

  My first reaction to this interruption of the growth of my burgeoning unstoppable will was a great annoyance, I didn't care how damn holier than thou this fucking macguffin crystal in my soul was, It still annoyed me that it was asking to have me change a decision that had been made literal Eons ago. I was about to click no, but then a thought struck me, This purpose was not the one i had chosen, some kind of originator, impossibly powerful, bullshit creator god or similar force had created this purpose for me. I had not chosen this purpose, sure i thought it was a great thing to devote yourself to, but it was so... small, if i had the opportunity, the potential to give myself a higher calling, to possibly make a decision that would better enable me to help other people, wasn't it my responsibility to make that decision? Not to mention the unsubtle wink wink nudge nudge of it telling me that accepting the change could make me more powerful, and any more power that i currently had was a good thing, so i asked myself, did i want to just be the man who did right by the people around them and made them happy, but only them? Or did i want to be the man who changed the entire world, hell the entire Multiverse for the better, who had brought justice to the entirety of creation, who brought low all those arrogant pricks on high who stomped on the faces of the weak with metal clad boots for shits and giggles. To be the avenging angel who brought light to the pits of hell itself, Hell Yeah, this deal practically sold itself. The yes button was pressed, and the train of blue screens that had been monetarily stopped by this decision once again chugged along once again like the little engine that could.

  I was almost laughing in hysterically at this point as a grin split across my face, it was like for all the universe had decided to unfairly whoop my ass earlier, it was now balancing the scales for once, while i would much rather be making sweet, sweet love to my wife back home, or reading a bedtime story to my daughter, this currently wasn't all horrible. I mean the chance to become something akin to a immortal being. With along with my willpower made sure that i would suffer from none none of the horrible repercussions of that immortality would normally bring in story books, i was pretty sure i was incapable of apathy anymore, and pain no longer bothered me, it was still there just as strong, but now i was able to make it so it was just background noise, present but not something i was paying attention to. i never believed that a life of eternal ennui and apathy was a life at all, and therefore wasn't actual immortality to me, but it seemed true immortality in my own definition of it, was a possibility for me. I definitely wouldn't be able to complete even the first objective anytime soon if i was being honest with myself, but to even know that such a thing was a possibility made me ecstatic.

  The pure ecstasy of unlimited potential of strength within, the fact that i knew that pain and suffering would never hold sway over me or my actions over again, NOW THAT was incredible, not to mention that this current overwhelming feeling of strength probably meant that the changes within me were releasing amounts of dopamine into my brain comparable to snorting cocaine, with a similar feeling of invincibility.

  I didn't even know how to describe the impossible amount of want i had for JUSTICE at this moment, it was fading to background noise quickly but right now it was still screaming aggressively like a angry drill sergeant to just go do some kind of good deed, ANY kind of good deed, i wanted to pet all the puppies, bake all the cupcakes, and kick all the dictators and tyrants in their evil shriveled ball sacks, and then i would feed their impoverished citizens all the cupcakes i had made, and of course those cupcake sales would revitalize the economy so people could start adopting all those stray dogs.

  Ya know what? I didn't even care, I was too hyped up to care, I wasn't just riding the hype train right now, I WAS THE HYPE. But I guess having willpower and motivation beyond the gods themselves will have that effect on a person, so while I would probably have literal gods of evil searching for me now to crush me like a roach.... I say fucking BRING IT BITCH, I would bet one of my testicles that by the time they managed to find me, considering the interference of my patron god Valencia keeping them from finding me, I would already enough of a virtue bearing, justice serving, divine mandate bringing paladin by then that they wouldn't have enough cultists, knaves, minions, and blackguard in the whole world to bring me down, so just let them try and fucking stop me. I'll take on every last one of the evil pricks, non lethally of course, even despite the changes in my mind and soul I still wasn't comfortable with making other humanoids take a dirt nap. In any case I was wasting time as I had more traits to activate and more notifications were stacking in the right hand corner of my vision, from what i guessed was willpowers other substats increasing, I was starting to come down from the high of what I thought was the power of gaining so many points of willpower and motivation being increased all at once. The feeling of burning motivation was more permanent i think though, but instead of it's earlier raging JUSTICE inferno, it was more a controlled fireplace kind of burning now. Which was probably a good thing as I imagine it would be rather hard to get sleep or make any friends in this world if my mind was thinking about punching bad guys in the face 24/7 and absolutely nothing else, I mentally dragged another notification from the right hand corner of my vision and watched it expand into my vision.

  Where accepting The Determinator trait was a rush of feeling of ecstatic euphoria and being an unstoppable force like a raging meteor crashing towards the earth, this trait gave me the sense of firmness and being and unmovable wall, like if the school yard bullies that had pushed me around when i was young, come back again to torment the current me, but in the body I had when I was younger, then all they would manage to do would be breaking their hands by punching me. It seemed that i didn't need to choose between being a unmovable wall or a unstoppable force, I WAS BOTH, Eternally moving forward and now unbreakably firm in my sense of self.

  I felt my muscles twitch and spasm uncontrollably and i was filled to the brim with uncontrolled energy, like I chugged 5 red bulls in a minute, another thing i noticed is that while the feeling of energy was great and I felt like i could sprint a whole mile without stopping. The feeling of my muscles rapidly tearing themselves apart and then rebuilding themselves over and over again at extremely rapid speed was less than pleasant, I was rather glad i had chosen to accept the will power based trait before this, as I imagined this would be more absolutely horrific than slightly annoying if not for my newfound ability to simply ignore all pain. After my body slowly but surely stopped randomly spasming all at once, and I could actually move without jerking around like I was being shot by 11 tazers all at once. I decided to go for a quick run around the large cavern I was in, the visibility wasn't exactly fantastic, not even good really, but the torches lining the walls still did the job well enough. I looked towards what looked like a mine shaft that was long and straight enough to suit my purposes, I crouched down in a classic sprinters position at the start of hall and then in my head counted, 1.... 2... 3.... GO!, I then proceeded to Zoom down the hall at a approximate speed comparable to Usain Bolt's crack addicted cousin, Insane Bolt. Which is to say that i was going, at least by my old worlds standards, pretty fucking fast. In all seriousness though i had ran down what i believed to be a hallway of about 50 meters in about 3 seconds from what i counted, which I was certain broke world records back home. I didn't really have any way to test my reaction time right now and it wasn't important enough for me to stop accepting more traits to find a way to do so, therefore i pulled another trait into my vision and continued on.

  Feeling my facial structure rearrange itself to be more attractive was kind of disconcerting, similar to having my body rapidly tear itself apart and rebuild itself to be faster and have better reflexes, but luckily i don't think i would have to deal with it constantly as i don't imagine it was often that stats double instantaneously. While the pain was at this point just an annoyance it was still a rather unpleasant feeling that brought tears to my eyes through my bodies natural response to physical stimuli. Nevertheless i had only two major traits to deal with and only one of them actually dealt with changing myself, unless one of the random things I got from letting the universe decide was a power of self trait, But hopefully i would be lucky and it would be a item or ally instead as I think I had already given myself plenty of personal power.

  For the last trait that, I found that when it said that itm would make my goodness radiatie off of me like a physical aura in the traits description, it meant it, I now had a subtle aura of golden light radiating off of me like a wave, I think it was also right about the evil learning to fear me part, I was feeling pretty badass right now, despite the fact that I was currently only wearing a filthy t-shirt and jeans. Anyways I had save the best for last, what happens when you take a soul weapon, that grows more powerful depending on the strength of the users soul and give it to a person whose soul is apparently Eons old and a descriptor word for it is unconquerable? Well I was about to find out.

  You're damn right i did, the yes button was pressed and I trembled from palpable excitement as I felt the strange sensation of tugging in my navel and stomach, it flowed it's way from my stomach and up my body up to my eyes, I reminded of the quote "the eyes are the windows to the soul", I guess it was opening those windows to take some of that soul stuff out, it started to form a condensed ball of golden light hovering in front of me, like a miniature supernova in intensity, but strangely enough it was actually rather gentle on my eyes, it also gave off heat and while it was rather hot it was not scorchingly so, it was a gentle warmth, the oddest part was that this soulstuff, my soulstuff, gave a feeling off of it, the golden ball gave me a feeling i was very personally familiar with, a feeling of want for happiness for myself and those around me, and a feeling of dedication to certain beliefs, I also saw small mixtures of other colors swirling in the golden ball, mostly those of a bright fierce motivating red and forest green's that felt like calm purpose and steadfastness to me, There was however one color that was rather concerning to me, there were occasional blips of purest black it gave off a feeling of dissatisfaction, of pure self righteous rage and honestly felt rather pretentious i would say, It would seem that somewhere in there I had an inner edgelord. I was reminded of my advice to myself at not bottling up emotions, I guess I really should follow my own advice more often, I could probably also guess where those swirls of edgelord black stemmed from, I often found myself simply thinking, Why? Whenever people did things bad things, I mean wouldn't true friends and fantastic experiences with them make you more happy than any amount of monetary wealth, no matter how massive?, Wouldn't you rather befriend Old Woman McWrinkles and have her bake you a cake later than stealing the 20$ she had out of her purse for some cheap bottle of booze and cigarretes? plus the chance of jail time? And was money and even power really worth so many people hating you?, It just didn't make any SENSE to me.

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  I had already decided in advance what kind of weapon I wanted to have, so I was able to skip all the gut wrenching decision making that would affect the rest of my life for once, I had chosen a bunch of rather simple but powerful effects and while I would have to forgo any fancy status affects, i honestly was never that into status effects or damage over time in the VR games i played, even when i played my quite loved sorcerer characters I had never bothered with status effect or area control spells, I had just carpet bombed entire areas with overwhelming amounts of cataclysmic magical force in an attempt to kill everything dead, the only two utility spells I really had was a blink spell to keep me out melee range, and a high tier shield spell to help my squishy character tank damage. So i was sticking to my old formula of simple but effective and simply stacking damage to absurd levels to turn anyone that forces me to pull it out into a meaty paste, and the best part was that the stringent requirements for activation of its special properties meant it would only and i mean only, be used when it was truly needed. So if i was forced to pull this weapon out on someone, they probably deserved it. I pressed the finalize button and waited with excited anticipation, the ball of hyper bright swirling colors in my hand began stretching it self out wards into a hazy shape, it elongated into a large haft, seeming to partly solidify into a 5 foot long pole of solid light and colors, but it was not yet done. There was still a rather large mass of light in the center of the haft which began to make it's way up the length of the shaft, it started to form a rough rectangular shape on the end of the pole. Then the light seemed to suck something out of the air, some kind of glowing blue motes began to fade in and out of existence rushing towards and swirling around the mass of soulstuff like a vortex. As these blue motes of light become more numerous in number, and the mass of golden, red, green, and black light started to gain some kind of mass and actual weight instead of being a mostly weightless incorporeal ball of pure floating light. By this point in time the blue motes of light were less scattered flashes and more a veritable wave of massless blue light, the light around my weapon seemed to be pushing itself into a corporal mass at it's center as the light from the soulstuff faded away. As the light faded away and the waves of what i guessed was whatever constituted mana, chi, chakra, life force or whatever the bullshit substance that powered magic and allowed it to break the laws of physics in this reality, the tides of mana slowly flickered out. Until when all was said and done I was left with a pole of solid chrome colored metal in my hands that had 3 sigils on it, somehow these sigils gave me an image of some kind in my brain whenever i looked at them, one gave me an image of a massive 2 handed hammer, the second a one handed war hammer and kite shield, and the last a singular titanic slab of material known as the tower shield except with a large spike and on front. As I was perusing my new all in one swiss army knife of weapon, another notification annoyingly popped up right in front of my vision.

  Another massive childish grin run rampant across my face as I looked upon the tool that would help me crush my enemies and protect my friends, and lucky for me it seemed there was no better tool for the job. An idea wormed its way into my brain, could people inspect objects in this universe like the light novels? I concentrated as hard as I could on the weapon, which with my massive willpower meant it might as well have been just me and the metal pole in the entirety of the universe, and then, voila just like that notification.

  I giggled manically to myself as observed my weapons stats, I had gotten everything i asked for out my weapon and more. Another thing i found rather interesting was the fact that while this world did seem to have gamelike mechanics in it, it was still mostly similar to my original reality, HP points were not an actual thing in this world and while you could level up and improve practically every part of your entire being to make yourself some kind of crazy transhuman killing machine, all the laws of physics beyond the magic and game mechanics layer seemed to work in exactly the same capacity so far. So while yes, one day I could possibly run faster than even the fastest cybernetically augmented person on Earth, yes I would probably be able to bench press 2000 LBS/907 KG at some point in the near future, and yes I was wielding a thing that reality itself dubbed utterly indestructible. But gravity was still gravity, the damage output of a weapon still relied on the total force exerted by the weapon and not on some arbitrary and vague damage number, And as long as magic didn't get involved thermodynamics and inertia still seemed to work just fine.

  I ran my hand over the three smoothly carved sigils on the chrome colored metal pole, the sigils themselves were very artistically carved depictions of the different weapons being wielded by various warriors in plate armor, I pressed my thumb against the one of a gigantic behemoth of a man holding a hammer with a similar pole length to mine upside down with the enormous head of the hammer touching the ground. If the illustration was anything to go by then the block of metal on the end of this hammer would be bigger than my head, and easily able to crush it. I bellowed the word "Judgement" out into the air and watched in fascination as the same soulstuff that had turned into this long metal pole earlier, poured out of the end of the haft, solidifying into a white marble looking substance in the shape of a egg that had a about 1 foot length and what i guessed was a width of about 7.5 inches at its widest point. The egg shaped mass of white marble also had some of the same chrome metal that was the hammer haft wrapped around it in three studded metal rings that came from the a metal underhang at the bottom of the head of the hammer. I mentally shook myself to stop staring in slack jawed amazement at how cool this was and started to attempt to figure out the weight and heft of the my new hammer. I started to swing it around experimentally getting a feel for it's weight and momentum, despite being heavier than even the mightiest sledgehammer back home, it handled more like i was carrying a big stick. It still wasn't light exactly, but I wasn't going to have it fly out of my hands or throw my back out when swinging it. As i was swinging the weapon, I was suddenly getting feelings of wrongness when i swung the weapon wrong and images in my head of how to correct them, and I was reminded of the Ego trait of my weapon.

  I realized that it was trying to teach me how to use itself, I was immensely curious about the extent of its current ability to communicate as I had not talked to anyone but a semi-british sounding celestial postman in about a week. I tried to project asking the thing it's name towards my hammer, because while it was technically an object, it was also alive, sentient and according to my inspection on it, capable of emotions. The instructions on weapon swinging were interrupted by the singular image on the word MELVIN being shunted into my mind in big blocky letters, I asked the thing if that was really a name fit for a legendary artifact of the highest quality, It responded with the letters JOKE, I laughed to myself at the ridiculousness of the situation and my current situation in general. Here I was talking to a sentient hammer in a cave in Goddess who knows where, right after my soul had been shanghaied from my reality and roped into trying to save the world for a desperate goddess of justice. I eventually calmed down after 1 minute uncontrollable laughter.... or 2, I think it was time for me to look through the rest of my less important status updates, the ones I got from having the Worldsoul, whatever the hell a worldsoul was decide some karma boons for me in exchange for a limited time only super duper 50% off all purchases of random shit. it seemed that those status notifications piled up quickly, and they certainly weren't going to get rid of themselves.

  TIME SKIP

  I had gone over every last of the of the 21 extra capstone traits that I had gotten from having willpower at the hardcap, I had also realized that having 60% of my willpower added to my substats instead of the regular 10% as my hard cap willpower trait, meant that something had gone amazingly right somewhere along the line. As I felt that having 7 different softcap stone abilities was much more powerful than one hardcap ability, I also realized that the traits I got seemed to be rather personalized, many of them I could tie to a different belief, action I had taken, trait of myself, habit, or emotion that I commonly felt. They were all based off of a part of me that had been exaggerated to a large degree, I had never really physically fought many people and my entire life, and even when bullies at school when i was younger physically attacked me, I for the most part held my head up high and laughed at them like it didn't hurt when they punched me, and it didn't hurt that bad because I told myself it didn't, funny how that works, and then eventually they would get scared of me for laughing at their attempts to hurt me and go away. Which connected to the trait Embrace The Pain that I got, it was just a small part of me that was already there that had been turned up to 11. I decided that I had been sitting around looking over status screen long enough, But sadly I didn't really have much idea on what to do next, I mean I could start on my path to my Eternal Purpose and I was more certain that I would get to it at some point than I that down was down and up was up, But i didn't believe that even with the ridiculous amount of traits and special abilities that I had that were basically akin to cheating, I still didn't think i was anywhere near ready to start a quest to change the entire multiverse. Yes I was brave, even foolishly so at this point, but dying right now would only hinder me, sure I would still have the same goal as before and keep on keeping on, but I would lose a massive amount of personal power from possibly losing all my stats and traits, not to mention that I would be failing to save the world of the very goddess who had gifted me all this power, and that was unacceptable.

  Thusly I did the only thing that I really could right now, I picked up my hammer from off the ground, rested on my shoulder and began walking down one of the mine shafts I saw. I was lucky that the caves were at least dimly lit by the torch sconces lining the walls, on the downside though there was the possibility that whoever placed them there was hostile, but I wasn't going to get anywhere by pissing myself in a corner afraid of every shadow that came my way. So I walked and walked and walked and WALKED, for what felt like hours, the twists and turns of the mining shaft practically endless, turn after turn, constantly feeling like I was ending up in the same place as before, By this point I was extremely agiatated, as I had been wandering down endless coridors for hours of time, I began looking more obsessively for any signs of things that could lead to civilizations or other lifesforms of some kind, when finally after another half hour of fervently eyefucking every nook and cranny of the mineshafts that I was aimlessly wandering through, I found a clue, I stopped in place like a deer in headlights, or a redneck seeing their sister naked, whichever works. I spotted among the powdered remains of what seemed to be powderized rocks on the floor, the outline of a footprint from a very large and wide for it's length foot. Big but wide footprints?, Endless mining shaft?, I felt like my brain was trying to put a puzzle together but I was just missing one last piece, like I knew how to put it together but I had bought a shitty puzzle on Ebay and they gypped me with a puzzle box with only half the pieces. Whatever the case I followed the first sign of other lifeforms down the endless corridors of the mining shaft, as I followed the first set of footprints signs of activity became more and more numerous, the amount of mining tools and sets of footprints increased, as well as the amount of rock powder near the walls. Spruned on ahead by what would possibly my first contact with another reasonable sentient being in weeks, "ASSHOLE" my hammer shouted into my braincase, completely interupting my thinking and derailing my train of thought to a screaching halt. "Okay then i'll rephrase that, the first reasonable sentient being i've met in weeks that can speak more than one word at a time. There, happy now?"

  "ALMOST"

  I guess I had to get used to the fact that peacemaker was basically a sentient being in it's own right with thoughts and emotions, it just couldn't communicate the thoughts part very well right now. If I was interpreting the signals I was getting correctly He/She/It actually felt kind of... hurt by my comment?, "Look i'm sorry okay? I haven't seen another flesh and blood being besides the Celestial Postal Servicemen, or had anyone else speak more than couple sentences to me for an entire week, i'm lost, want some food besides rice and chicken, and i'm generally annoyed now that i'm done feeling like i'm invincible from power ups. *Sigh* But I guess no matter how many reasons I have none of them are really good enough to be rude to someone who's probably going to be with me for the rest of my life, so i'm sorry for insulting you, even if it was accidental, are you okay with me now?"

  The thing seemed to be struggling to push a message through, like while before it was easy to send the singular words through now it was walking through a foot of tar on the ground, until with a final push and heave it popped through the haziness and I received a new message.

  "THANK YOU"

  "Well thank you for accepting my apology, *sigh* I would make a joke about you being up to two words now but this is too nice of a moment to ruin with even friendly jabs"

  "SAYS YOU"

  I froze in a place, slowly swiveled ny sight on Peacemaker and then laughed uproariously as i realized I had just gotten a comeback from a being that could say a maximum of 2 words a sentence, my mood steadily improved as I talked to it in whatever ways I could manage, as time went on it seemed to struggle less with 2 words but still could not count to 3, just like a certain person who had a similar first name to me. About an hour of constant walking and talking later I saw a clearing up that transitioned from mineshafts to a much larger and more open section of cave, from their I could hear the telltale signs of running water, a stream perhaps. I was invariably excited as I had not bathed in a week and smelled like armpit and ball sweat from hours of walking in the overly warm mine shafts, which I think explained why they didn't put down more or bigger torches to light the place better, as it was much better to have slightly poor visibility than it is to have heat stroke in the middle of your mining.

  I steadily advanced towards the opening as I fantasized about the possibility of being partially clean again. I entered out the exit of the mineshaft into the larger cave complex and was baffled by the sheer size of it, the ceiling was somehow far enough up that I couldn't even see the top through the darkness that grew ever stronger as it got higher and higher up, and father away from the torches lining the ceiling and a trail with torch stands every few feet on the sides of it that I saw. I didn't think that a cave complex this large could be natural, and I felt that I might have found the last piece of the puzzle to what lives here, but I wasn't going to get my hopes up yet by thinking that I was right about my guess, that could only lead to disappointment if I was wrong. I walked along the lit trail towards the stream in the distance, idly kicking a rock along the way. I stopped dead in my tracks after walking about 200 feet along the trail, squinting my eyes at something in the distance, hoping that I was not just hallucinating from mineshaft fumes. There about 400 feet from me was a short yet solidly built fisherman that had his back to me idly whistling as he held a very strange looking contraption pointed stilly at the water, I made sure to consciously moderate my speed as not to startle the man. I would hate for the first mortal being I met in this world to hate me cause I caused him to jump and fall over into the water.

  I calmly and surely walked toward to the man, unsure about how to start the conversation, but I suppose a "excuses me" would suffice. Once I was within about 45ft of the short but abnormally wide man, who at this point I was almost certain of the race of, and very excited about him being what I thought he was, I stepped towards him I simply intoned "Umm excuse me Sir?" at which point all hell broke loose.

  "YE WILL NEVA GET ME ALIVE YE PUKE SKINNED, POINTY EARED, KOBOLD FUCKERS!!" the dwarven man said as he swiveled around towards me with what i realized what was a harpoon gun, and fired. the spear from said harpoon gun going supernaturally fast passed my head and embedding itself two feet deep into one of the stalagmites behind me, what was the worst part about this though was that the dwarf has altered the aiming of his weapon at the last second to avoided hitting me, if he hadn't meant to miss I might be dead, and the then things got worse, much worse.

  What felt like an underground explosion rippled through the ground between me and the dwarf oddly seeming to because by the air outside of the stalagmite going through the hole made by the magically rock piercing harpoon and interacting with some kind of chemically unstable material vein of material inside of the stalagmite. that somehow ran all the way from behind me to the middle of the stream the dwarf was harpoon fishing in, as I watched the upcoming disaster, as the ground between me and the dwarf, cracked and split, bellowed and moaned from the underground explosions that traveled toward the stream in seconds. just as the dwarf was beginning to run away from what he apparently knew as well would be a horrible end if he was caught near. The ground under his left foot buckled beneath him as he ran crumbling and swallowing his left leg up to mid thigh before encasing his leg in the ground. Right before the stream exploded into tiny pieces I saw a large vague shadowy shape under the water swimming right above the location I saw the underground explosive ore vein making its way towards.

  Then beyond all logic and circumstance the explosion KRACKOON under the water, directly below the large hazy shape spraying giant plumes of water and mist in the air. I watched in fascination and abject horror as the explosion launched a 7 foot probably 300 hundred pound carp which should by all means be dead launched through the air at high velocity, directly towards the dwarfs stuck, immobile form. A look of confusion had found its way across my face at this seemingly impossible lineup of circumstances that had happened to be able to cause this event. By this point I was pinching myself to make sure i wasn't dreaming and I hadn't slipped, fell and hit my head back in the mineshaft and I wasn't dreaming up this whole ridiculous situation, but alas I felt a small twinge of pain from the pinching, and there was in fact a giant monstrous and angry looking carp flying through the air towards a harpoon fishing dwarf that had it's leg stuck thigh deep in the ground and was looking at the approaching carp with wistful regret.

  "OH NO NOT AGAIN!"

  I felt my brain twitch and spasm in confused rage, and untamed curiosity at the dwarfs utterance at this point I was simply too dazed and confused by whatever the hell was going on to have much more reaction than watch the arc of the megalithic fish through the air as it sailed towards the dwarf. Finally the monster carp landed and somehow managed to do so directly on top of the now very sad looking dwarf, the fish apparently decided that it was very angry to be out of the water and out of it's home environment, it also decided at that moment that the dwarf was a excellent target for it's untamed wrath. I watched as dwarf and giant wish duke it out and a battle to the death, as the dwarf rapidly slapped his meaty hands against the fishes side, and the fish attempted to use it's superior weight and ironically mobility to crush the dwarf. All as the very depressed looking rambled and ranted and raved at his current fate.

  "OH AYE ALWAYS KNEW IT WOUDA END THIS WAY, KILLED IN THE LINE OF DUTY BYA GIANT CARP, LIKE EVERY FISHERDWARF BEFORE ME"

  "WAITA MINUTE! STOPA STANDING THERE JERKIN YERE POLE YA SOFT, DAISY PICKIN, MUFFIN EATER! ISA THAT HAMMER FOR FIGHTIN, OR JUST YERE ASSPLUG THAT YE USE TO PLEASURE YERSELF ON LONELY NIGHTS!?!? HELP ME YA DAFT CUNT!"

  This was of course all screamed in a drunken scottish accent over the sounds of wet fish slapping and flopping against angry soggy dwarf, But despite the rather coarse and rude way the dwarf had asked me for help, I agreed that I should stop lollygagging, plus I would be upset too if I was stuck inside the ground with a 600 pounds of fish laying on me while on top of all that some bumfuck what's his face nobody wanders out of nowhere and causes me to waste my only weapon of self defense that I had that could reasonably use to resolve the problem of 600 pounds of angry carp angrily flailing against me. So i snapped out of my confusion induced daze and started sprinting hammer in hand to what would probably be the first of the many battles I would have in this land, hopefully the ones in the future had less carp though. I dashed forward with all the enhanced speed that i had, eating up the distance in less than a second, I lined up for a strike against the fishes head posing like a baseball player as i slid across the ground kicking up dust and I stop moving my feet in an attempt to get a solid swinging stance, and then with all my might unleashed the full brunt of my two handed hammers attack against the carp's skull. I grimaced as fish shrapnel splattered all over me, the cavern, and the dwarf.. especially the dwarf. This first victory in what i hope would be a long career of heroing was accompanied by a cheery pop up message.

  The fish sauce covered dwarf looked up at me, a look of general gruff annoyance in his eyes, but grudging respect and gratefulness accompanying it. "Well ar ye going to help get this damned pig of the sea offa me, or do ya just want to gaze upon me beatiful counteance just a bit longer?" I snapped to attention and stopped fantasizing about my first level ups and helped the dwarf push what was left of the fish off of him. I helped the dwarf to his feet, where then we then began the first step of the ritual of the male bonding processes that was as old as it was completely unnecessary, and began sizing each other up. He looked at me seemingly attempting to place me or categorize me in his head as a threat, benign, or a ally, before he simply snorted and said "So Whata is a human doing, runnin around in the last mountainhold of the long forgotten dwarves? Didnt yere kind abandon the dwarves a long time ago and yere spines with it? I'a thought there wasn't ah human left that wasn't a lilly livered pansie, shitting their wee little panties over contracting the "dwarven curse", Yet here you are saving me beautiful beard from death bya a overly dwarflovin carp, now why is that?"

  "Well to be honest, some asshole teleported me into this mountain completely on a whim and i got dropped into a crossroads of a couple mineshafts a few hours back, Coming across you and killing Finley the Aerodynamic over there was a complete accident all things considered. Though not one that I wouldn't do again really." The dwarf seemed to stare a hole into my forehead trying to detect any sign of deceit on my part or ulterior motive, being that dwarves being blunt seems to be a universal thing, he then simply asked the question he was thinking.

  So yere not another merchant hopin to swindle honest dwarf blacksmiths out of priceless dwarven armor and weapons with a bunch of fake adamant? Or a hired mercanary carrying a foladable portal that you'll puta down in the middle of tha Forge that will spew goblins, ogres, and little fuckin gremlins from it's black gaping asshole? AND DON'T LIE TA ME, DWARVES CAN SMELL LIES AS WELL AS A ELF LOVES TREES.

  I had to restrain a chuckle at the last part when I realized he was being completely serious and that it was not a joke in the slightest. "Nope and nope sir, I was teleported here without my consent just as I said I was, I didn't even know where i was going to be shunted out to when I was teleported, I could've been teleported into a giant monsters colon for all I knew where I was going" The dwarf then quite liberally sniffed the air as I finished my sentence, stroking his beard and pondering on the smell of my words apparently."

  "And now that yere here you still don't hava any intention to kill, maim, steal from, burn to smoke, eat, have sex with, horribly torture or do anthing else generally nasty and harmful to a member of the dwarven race?"

  "None whatsoever sir dwarf, I am simply a very lost adventurer trying to find my way through a very confusing world, nothing more nothing less, dwarves from what know are a honorable, honest, and loyal people, and I have no desire to cause harm to people of that variety." he inhaled air through his nose as hard the dwarf could manage, sniffing the air for lies like a bloodhound. He looked towards me sizing me up and down, and then for one reason or another, he seemed to find me satisfactory as a pleased expression appeared on his face.

  "Well yere words smell honest, and ya did save me from being Fishsticks next lover, hhmmmm..... alright then, Mah name is Logrom Grumblespine, FisherDwarf by trade, what did yere mam name you when she pumped you out?"

  I finally released one of the many laughs i've been holding back since I met the dwarf, as the choking tension in the air release and I could finally relax. "My name is Gabriel Norris, I guess right now i'm a adventurer by trade, though right now i'm just looking for some civilization of some kind and no adventures right now. I don't want to impose but do you think you could lead me back to whatever town you live in? A warm bath and a hot meal would be fantastic right now." "Of course i'll lead ya back to The Dwarf Fortress, ya saved mah life and more importantly passed the truth test to see if you were going to harm any dwarves, a dwarf who doesn't pay his debts is no dwarf at all, just another elf wearing the skin of a dwarf, in some cases wearing the skin of a dwarf in the literal sense insteada the metaphorical one"

  I was honestly kind of horrified internally by that comment but I could roll with the punches, even if that punch was that elves in this universe wore other sentient humanoids skin to disguise themelves as other races apparently. "Thank you Logrom, Oh before we head off I have one more thing to ask, Are dwarves actually able to smell the truth?"

  "Nae of course not ya daft fool, I was justa yanking ye chain, though ever since that mercenary came into the Forgehall with that foldable portal saying that it connected to a supply of rare metals that he would be willing to trade us, and instead it released a bunch of gobbos, orges, and hundreds of little shit flinging gremlins, every dwarf in The Hold is now required to carry around a truth amulet wherever we go. Twas a good call i think, we still find one of those little fuckin gremlins every week or so, sometimes as just a corpses just lyin in a random safe, we haven't even a clue how they die or get in there in tha first place." I looked quizzically at the dwarf, morbidly curious as to if this story was actually true or he was just bullshitting me again.

  "Nah! i'm completely serious one day you'll go to put some of your hard earned coin from an ale drinking competition in yere safe so you can drink more booze when times get rough, and then as you open your safe and the stench hits ya. POW! dead gremlin sittin right there in yere safe, when there was no gremlin corpse there yesterday, and now all yere life savings smell like rotting meat and gremlin asshole, iz terrible I tell ya."

  "Wow that's uhhh.... odd i guess.... do you have any more interesting factoids about dwarven daily life? Ones unrelated to gremlin corpses of course"

  We continued making conversation as we made our way down the trail, Logrom of course putting out most of the conversation material as dwarven life was fucking crazy, as I was about to find out personally better than any other non dwarf on the planet.

  "Well I know most humans can't really tell the difference between a male and a female dwarf with their clothes on, as they we all have beards no matter the gender. But ye see it's all about the silkiness and thickness of the beard."

  Congratulations! your mental resistance has reached 100! you are Stubborn, mental attacks are now generally less effective against you by a percentage of 15% and it is harder to manipulate you to change your actions by the same percentage, just make sure you don't refuse to change any bad habits.

  Eureka! your Mental Resistance has reached 250! you are Uncompromising, mental attacks are now 30% less effective than they usually would be and enchantment and illusion spells below the 3rd tier do not even work on you anymore at all, in addition, In addition it is also 30% harder for people to manipulate you in general, there is also a small annoyance that nibbles at the mind everytime they fail to manipulate you, and can cause them to be so frustrated eventually that they just give up on trying, this frustration grows with every failure.

  BY THE GODS! YOU HAVE REACHED A MENTAL RESISTANCE OF 750, YOUR DECISIONS ARE SET IN STONE, it is nearly impossible to change your mind once you have decided on something, trying to get you to change your mind is normally about as effective as talking to a brick wall, and unless someone trying to manipulate you is about as talented at controlling people as you are at saying no to drugs and peer pressure, then trying to manipulate you is a moot point. Mental attacks are now 90% less effective and enhancement / illusion spells of the 5th tier or lower do not so much as cause a magic sparkle in your eye. You are also 90% harder to manipulate and after refusing to change your mind after the second time a person tries to convince you, you can intone the words, "I'm not changing my mind and that's final" and then they or anyone else who heard you will not only not bother you about it, but there is also a chance they will honestly try to follow your lead and carry out your decision, even if they disagreed with it before. (for reaching the mental resistance softcap you have been awarded the title of Cancer to Politicians)

  Congratulations! your Spellpower has reached 100! You are a Serious Magic User, where before people could still question about whether the power of you spells would be all that effective, now even your enemies admit that you can pack a mean evocation casting, As a serious spellcaster you now have the ability to Overcharge your magic to be more powerful, packing more of whatever energy powers your spells to increase their overall power without them exploding in your face. Be warned however, you can still lose control over Overcharged magic if you are not careful, the more energy you put into the magic over the normal casting cost, the more unstable it gets, and the more mana is wasted in the casting. Be careful not to blow yourself up Adventurer.

  Eureka! your Spellpower has reached 250! You are a One Shot Wonder, even if your magic pool isn't the largest, for one spell you can still make the biggest godman explosion in the room. Once every hour you can full a spell with power up to twice the normal limit of overcharging your spells before it explodes in your face, with this a normal second level fireball spell from a middling mage could turn a full platoon of Arcadian Knights into a scrapheap, on the downside however it gives you a wicked headache, which only get worse as you use it more in the same day, this will not actually cause any physical harm, but goddamn it can be distracting, it can also been painful enough at certain points to send even most magic users into shock. So remember to be always be careful, and to turn em all into barbecue when you can.

  BY THE GODS! YOU HAVE REACHED A SPELLPOWER OF 750! YOUR MAGIC HAS UNLIMITED POWAH, Your magic has power enough to topple castles and destroy whole towns with enough time, If you desire it you can triple the normal energy cost of spells and with it increase the AOE of your spell by 5x and the power and intensity of it by 3x, this can also be stacked with One Shot Wonder once a day, but this is not without cost, this has a chance to knock all but the most willful of beings unconscious from mind splitting pain, and gives a -20% debuff to Intelligence and all it's substats except Cognition Speed, it also adds a -30% debuff to Reflexes and Cognition Speed. Be Careful with this power Archcaster, not only because a miscast would almost certainly kill you, but because the wide AOE of magic of this power can cause unintended casualties if not used with a careful hand. (for reaching the spell power soft cap you have been awarded the title of Archcaster)

  Congratulations! your Traumatic Stress Healing Speed has reached 100!, you are Resilient, bad things sometimes just happen, it's useless to think about things that are in the past and can't be helped, it is better to use your energy to think about how you can change the future. your sanity score heals 20% faster than normal and you are better able to move your mind away from recent tragic happening and move on, keep on, keeping on adventurer.

  Eureka! your Traumatic Stress Healing Speed has reached 250! You are able to Roll With The Punches, the world isn't always a fair place and isn't always happy their, but you know how to keep on truckin no matter how tough it gets, not only does your sanity heal 100% faster, but no matter how horrible a tragedy befalls you, you will always eventually heal mentally if not physically, you can never again be stuck inside your own head, you are also now also more resistant to the acquisition of mental disorders and it is twice as hard for you to acquire them.

  BY THE GODS! YOU HAVE REACHED A TRAUMATIC STRESS HEALING SPEED OF 750!, YOU SEE THE OPPORTUNITY IN TRAGEDY, Even in what others believe to be the worst outcomes possible you can see how to move forward, if a situation goes FUBAR for you and everything seems to be lost, you will always know how to best salvage the situation, ands sometimes even turn it to your advantage, your sanity score also heals 400% and your are no longer able to acquire mental disorders at all, always move forwards, for the death of progress is the death living, and coming to know just surviving. (for reaching the Traumatic Stress Healing Speed soft cap you have been awarded the title The Paragon Of Overcoming)

  Congratulations! your Pain Resilience has reached 100! you are Indifferent To Pain, whereas others find pain to be something to be feared and avoided you find it to just be a confirmation that you are still alive, pain will always be there, so why worry about it? pain is 50% less distracting to you and your attempts to do things, you also fear pain less than usual now, just be careful not to make bad decisions because of this.

  Eureka! your Pain Resilience has reached 250! you aren't just indifferent to pain, Pain gives you an Adrenaline Rush, while you wouldn't go around cutting yourself for fun, pain in the heat of battle just makes you feel more ALIVE, being hurt in battle now releases adrenaline, endorphins and dopamine into your bloodstream in large quantities giving you a 35% bonus to Strength and a 50% bonus to Pain Negation, while this does not activate capstones, it still will make you a fearsome warrior, not to mention it makes you feel like a total badass as you thank people for stabbing you,

  BY THE GODS! YOU HAVE REACHED A PAIN RESILIENCE OF 750! YOU EMBRACE THE PAIN!, Some may ride dragons to get their kicks, but that's just not your thing, others may go to the finest restaurants in the land to enjoy themselves, but you already know the finest delicacy of all, almost everyone enjoys the company of friends and family, but your best friend is the battlefield. You have reached a level of comfortableness with pain that is disturbing to almost everyone, Someone setting you on fire would make you laugh like your being tickled, and torture is frustrating for whoever decides to try and hurt you, you now find some kind of perverse joy in pain, for every wound you sustain only makes you STRONGER, for every 1% of physical integrity you are missing, you are 2% stronger, faster, and harder to damage then normal, you also thanks to the disturbing nature of this ability have an dreadful visage when at 50% physical integrity or below, which causes feeling of fear and nervousness to almost all foes who gaze upon you, this intensifies as you get closer to your opponents. I hope you have a lot of self control, because addiction to pain with this trait is a real possibility, practice self control and only battle when necessary, and the world will come to know you as a terrifying warrior in time. (for reaching the pain resilience softcap you have been awarded the title Painfuel Berserker)

  Congratulations! your Belief/Faith is 100!, You believe in The Power of Justice, your hold the concept of justice and right in high regard and you strive to use that belief to change the world to a more ideal image, when you take action for the cause of justice others find it inspiring, you gain a charisma and leadership bonus of 15% this does not activate capstone abilities, people will also be compelled to help you in small ways, even if you are a complete stranger, doing such things as giving you food when you have no rations or offering coats when you are stuck in the rain with no warm clothes, etc. because why not be kind to such a noble soul?

  Eureka! your Belief/Faith is 250! You believe in Something Greater Than Yourself, but your higher calling is not to the gods or so kind of divine force... no, you have faith in Concepts those of Kindness, Justice, and Equality for All, when your actions are directly influenced by your want to spread and further these beliefs in the world your charisma and charisma substats are increased by an additional 30%, this does not activate capstone abilities, people find it hard to not like and trust such a Brave and Noble soul, The people want to believe in heroes now more than ever and people will now go out of their way to help you even if it could be dangerous, they wouldn't follow you into certain death, but if you were injured and being hunted by a corrupt royal inquisitor they would shelter and heal you back to health and then let you stay in their house as long as you stay hidden. You will also find it is harder for people to want to stand in your path if they are not evil, for they knew that a man such as you stands on the side of right, People just doing their jobs will be more likely to lay down their arms and not resist you, they might even join you if your lucky. Continue on your path Ardent Champion, and you might just become something for the people to believe in themselves

  BY THE GODS! YOU HAVE REACHED A BELIEF/FAITH OF 750!, YOU ARE A LIVING ICON, In another life you died for your beliefs, and if you could go back and do it again, you would die for them a million more. You are a living symbol of justice and right, every part of your being screams hero to other people, you are the kind of hero who people would die for, if you asked a average man to rise up against oppression with you, he would do so, when your actions are motivated by your belief in Kindness, Justice, and Equality you gain a 90% bonus to charisma and it's substats, you are the everyman's hero, if given a hour in a crowded street and a speech podium to stand on you could convince everyone to join you in a battle to the death, as long as you led them personally and it was for a truly just cause. You can also reliably convince even people loyal to their governments to lay down their arms and step out of your path, Finally your belief in your cause is so strong that you can manage to convince even evil beings of the wrongness of their actions sometimes. You are Valencia's Chosen and the people will soon come to count on you and believe in you, do not let them down Icon. (for reaching the Belief/Faith softcap you have been awarded the title Icon Of Virtue)

  Congratulations! your Self Control is 100! You are Disciplined, you are very good at making yourself do things or not do things for your own good, Making sure you do things that are either difficult or boring but are for your own good is much easier now, as is not becoming addicted to unhealthy substances or habits. Both these things are easier by a factor of about 30%, With self discipline most anything is possible.

  Eureka! your Self Control is 250! You are Stoic In The Face Of Temptation, you are absolutely stoic when faced with the things that are fun but bad for you, so much so that you are the type of person who could do heroin only once and never again, while making yourself do menial things for your own good is still only 30% easier, you are now immune to addiction to substances or self harmful habits, just not doing something is trivial for you and no longer really even a struggle.

  BY THE GODS! YOU HAVE REACHED A SELF CONTROL OF 750!, YOU ARE BUILT FOR ASCETICISM, you have a body and mind that is able to survive without need for things that most people require to survive, such as food, water, air, or sleep these things that are needed for most mortal lifeforms to survive are now just things that would be nice but are not required. You also now have the ability to go into a state of self induced hibernation, where if you sit criss cross applesauce with your hands pressed together and your eyes closed for a day straight, perceived time will begin to move at an accelerated pace of 100,000x times normal, finally and perhaps best of all you age twice as slowly than the average human and old age will never interfere with your functioning, A maximum lifespan of 300 years might still seem short to a dwarf or elf, but as a human you do not get experience penalty's, so to you an extra 150 years is massive. (You have been awarded the title of Timeless One for reaching the self control softcap)

  Congratulations! your Courage is 100! you are Hot Blooded, You are filled with piss and vinegar, and a fight being hard just makes it more fun for you, when faced with uneven odds in a battle your Strength and strength substats, Constitution and Constitution substats, Agility and Agility Substats all rise by 15%, Life is boring without challenges.

  Eureka! your Courage is 250! you are A Crazy Motherfucker, explaining to you why the odds are bad just further excites you, the worse the odds of winning a battle the better, as long as you and your enemies are the only ones who gets hurt, you couldn't care less what number of trained battle ogres they have, you'll turn there steel clubs into fucking toothpicks, when faced with uneven odds in a battle your Strength and strength substats, Constitution and Constitution substats, Agility and Agility Substats all rise by 30%, in addition you are now more likely to walk away from a battle because it's boring than because it's scary.

  BY THE GODS! YOU HAVE REACHED A COURAGE OF 750!, THEY MAY CALL IT CERTAIN DEATH, I CALL IT A CHALLENGE, If the 13 Cardinal Arch Abyssals rose from the The Great Below and told you face to face that they were going to whoop your happy little ass and then rape your soul after they killed you, you would squeal in delight and then tell them to fucking bring it on. So when you face odds that others would run from in horrible terror, you scream HAVE AT THEE! as you charge into battle, when faced with uneven odds in a battle your Strength and strength substats, Constitution and Constitution substats, Agility and Agility Substats all rise by 80% this is increased to 120% if the odds of the fight are especially horrible. (You have been awarded the title of Blood Knight for reaching the courage softcap)

  And that's all the substat trait bonuses for awhile now, don't expect anymore anytime soon, hopefully the ones i left in the actual chapter weren't too boring.